Down to the Page, Up to the Heavens

I spent much of this past weekend thinking over the state of my soul. Friday night, we watched a DVD, featuring the talented LeeLee Sobieski in her role as Saint Joan of Arc. And my wife presented me with a gift of books, one of which had been a wish-list item for some time now: The Little Office of Baltimore. I set about praying the offices in the book and am profiting from this spiritual exercise very much. I only wish TLOoB had the office in Latin on facing pages, like the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary does. I am comforted by my stumbling, halting tongue as I try to say this office in that ancient language of the Church. But TLOoB was developed specifically for American Catholics, and so far I like saying it. I am not a real Catholic, and according to Prehdint Brandon, I am not a real American, either, so reciting the liturgy of the hours with this book seems especially apt.

I also received another book as a gift, this one from my reader/friend Stef, who sent me a copy of A Book of Hours: Meditations of the Traditional Christian Hours of Prayer. I’ve been reading it steadily for the past two days and enjoying this beautifully-written exploration of the liturgy of the hours.

Sitting outside with Jinx and meditating on what I’ve been reading and praying, I have been sharply aware of what a truly poor Christian I am, how lacking I am in so many things, and how needy I am. I am also grateful that those things I lack, I can humbly request.

Reading this book about prayer and the book of prayer, I have been impressed by a realization.

My Protestant background taught me to distrust written and/or memorized prayers as “vain repetition.” I believe what Protestants truly dislike about ancient liturgy is that it removes the opportunity for the pastor or priest or worship leader to grandstand, to draw attention to himself.

I’ve served as an ordained elder, a Sunday School teacher, a worship leader, and have preached on a few occasions. I remember the care I took in writing out the prayers for the services I led, and I remember, with embarrassment, the pleasure I took when people would stop me after the service and tell me how beautiful, how reverent my prayers were. What man is impervious to such words…and what man won’t find himself writing prayer or sermons for the compliments? And when this happens, that man is no longer praying to God or preaching under the unction of the Holy Spirit. He is performing. He is making a fair show in the flesh. And he is in great danger.

The entire Protestant worship experience is structured to draw attention to the man standing up front. The raised platform, the microphones, the “audience.” He is a performer, and the flock is the audience. And this doesn’t just apply to obvious sham-shepherd grifters like Joel Osteen. It’s also woven into serious theologian types who love to conjugate Greek verbs and spend a 45 minute sermon focusing on one noun in one minor sentence in a bland chapter of the bible. Presbyterians especially have their expository superstars, their hermeneutical heroes, and when a pastor has an affluent congregation full of engineers and physicians and chemists crowding around him during the fellowship meal to tell him how they got the shivers when he drew a riveting chiastic word-picture about the permissive vs. the immutable will of God during the sermon, well….it’s catnip. The non-Catholic Christian world is performance art.

And it’s awe-full to see how Protestant pastors spend an entire week on these sermons, fitting them into the order of worship with just the right hymns and Praise & Worship songs to pace things correctly, building tension and interest until that moment when Elvis struts onto the stage. An entire week spent writing something that bears no resemblance to what Saints Peter and Paul and all the other apostles did in the record of Scripture’s pages.

The post-Vatican II Catholic Church is nothing more than another Protestant sect. The priest faces the audience, he jokes, he emotes, he gestures. His movements and bearing during the Mass are sloppy and gauche, and they draw attention to him, not to the King of Kings, the Lord Who is being invoked.

But look at the Mass of the ages, the traditional Latin Mass, the way Catholics met and worshiped for centuries before their leaders were bitten by the newer and better and faster and sleeker and more modern and more relevant bug.  In the holy Mass, there is no room, no opportunity for improvising, for grandstanding. The liturgy is set, and there’s neither place nor incentive for the priest to liven things up with something he thought up while brushing his teeth (and this is precisely how so much that passes for “worship” gets started in Protestant circles).

The non-Catholic sneers at written prayers, at liturgy, at the Divine Office, because there is no place for him to wow the other people in the room with his eloquence, his artful turn of phrase, his striking word picture, his stentorian tone as he half-groans, half-whispers his petitions. No, the prayers are settled, they are a part of the holy and living act of what God has called His people to do. The non-Catholic shakes his head at the short homilies offered by priests at Mass, clucking their tongues about how it’s no wonder that Catholics don’t know their bibles. “They get so little of it in their worship services, don’t they?”

I can remember very well back when I would pray with other Christians, especially in church. There was always that moment when I would try to top myself with what I was saying, avoiding being boring or trite, quite forgetting that I was supposed to be talking to God but reluctantly admitting to myself later that all I had said and done was for the benefit of other men, men with sins and flaws and shortcomings. Men like myself. But I presumed to speak for God to them.

How I love the liturgical exercises now. How I love to pray the ancient prayers, knowing that somewhere in the world, someone else is praying that exact same prayer to God, How I love to know that I don’t have to labor under the delusion that I have to keep my Father interested in what I’m praying by plumbing the depths of my vocabulary and word-association powers. There is true humility to be found in relinquishing the idea of lively conversation and embracing — crushing to my chest, actually — the phrases and tempos of holy men who lived and prayed and sacrificed and died and are now watching me and praying for me and urging me on. Those who are under the influence of the drug called innovation can never pray with a clear mind, I believe.

So my missal and my little Offices and my prayer books are very, very precious to me. And when I say these offices with a sincere heart and an undistracted mind, I never have to fret about whether the contents of my prayers please my Father. I never have to doubt. This is not “vain repetition.” It is, in fact, the very opposite.

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.
Domina, ad adjuvandum me festina.

O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me.

For each and every one of you, those whose names I know and those who are invisible and unknown to me, I prayed for you today, and I will continue to do so until the gifts of prayer and speech are taken from me.

 ~ S.K. Orr