Editor’s note: This week we bring to you a three-part mini-retreat devoted to reflecting on our individual and communal prayer. The retreat was written by Joe Paprocki, D.Min., author of 2027: A Book of Grace-Filled Days.
Family Heirlooms
I was born in 1959, right before the Second Vatican Council, so I remember slightly the Latin Mass and the beginnings of my religious formation with the Baltimore Catechism. Of course, the approach employed with the Baltimore Catechism included a fair amount of rote learning, or memorization. Following the Second Vatican Council, the religious formation I received was very different in nature and involved little rote learning. (While that resulted in a “deficiency” in my formation that I’m going to address, I am not one to bash the catechesis that took place after Vatican II; many wonderful things came out of that period.)
The result was that, like many of my generation, I grew up without the ability to recall things from memory that my older siblings and my parents were capable of recalling. Most of them could rattle off traditional prayers and doctrinal formulas, such as the Mysteries of the Rosary, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, the virtues, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, with no trouble. Not me.
This became quite evident in the late 1990s, when as a catechetical consultant for the Office for Catechesis of the Archdiocese of Chicago, I visited a parish where a group of 50 or 60 senior citizens was undertaking a study of the newly published Catechism of the Catholic Church. After I introduced myself and told them that I was there to support them and act as a resource, the facilitator thanked me and asked everyone to stand and begin by praying the Memorare.
I couldn’t get off the stage in time. I stood there, lip-synching a prayer I had never been taught to take to heart, or memorize. I felt like less of a Catholic than the rest. I know many people my age and younger who feel the same way.
Traditional prayers are like family heirlooms passed on from one generation to the next. They permit us to join our voices together to pray communally, which is a distinctively Catholic notion. They also provide us with words when we sometimes cannot find words of our own to pray.
Is catechesis all about memorizing? No. However, there is a place for taking to heart certain prayers, Scripture passages, and doctrinal formulas so that we can carry with us, in our hearts and minds, the words of our Catholic faith.
Reflection Questions
Choose one of the following questions, and share your thoughts with your fellow retreatants by adding your comments below this post.
- What is your favorite traditional Catholic prayer? Why?
- If you memorized prayers and doctrinal formulas as a child, who was responsible for that? Parents? Teachers? Catechists?
- What traditional prayer do you not know by heart that you would like to learn?
- What traditional prayers are you intent on passing on to the next generation?
Prayer
Pray the Memorare or the Anima Christi.
CCC References: Appendix of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
