The Amazon Synod is revealing the chaos in the Roman Catholic church and how closely it resembles the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
4 COMMENTS
Kevin needs to be careful with judging actions over words. This can lead to the implication that people should become good first before thinking about going to church.
The beauty of liturgical prayer is it is so much more comprehensible and richer than I can come up with on my own. Others will say praying extemporaneously is most genuine although when it gets to blessing Shep the dog I drift off. How many of us would remember to pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church on our own without it being set before us in the Prayerbook? Look how many people and how many times this prayer has been uttered. Power of prayer? How is God answering this prayer and what is his will in this matter which causes us so many fits and which we obviously can’t remedy on our own? Maybe he is draining the swamp. Scary.
Liturgical prayer is biblical in my view. The disciples said: “Lord, teach us to pray” and Jesus said: “When you pray say….”. When I pray using the words of prayers in the Bible or the church’s prayer book, I often find myself praying things that I would not have thought of, and perhaps do not even fully understand. Liturgical prayer is an important educational tool. When I pray the creeds, I do not know exactly what some parts of them mean. Nevertheless they express what I am committed in faith to believe. By praying them I offer myself as a spiritual apprentice, as it were, to God through the church. One can pray “Lord here is my prayer, please help me understand it more fully”. Conversely, biblical prayer tends to become liturgical.
The danger of liturgical prayer becoming an empty form of words in the mouths of unbelieving churchgoers is obvious. But the remedy is not to eradicate liturgical prayer, which in some form is essential for spiritual growth and maturity. And I have no doubt God loves to hear believers pray these beautiful prayers. He knows, of course, that we do not yet fully understand them – even if we think we do.
Amen. See that’s what I’m saying. You have better words than me.
Kevin needs to be careful with judging actions over words. This can lead to the implication that people should become good first before thinking about going to church.
The beauty of liturgical prayer is it is so much more comprehensible and richer than I can come up with on my own. Others will say praying extemporaneously is most genuine although when it gets to blessing Shep the dog I drift off. How many of us would remember to pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church on our own without it being set before us in the Prayerbook? Look how many people and how many times this prayer has been uttered. Power of prayer? How is God answering this prayer and what is his will in this matter which causes us so many fits and which we obviously can’t remedy on our own? Maybe he is draining the swamp. Scary.
Liturgical prayer is biblical in my view. The disciples said: “Lord, teach us to pray” and Jesus said: “When you pray say….”. When I pray using the words of prayers in the Bible or the church’s prayer book, I often find myself praying things that I would not have thought of, and perhaps do not even fully understand. Liturgical prayer is an important educational tool. When I pray the creeds, I do not know exactly what some parts of them mean. Nevertheless they express what I am committed in faith to believe. By praying them I offer myself as a spiritual apprentice, as it were, to God through the church. One can pray “Lord here is my prayer, please help me understand it more fully”. Conversely, biblical prayer tends to become liturgical.
The danger of liturgical prayer becoming an empty form of words in the mouths of unbelieving churchgoers is obvious. But the remedy is not to eradicate liturgical prayer, which in some form is essential for spiritual growth and maturity. And I have no doubt God loves to hear believers pray these beautiful prayers. He knows, of course, that we do not yet fully understand them – even if we think we do.
Amen. See that’s what I’m saying. You have better words than me.