Prayer

Prayer is another subject about which rivers of ink have been spilled by many men who know far more than I ever will. Nor could I ever hope to add anything of value to what has already been said or written about prayer.

The following are just a few of my thoughts and observation regarding prayer, particularly the practice of formal, liturgical prayer.

One of my many early objections to liturgical worship was the use of what I considered to be "canned" prayers. Why, I thought, would I want to recite prayers that were written hundreds of years ago by some stranger who doesn't know me or my needs and wants? Doesn't God want prayer to be from the heart? Pre-written prayers seemed dry, dead, uninspired.

I have since realized that, for my entire Christian life, I have used pre-written prayers. The Psalms, hymns, even "praise songs" are all forms of pre-written prayer, and never have I had any reason to object to them. Prayer doesn't need to be off-the-cuff in order to be powerful and effective and sincere and worshipful. In fact, I can see now that there are times when formal, liturgical, pre-written prayers are actually preferred:

Pre-written prayers allow the worship community to pray together with one voice.
Imagine if, one Sunday morning at church, instead of singing the hymns together, everyone in the congregation stood up and started singing whatever was on their hearts at that moment.
That's not worship, it's chaos. And that's not a worship community, it's a crowd of individuals clamoring for their personal wants and needs to be heard. The truth is, short of miraculous intervention, there simply is no way to have corporate prayer that isn't pre-written.

I've mentioned before how important the sense of community is to Orthodox Christians. Combine that with their strong connection to the past, and you start to realize that, when you're standing in a Vespers service praying the ancient prayers, you're singing with one accord, not only with the others in the room and with the millions of Orthodox Christians elsewhere in the world, but also with twenty centuries worth of saints and martyrs who prayed—and still pray—those very same prayers. It's an awesome thing to consider.

Formal prayer removes the "me" from worship.
When I offer to God the prayers of the Church, I set my own worries and cares and preferences aside. Only then can I really worship, because "it is no longer I who live, but Christ [who] lives in me" (Gal 2.20). True worship cannot be about me; it cannot be personally fulfilling, pleasing or satisfying to me in any way and still be worship. Real worship must be a purely objective act. The prayers in my Prayer Book belong to the whole Church, not to me personally; they are the offerings of an entire community of believers, spanning thousands of years of Church history, rather than my own personal desires and impulses.

Now, that certainly doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with presenting to God our needs and concerns. On the contrary, we are instructed to do precisely that (Php 4.6). However, when we worship, it should be selfless and devoid of "me." Does that mean that my worship will never include an element of subjectivity? Of course not, I'm still human. But formal prayer gets me closer than I would get otherwise.

The Jews prayed liturgically and so did the first Christians.
According to the notes in the Orthodox Study Bible, "the Jews had practiced liturgical prayer for centuries," and the early Christians, being Jews, continued this practice, which has been maintained without interruption since that time. When Acts 2.42 says that the apostles continued in "fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers," the word prayers is "literally 'the prayers' in Greek, referring to specific liturgical prayers" (OSB, p.1473).

Furthermore, the prayer in Acts 4:23-30 "follows a traditional liturgical formula of praise, remembrance of God's works, and petition" (OSB, p.1476). And, according to the Book of Acts, the Apostles observed the "hours" of prayer which were observed by pious Jews and are followed in monastic communities to this day (Acts 3.1, 10.9).

For thousands of years—since long before King David—God has inspired men to compose beautiful, stirring hymns and prayers to His honor. I will, from time to time, be posting some of these "canned" prayers that are used by Orthodox Christians. This first one was composed by God Himself and is probably the one offered most frequently in the Orthodox Church:

Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Amen. (The Lord's Prayer, Mt 6.9-13)

For more Information:

Prayer
Liturgical Prayer
Liturgical Prayer (OCA)

An Aid to Prayer