The Power of Memorized Prayers to Carry Us through Uncertainty
Moving away from childhood prayer
In high school, as I began falling in love with Jesus and developing my own spiritual life, the memorized prayers of my youth began to feel childish. I thought that a sign of mature faith was being able to pray spontaneously with my own words. So, memorized prayers were placed on the back burner, used only in group settings when we were led to pray them all together.
I prided myself on my individual prayers which I believed to be better, richer, holier because they were rooted in my own thoughts and words.
I took this same attitude into college and thrived off of quick stops in the chapel, journaling my own prayers, until November of my freshman year when my grandfather died.
My grandfather and I were very close.
He loved history and books and watching good movies, all things we did and talked about together. He loved to learn and taught me a sense of wonder and intellectual curiosity that still enlivens me today. I had talked to him as he settled into his hospital bed awaiting heart surgery on Halloween expecting to call him again in a few days to check on his recovery. Instead, I got a call from my mom in the early hours of All Saints’ Day sharing the news with me that he passed away that morning.
My grandfather was the first person closest to me to die. While I knew death from a distance, this was my first real encounter with its finality.
Grief robbed me of spontaneous prayer
I didn’t know what to do at the moment, so I went to the Adoration chapel to pray. I arrived, for the first time I had no words. There was nothing to say, I could only experience the shock and grief that I was feeling. I knew I wanted to say something to God but didn’t have the words to say it.
In the fog of those first moments of mourning, I turned to those prayers buried in my heart during childhood. I began to pray a decade of the rosary and then another. It was this same prayer that I clung to at his wake and his funeral and for weeks after.
There was a comfort in being able to process the emotions without having to think about how to do it. Relying on the words I knew so well, I could meditate on what I was feeling underneath and eventually hand it over to God. Those memorized words help me carry the weight of emotions, process the new and unknown, and wrestle with hard things.
While I still try to find my own words in prayer, there are definitely benefits to those prayers we memorize.
Prayers for when we just don’t have the words
We all find ourselves in moments when we want to turn to God but don’t know what to say. We know there’s something on our hearts but we can’t figure out how to name it. Whether it’s a time of anger towards God, grief and mourning, doubt, or questioning, the prayers in our back pocket, committed to memory, can carry us through this confusion.
In times of spiritual dryness it might feel like any prayer we offer isn’t heard. We might feel like God isn’t responding. It can be tempting to give in and give up; to say “Fine, if you’re not listening, then I shouldn’t even bother.”
This dryness can be as simple as knowing that God is present but not feeling Him there. These times of spiritual dryness can leave us without the words to pray. In these moments we can trust the words that the Church has taught us.
Mary Beth Keenan, @mb_keenan.15.
Bringing moments of prayer into our busyness
It can be easy to get caught up in the busyness of the day and forget to pray.
There are days when there’s no time for prayer, especially when we’ve built up this idea that prayer has to be a certain length of time and in silence and with our own words.
Memorized prayers offer us a way to throw small moments of prayer into our busy schedule.
A Morning Offering while brushing our teeth.
A Hail Mary or Glory Be on the way to work or school.
Grace before a meal.
A Memorare for a quick intention.
While contemplative prayer takes time to be carved out in our day, these memorized prayers can connect us with God in our daily lives in unobtrusive ways. By bringing Him into our day-to-day, we can become more mindful of His presence and our need to embrace more sustained time in prayer when we can.
Bringing us into the larger community of the Church
One of my favorite images of the Church is the Body of Christ. It highlights just how connected we are with one another. This community includes not only those who are currently in the Church with us, but extends back into the past to include all those named and unnamed saints that have come before us.
Memorized prayers are a common inheritance amongst all members of the Body of Christ, forming a bond that connects us here and always.
The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray and He gives them a prayer that we still pray today. There is a comfort in knowing that both my grandfather and my favorite saints prayed using the same words.
When we feel lost or isolated, we can rely on these prayers to remind us that we’re part of a larger communion, never alone.
Memorized prayers are our foundation
These prayers are not only our inheritance from the great tradition of the Church, they are also our foundation. We learn to pray through these prayers and they’re always there for us to return to.
They teach us the different ways we can offer prayers: praise, thanksgiving, petition, and contrition. They remind us that we can always call on others to intercede for us, from the Blessed Mother to St. Michael to St. Anthony.
We can learn to offer our own version of these kinds of prayers all built on the foundation of these memorized prayers.
Meet Victoria Mastrangelo
Victoria is a wife, mother of 3, and high school campus minister in Houston, Tx. Her favorite saints are Edith Stein, John Paul II, Ignatius of Loyola and Dorothy Day who all continue to mentor and inspire her in her love for the feminine genius, Ignatian spirituality, the gospel of life and work for justice. She loves to read multiple books at a time, drink coffee, try new foods, play trivia and hang out at the zoo with her family. Connect with Victoria on Instagram @vimastrangelo.