A few years ago I went through some struggles as I tried to discipline myself to pray every day. While baptized a Catholic as an infant, I came to give my life to Christ through an Evangelical mode, and I had a strong aversion to rote prayers (especially those filled with Thees and Thous and unfamiliar four-syllable words). Yet when I tried to pray extemporaneously (particularly in the morning), I usually ended up falling asleep. (Folks who were with me in IVCF can attest to that.)
Then, working from the conviction that anything that is worth praying is likely worth praying every day, I hit upon a way to balance between extemporaneous prayers from the heart and rote memorized prayers. The answer: Write my own rote prayers in my own words praying for those things I felt I needed to pray for.
Don't discount rote prayers. I grew up pre-Vatican II and memorized dozens of them. While I am all for praying in my own words, sometimes especially in times of great stress, I find it difficult to form my own prayers. It's then that I turn to those many, many prayers I have in my memory. They always have the words I am looking for and they speak for me until I can find my own voice again.
By no means do I mean to discount rote prayers if they work for you, Ellen. But some people have an aversion to them, as I did (well, to the ones I saw, anyway; I've run across some I really like). So I came up with this technique precisely to find a way of adopting what is good and profitable about rote prayers while incorporating what I loved about prayers in my own words.
The key in this situation anyway is if it works for you, use it. If relying on prayers written by someone else makes you feel comfortable enough to pray, and the idea of writing your own prayers makes you fearful, by all means, rely on rote prayers. If you hate pre-written prayers, then don't feel you have to use them. What is important is you do whatever will motivate you to pray!
Eric, I'm not fearful of praying in my own words at all, and I do it quite often. But I've noticed that some of my Catholic friends who have come from a more Evangelical background look down on rote prayers, as if they weren't as good as prayers in my own words. I really don't care how a person prays, as long as he does pray.
And for me, saying some of the prayers I know by heart gets me started until I find my own words.
Have a Merry and Blessed Chrismas. I will be visiting this blog often.
I totally agree with you, Ellen; what counts is that someone prays, not how they pray. And let no one judge you on how you pray. But some people look down on rote prayers simply because they have never identified with the ones they've seen, or because the language of the prayers they've seen is too stilted, or because they could not sincerely pray the prayers they've seen. Praying sincerely is more important than praying a specific form; we ought never pray a prayer that we cannot agree with and make our own. Perhaps these people were forced to pray prayers they didn't like and came to resent it. I was turned off by rote prayers simply because of the style: "O Divine Lord and Master, O Merciful, Loving Infant Jesus of Prague, I devoutly kneel before Thy Divine Majesty and Beg and Beseech Thee as I Grovel Obsequiously before Thy Infinite Goodness (here mention thy petition)..." Yuck. Sorry. It just didn't appeal to me where I was. (Do you see why some people look down on rote prayers?)
We need to understand that we need to meet people where they are and not shove stuff down their throat that they are going to strongly dislike (else they will get sick and vomit it up). Our Lord would have us take a more gentle approach. That is why he came to earth, to meet us where we are instead of insisting that we ourselves bridge the yawning gap between heaven and earth.
If people want to pray rote prayers, let them. If they don't, don't force them to. If they like praying extemporanously, let them. If they don't, don't force them to. But gently expose each to the beauty of the other. That's my philosophy.