The comfort (and limitations) of ritual prayer
I belatedly got into Game of Thrones, having initially dismissed it as a Lord of the Rings wannabe - I really must learn to be more open-minded.
One recurring character is The Hound - a massive (though not as massive as his big brother, The Mountain), brutal, vulgar warrior whose casual disdain for other people is as blatant as the obscenities that spew from his mouth. His story arc, however, seems to be taking him through something of a spiritual awakening. At the beginning of series 7, he and a small group come across a deserted cottage and inside are the remains of a father and daughter who had killed themselves rather than starve to death in the fast-approaching winter. What made it all the more poignant for The Hound is that he had, in an earlier programme, visited his own brand of cruelty on their already wretched lives. And now he felt the nagging discomfort of guilt. So much so that, in the middle of the night, he got up to bury their remains.
After the bodies had been buried he stood there and instinctively reached back into his distant past, reciting a prayer of committal. He got through the first phrase, started the second and then floundered. With frustration and a little embarrassment, admitted that he couldn't remember the rest. Still frustrated he searched his heart for something to say; "I'm sorry you're dead. You deserved better, both of you."
It got me thinking.
We are instinctively a spiritual people and a ritual people - one might say a liturgical people. From the earliest times mankind has used ritual to express its spiritual perception and these rituals gave shape and comfort to our lives, especially the significant events within our lives. We Catholics have, historically, been very good at this ritualism; we have gestures and prayers that we instinctively turn to, that are so well-practiced they flow naturally. And this is a good thing. It enables us to pray collectively - our faith is not just a private devotion. The set prayers express beautifully, poetically, powerfully, articulately what we believe in our hearts but for which we may struggle to find the right words. They also help form our faith - in a sense they are catechetical (as should be all liturgy to some extent, I suspect).
But let's not underestimate the importance of what we might call extempore prayer. The words of The Hound may seem meagre, impoverished, but they were the most honest, heart-felt words he has ever spoken, stripped of all pretence, all show. There is a danger that the ritual prayers become so familiar that we reel them off without a second thought. We Catholics are not very good at extempore prayer - our Evangelical brethren are far better - and the reasons for this would take more than one post to explore. But I think that there is a challenge for those of us concerned with liturgy; that through the necessary "restrictions" or framework of the Mass we should enable some room for extempore prayer - private if not public; and that can be provided for in the periods of silence that should punctuate the liturgy.
One recurring character is The Hound - a massive (though not as massive as his big brother, The Mountain), brutal, vulgar warrior whose casual disdain for other people is as blatant as the obscenities that spew from his mouth. His story arc, however, seems to be taking him through something of a spiritual awakening. At the beginning of series 7, he and a small group come across a deserted cottage and inside are the remains of a father and daughter who had killed themselves rather than starve to death in the fast-approaching winter. What made it all the more poignant for The Hound is that he had, in an earlier programme, visited his own brand of cruelty on their already wretched lives. And now he felt the nagging discomfort of guilt. So much so that, in the middle of the night, he got up to bury their remains.
After the bodies had been buried he stood there and instinctively reached back into his distant past, reciting a prayer of committal. He got through the first phrase, started the second and then floundered. With frustration and a little embarrassment, admitted that he couldn't remember the rest. Still frustrated he searched his heart for something to say; "I'm sorry you're dead. You deserved better, both of you."
It got me thinking.
We are instinctively a spiritual people and a ritual people - one might say a liturgical people. From the earliest times mankind has used ritual to express its spiritual perception and these rituals gave shape and comfort to our lives, especially the significant events within our lives. We Catholics have, historically, been very good at this ritualism; we have gestures and prayers that we instinctively turn to, that are so well-practiced they flow naturally. And this is a good thing. It enables us to pray collectively - our faith is not just a private devotion. The set prayers express beautifully, poetically, powerfully, articulately what we believe in our hearts but for which we may struggle to find the right words. They also help form our faith - in a sense they are catechetical (as should be all liturgy to some extent, I suspect).
But let's not underestimate the importance of what we might call extempore prayer. The words of The Hound may seem meagre, impoverished, but they were the most honest, heart-felt words he has ever spoken, stripped of all pretence, all show. There is a danger that the ritual prayers become so familiar that we reel them off without a second thought. We Catholics are not very good at extempore prayer - our Evangelical brethren are far better - and the reasons for this would take more than one post to explore. But I think that there is a challenge for those of us concerned with liturgy; that through the necessary "restrictions" or framework of the Mass we should enable some room for extempore prayer - private if not public; and that can be provided for in the periods of silence that should punctuate the liturgy.
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