First Person Prayer Starts with Me

by Dan Masterton

Back in 2011 when we rolled out the new English translation of the Mass, there was much foofaraw over some of the wordings. While some of the small changes were simple and elegant and aligned us more closely with other languages’ liturgical expressions, other changes felt archaic and unnecessary. I especially noticed how priests were understandably stumbling over the clumsy syntax of some of the prefaces and prayers of the day.

Yet, some of the changes brought a simple beauty and increased sharpness to our worship. Among the changes that have grown on me are the rewordings of our Mystery of Faith responses. Our old tried and true “Christ has died / Christ is risen / Christ will come again” had a familiar cadence to it, but it was a passive, impersonal declaration that lacked the character of many of our other prayers, chief among them the Our Father, which emphasizes our common sonship and daughtership to God the Father in Christ His Son. Our new prayers address Christ directly, words of praise and worship from our lips and individuals and as a Church to our Lord:

• We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again.
• Save us, Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free.
• When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.

Our adjusted prayers bring us into the professions, placing us more inclusively in personal, communal prayers rather than stopping at a simple statement of a belief. I like the way these wordings, even if subtly, change our disposition to prayer and invite us to place ourselves more explicitly and intimately within the encounter of prayer.

All of this bubbled up in my heart as my dad went through a recent hospital stay. As people would check in with us and get updates on how he was doing (he’s fine!), they would often express their relief at his stability and recovery with a common anaphora: “Thank God.” It sort of becomes an off-hand interjection that maybe gestures at a passing thought of prayer or of gratitude to God for his grace or protection -- though there are certainly people who are quite earnest in praying for loved ones who are sick or ill -- but it often seems to go no further.

I agree that we need MORE than thoughts/prayers, but I'll go Catholic here & suggest this is a BOTH AND moment for BOTH prayer AND action.

— Dan Masterton (@jesusandchicago) October 3, 2017

In some ways, it’s similar to the increasingly common sentiment, especially on social media, to say “my prayers and thoughts are with” a person or group. I’ve already shared my agreement with those who are frustrated with this sentiment, thinking that it should entail more; it’s a Catholic moment for a both/and not an either/or, for a commitment to pray as well as the initiative to do something concrete and active. That line feels like the right thing to express, especially in a time of grief, but I wonder how much further it actually goes.

For many of us, is simply posting a prayer picture or tagging a post with such a line the full extent of our prayer? I know I have often fell into the trap of stopping there, limiting my prayer to a topic sentence. Couldn’t I offer a rosary for the Las Vegas victims? Couldn’t I take time at a side altar or candle shrine to pray for these natural disasters’ victims? Couldn’t I direct my prayer in Mass for a specific intention? I need to step up my game and back up these generic lines with some legit, personal prayer and intentional context.


One thing that has come to mind is to take those “Thank God” moments and turn them into a prayer in the same vein that our revised Mystery of Faith responses do. Rather than “Thank God dad’s ok,” I need to go deeper to an “I thank God that dad’s ok,” and into a more intentional, first-person prayer. My prayer needs to reflect the reality that we pray not to change God or His will but to seek the clarity of God’s will, to freely and more fully align ourselves to God’s will, to reconcile our whole selves to God. Terse, cliche, one-line blurbs treat God too much like a genie or a moral therapeutic deist butler. Deliberate moments and windows of time are needed to invite me further and deeper. I have to be better.

I know that I am most aware of my holiness, of my existence as a created and loved son of God, when I am praying by being direct and intimate with God rather than being abrupt and detached. My world as well as my soul, its humility, and its patience need much more of the former.