In Praise of “Boring” Communal Prayers
“The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom.
But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
In a previous article, I mentioned that as a cradle Catholic, I was immersed in an environment that stressed communal prayers. As my spirituality grew to accommodate personal prayers that had a freer and looser format, interestingly enough, my appreciation of communal prayers increased accordingly. I am in agreement with Chesterton: Christianity’s outer rituals while appearing drab, ritualistic and boring are actually the platform on which the inner joy, laughter and fellowship of a Christian are built.
Communal Prayers
I highlighted the distinction between personal and communal prayers:
Communal prayers are done in groups, whether it be the mass or saying the divine office or the rosary together.
Personal prayer, on the other hand, refers to a one-on-one conversation with God. Something that is done in solitude. One mind to another. One heart to another. One soul to another.
That article focused on personal prayer. This article will cover communal prayers which general consist of set prayers.
First: Intimacy with Community — Standing Naked Before God
In communal prayers, especially with the Lauds and Vespers, there is an allocated time in the prayer whereby community members can voice their intercessions and prayers to God and the community.
During these set times, members can pray for each other and express their care for one another, even those not in their midst. During communal prayers, you realise the affection and concern that others have for you.
These prayers allow the members of a community to present their true concerns and inner lives to the community without anyone having to ask direct questions or engage in mind-reading. In my community, communal prayers allow us to ‘tune-in’ to the grief of a person who has lost a loved one or is struggling with certain problems in life. During these prayers, our lives are tied closer and closer with each other’s as we continue our pilgrim journey.
Second: Spiritual Communion — Being Knitted into Community
While it is true that, in personal prayer, structure might become a hinderance to an authentic communication with Jesus, in communal prayer, structure becomes our friend.
Like Freddie Mercury and his audience during the Live Aid concert, when we pray as community, we engage in call-and-response and harmonise, synchronize and unite our voices in praise of God. By raising our voices together to hail the almighty, we lose ourselves, our speech, our thoughts. Our worries and pressures melt away and instead our voices and minds are united with those around us. We become one with those around us and one with God. A mystical unity of souls is achieved and a community formed and bonded. In those short moments, we practically become one organism, one body bonded by the Holy Spirit. Is it not true that when we engage in an authentic communal prayer, we achieve what St. Paul wanted? “Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2).
Have you ever prayed the rosary with a group of friends or family? After the 20 minutes of meditation, the prayer ends and there is a peaceful silence that can be felt by every single person in that room for at least 5 seconds — that’s priceless. Indeed, when a family is seated around a table, with their hands joined in prayer, a cross is planted at the center and the peace of God descends upon them.
It is a great pity then that Catholics actually waste their communal prayers. Many Catholics simply rush off after Sunday Mass to engage in other activities, when in fact, the moments right after Mass are ideal for fellowship with family or community. From my own life observations, my community is the most cheerful and bonded right after Mass — we almost never have a wasted conversation or meal afterwards. When we realise the power of communal prayers in establishing and strengthening the spiritual bond between members in a community, instead of running away, we would do well to embrace it. Indeed, one of my favourite things to do now before having a meal with a friend, is to arrange to attend Mass together beforehand. Something just seems missing in the meet-up if we didn’t pray together at the start.
“The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Third: The Context For Fellowship
You’ve probably never thought about this, but whenever you meet anyone, there is always a reason. You meet your classmates to study, you meet your football friends to play a sport, you meet your project partners for work. We always meet with a shared activity or purpose in mind.
It is rare for people to meet up solely to have a conversation and even then most conversations happen concurrently with meals. Our schedules are just too busy and uncoordinated. People usually need a reason for gathering.
Shared activities provide the context for conversation. However, the problem with many shared activities is that they are (1) high in cost and (2) inaccessible to most. For most people, in their desperation for some community life, they resort to many expensive activities like restaurant dinners, adventure parks, clubbing, drinking and even overseas vacations. All these in the attempts of hopefully having some people to provide them company. Other shared activities tend to exclude others. For example, a football match will include only footballers (and even then, only the good ones) and exclude the rest. What can knit people together in community then?
This is where the genius of Catholicism shines. With their low cost and accessibility to everyone, communal prayers provide a shared activity for everyone. And these prayers then provide the context for fellowship.
In my university community, we pray Lauds (Morning Prayer) and Compline (Night Prayer) in the midst of a busy university schedule. During those set timings, we are called out of our busy “doing” schedules and into “being” a community. As is said, “once no people, now God’s people” (1 Peter 2:10).
While the main point of these prayers is to praise God, the awesome side effect is this: we provide a platform for fellowship. We often go for meals after gathering for prayers and some of the best conversations I’ve ever had occured right after our prayers. It’s funny: my intention is always to go for a 5-minute prayer, but sometimes I get sucked into a soulful conversation about life, the future or God — these conversations and encounters would have been impossible without community prayer. Indeed, communal prayer provides the context and structure for regular meet ups and check-ins. As Chesterton said, they are the “props of the people”. These structures encourage us to come together. Our praise of God calls us into community.
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
- John 12:32
Where is the Family?
In his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis laments that in many families, “parents come home exhausted, not wanting to talk, and many families no longer even share a common meal. Distractions abound, including an addiction to television.” Referring to technological devices, he states that, “sometimes they can keep people apart rather than together, as when at dinnertime everyone is surfing on a mobile phone, or when one spouse falls asleep waiting for the other who spends hours playing with an electronic device.” In our day and age, this situation the Pope points out is common.
One is tempted to ask: where is the family? Even though most families, if you were to ask them, consider themselves a family, can they really be said to be one? It would seem as though the modern family is merely a collection of humans who share the same living space. Each member has different interests and passions and a timetable independent of everyone else. Even in the rare times when the family might be in the same physical space, it does not mean that they share the same psychological or spiritual space (think of Pope Francis’ image of the family sitting round the dinner table, all using their mobile devices).
Borrowing a term used by John Paul II in his Theology of the Body, the family lacks a visible sign. A sign makes the invisible visible. A sign allows you to point and say, “Ah! That’s clearly a XYZ”. The sign of a marriage would be the couple in sexual union. The sign of a parish is the Sunday Mass. When you point to these events, you see a visible sign of the “invisible” entity in question. It is concrete. It cannot be hidden from.
Communal prayer can fill the gap. It can serve as the proper sign of a vibrant Catholic family. It can be something that binds members of that blessed family together. It can be something that allows them to go: “that’s my family”.
A Call to Action
“The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Here’s a call to action. A call to strengthen community.
I would like to encourage every Catholic community to double down on their community prayers. This plea goes out especially to Catholic families and marriages.
There needs to be a strong visible sign of a holy and faithful Catholic community. Communal prayers provide the solution. Here are a few suggestions:
- Go for a family meal after Sunday Mass to exploit the mystical bond developed during the celebration.
- Meeting Catholic friends for a meal? Suggest going for a 30 minute daily Mass together beforehand.
- Pray Lauds (Morning Prayer) after waking or Compline (Night Prayer) before bedtime as a family.
- Pray the Rosary once a week with your spouse.
To undertake such a difficult duty, we affirm that the custom of the family recitation of the Holy Rosary is a most efficacious means. What a sweet sight — most pleasing to God — when, at eventide, the Christian home resounds with the frequent repetition of praises in honor of the august Queen of Heaven! Then the Rosary, recited in common, assembles before the image of the Virgin, in an admirable union of hearts, the parents and their children, who come back from their daily work. It unites them piously with those absent and those dead. It links all more tightly in a sweet bond of love, with the most Holy Virgin, who, like a loving mother, in the circle of her children, will be there bestowing upon them an abundance of the gifts of concord and family peace.
Then the home of the Christian family, like that of Nazareth, will become an earthly abode of sanctity, and, so to speak, a sacred temple, where the Holy Rosary will not only be the particular prayer which every day rises to heaven in an odor of sweetness
- Pius XII, Ingruentium Malorum
“Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.”
- Saint John Vianney
