Repetitious prayer is one of those “Catholic things” for which we receive criticism from other sectors of the Christian community. The scripture verse concerning “vain repetition” is often quoted as evidence of a biblical incongruity with Catholic practice. It is however not a conclusive argument, as Catholics point out that the vice is the vanity, not necessarily the repetition.

Nevertheless, despite the weakness of this objection to Catholic prayers such as the Rosary, Catholics are not always able to respond with positive support for their Catholic practices. I must admit that for a long time, though I was unconvinced by arguments for why repetitious Catholic prayer was wrong, I was nevertheless not wholly convinced of its usefulness or value.

I think at times, as I struggled with the Rosary and daily prayer from the Divine Office, I concluded that perhaps I was “doing it wrong” because I didn’t feel anything. Often I would lose my place in the Rosary or realize that I had gone through a whole set of prayers and not once consciously focused on what I was saying or to whom I was saying it. I figured that something needed fixing in me before these prayers would feel right or mean anything.

My relationship with Teresa Grodi – my significant other of three years, and my wife of one – has yielded many spiritual and personal insights. One of these has been to draw a connection between my experience of the natural progression of a human relationship and my experience of progress in prayer, particularly in regular, routine, and often repetitious prayer.

Concerning my human relationship, my experience followed what common sense (and our parents, priests, and any sensible contributor of relationship advice) tells us about the progression of committed relationships: Infatuation doesn’t last and must inevitably give way to something better, though only as a result of work and perseverance. With perseverance, what develops in its place is a stable, peaceful, mature, long-term relationship that can continually increase in passion, richness, and depth.

Now, I am well aware of my youth and of the relative brevity of my marriage, and thus do not purport to be able to effectively report on this progression in a very long-term sense. Nevertheless, already I have observed this natural arc in many aspects of my relationship.

A concrete example I offer is of my experience of saying the words “I love you”.

The first time I told my then-girlfriend/now-wife Teresa that I loved her, the words had tremendous force to them. They brought her to tears as I said them and rocked my world as I heard them returned. With the simple utterance of these three words, our worlds could never be the same.

The second and third time I told her I loved her were almost as tremendous. The fifth and sixth were less so, but still powerful, and as the phrase began to be a normal part of our relationship, the emotional impact that accompanied them lessened.

I remember pondering this at one point and becoming discouraged. Were these words going to simply become more and more mundane? Were they going to lose their meaning and passion entirely? Should I even say “I love you” during the times that I didn’t particularly feel “in love”?

I didn’t know the answer. But I continued to tell her “I love you” and to express those words through my actions as best as I could, even and especially during the times when I didn’t feel it. I am happy to report that common sense, parents, priests, and other sensible contributors of relationship advice are correct: While infatuation may fade, with perseverance, what takes its place is something stronger, richer, and deeper than the infatuation stages of a dating relationship.

Looking back at those dry times, I am glad I didn’t stop saying “I love you” just because I was experiencing an absence of happy feelings. Far from losing their meaning, the words have become a source of comfort, intimacy, and joy – invaluable during times of trial and a treasure during times of peace.

What does all of this rambling about relationships have to do with repetitious prayer? The “arc” that I have experienced in aspects of my human relationship I have also encountered in aspects of my heavenly one: regular, routine, daily prayer to my Father in heaven, which is much like the regular, routine, daily “I love you” to my spouse on earth.

When I experienced my adult conversion and began to take my daily walk with God seriously, even the most mundane daily prayer was easy. In particular, I started out very enthusiastically praying the Rosary and my Breviary, but both quickly became very regular and routine. For those not familiar, the rosary is a long sequence of The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be all prayed in meditation on the mysteries of Christ’s earthly life. The Divine office is a specific set of daily prayers, readings, and responses, that are recited at various times of the day. The Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours is the epitome of routine in its repetition of similar readings, responses, as well as the order and form of the daily devotion. As I struggled to continue praying these prayers, I became discouraged at the absence of the passion I had felt during my initial undertaking of these devotions.

My thoughts echoed those I experienced in my human relationship and those that I suspect occur to many people in regards to routine or repetitious prayer: Is this it? Are these beautiful words going to simply continue to sound more dull and mundane? Is it even worth praying if I don’t “feel” anything?

After a couple years of staying more or less faithful to praying my breviary soon after waking, one morning in the silence of the chapel something “clicked”. After struggling for months to remain attentive and sincere about the words I was praying, suddenly I began to hear the words as if for the first time and found them being spoken with a new voice. After struggling long through the mundanity of daily prayer, my soul now seemed quiet enough to finally listen. Though I no longer have access to a physical chapel in the mornings, the Divine Office – in all its routine and repetition – brings me back to that quiet, inner-chapel every day.

I experienced the same “arc” with the rosary. I started out with enthusiasm, eventually became discouraged by my waning passion and attentiveness, but in the end – after many rosaries – began to notice a new quiet peacefulness in my soul. Suddenly each individual prayer seemed to have new power and each mystery of Christ’s life – which we meditate on while saying the rosary – began to come alive.

In these experiences, I have found great joy and intimacy in my relationship with God through prayer that for a long time seemed mundane and even tiresome. While I think it would certainly be a mistake for me to claim that quiet, routine, and repetitive prayer is inherently better than, say, spontaneous prayer, I think it is also a mistake for people to assume that prayer is more authentic, sincere, or powerful simply because it is articulate, loud, impassioned, or spontaneous. If this were the case, the less creative pray-ers, like myself, would be naturally worse pray-ers (and to draw the correlation regarding relationships, the non-romantic types – unlike myself – would be naturally bad lovers). I think in either case, the quality of prayer has little to do with us beyond our sincere attempt at praying – God can take it from there.

Simply by the nature of our relationships, whether human or divine, there will always be some aspect of repetition, or routine, or mundanity. Why? Because whether the object of our love is another human being or God almighty, our hearts are fickle and will continually be susceptible to distraction. Our hearts will at times be bored by things that should inflame them with passion or indifferent to things that should bring them to tears – this is just human nature.

When we experience dry times, it is easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that our actions proceed from our feelings or drives rather than from our wills. The result is that we become convinced that we can only say and do loving things IF we still have the loving feelings. But our actions are not dependent on our feelings. In fact, the opposite is true: our hearts will inevitably follow where our wills lead.

We must keep on praying, even and especially when the passion is lacking, for our hearts will eventually come around and follow our wills. Just like always saying “I love you” to our spouse no matter what mood we are in, perseverance in repetitious prayers like the Rosary can get us through the dry times in our spiritual life. But even more than that, I think we will find these prayers becoming the brick and mortar of beautiful inner chapels where we learn to walk and talk with God intimately, and at all times. Eventually, these little, mundane, repetitious, routine, faithful…. acts of love, will become unmatched sources of joy and grace in our lives.

Never stop praying, and never stop saying “I love you”.

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Last week I stated that if you make your kids the most important thing in your life (or make them think they are), you will spoil them. This is not a very fashionable notion. We are led by advertising and other social pressures to think that we must indulge our children’s desires to demonstrate our love for our children, . Moreover, popular psychology suggests that we risk causing repression if we do not do so.

But the reality is that if we love our children, we will want them to grow up as strong Catholics. To stay a Catholic as a teenager in our culture takes real character, and if we want to develop strong characters, we will discipline our children. St Paul was commenting on discipline being a sign of love in the second reading at Mass today.

Interestingly, the serious child psychologists agree with this. Children, they say, need boundaries.

So what kind of discipline am I talking about? I am not suggesting enforcing physical mortification on them, or subjecting them to psychological pressures. No, it is more about setting clear boundaries and being consistent about them; and in particular, about doing so out of love, rather than telling your children off because you are tired or annoyed, or have just had a row with your wife…

True discipline it seems to me, consists of helping them to understand how they should behave in a range of situations, and reinforcing that understanding until good behaviour is natural and habitual in them.

So with small children (whom it is very easy to indulge) it can be quite simple things. In terms of priorities, you might want to start by thinking about discipline relating to God: regular prayers, good behaviour at Mass, grace before and after meals and so on.

A second priority is to make sure they respect the fourth commandment: that they honour you and your wife. A good starting point here is ordinary politeness: saying please and thank you, of course, but also not interrupting others, particularly their parents. This not only makes them pleasant company for you and others, but teaches an important lesson in humility: the world does not revolve around them and their desires.

Another important discipline is a regular bedtime. Most of the spoiled children I come across are habitually over-tired. School teachers report the same thing. Your children won’t want to go to bed on time every night, and won’t thank you for enforcing this, but they will actually be much happier for it.

A key issue with small children (and indeed older ones) is television and computer usage. It is easy for them to get seduced by the fast pace and instant gratification of a high-tech media world, but they can waste hours of their life on rubbish or worse, if you are not careful to decide how to manage this appropriately. We have bought our kids up without a TV in the house, and they don’t seem to have suffered from that – in fact, quite the reverse.

As they get older, you will start to implement other disciplines: doing their homework diligently; practicing any sport or music that they are committed to on a regular basis, not just when they feel like it; learning their catechism; spiritual reading; letting you know who they are with when they are out, and when they will come home; and so on.

All of these have some intrinsic merits, but more importantly, the practice of discipline as part of their upbringing will strengthen their character, so they are not driven by immediate short-term gratification, nor by peer-pressure. This in turn will help them to hold onto their Faith when it becomes more challenging for them to do so.

So here’s a challenge for you: consider what discipline you currently apply to your children on a regular basis; and then whether there are any areas where you should consider introducing some new ones.

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Yesterday my 5 year old was having a fit and did not want to go out of the van. But we needed to go to Mass, so I told everyone else go ahead. Then I pleaded and bribed to no avail. Finally, I thought of spanking her to keep her from turning into a brat. But I considered how this might make her hate Church, so I backed off and prayed. Finally, I resorted to my weapons of spiritual warfare and cast out an evil spirit that may be disturbing her. I invoked the name of Jesus on whose authority I rebuked the spirits and ordered them to leave my girl. Without any exaggeration, she calmed down after that. So, I was able to carry her without any resistance. Before that, she probably would be kicking and screaming and there will be no point in dragging her. I placed her in the stroller then carried the baby. As I pulled the stroller closer to holy ground, I thought that any residual tempters will disperse. Sure enough, her temper subsided as soon as we stepped in. Make of it what you will, it is what happened.

Punishments do not make kids better according to St. John Bosco. So, an educator needs to avoid them. That is not to say that one must condone bad behavior. Rather, one must prevent the need to punish by putting kids in situations where they can do no wrong. This is a tall order but it is the one that works – considering the 20+ saints produced by this method.

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There’s something catchy about these images, and the tune by Matt Maher. A friend sent it to me today. It’s more of a Lenten tune but hey…. we’re always called to discipline, right guys?

Peace,
Bill

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(Cross posted from my blog)

Have you ever given sage advice about fatherhood and then immediately felt guilty because you don’t feel like YOU follow that same advice?

After a discussion involving a group of parents in which the phrase “I don’t know how you do it with five” was used far too many times for my liking, I was reflecting on some of the comments I made in response to questions about how parenting changes with more children. You see, I made comments like “it’s about consistency and concentration.” And “you need to keep a cool head and an eye for justice.” All this high sounding advice seemed a mite hypocritical when we returned home to the usual weekend chaos.

Act 1, Scene 1. Dad descending staircase into children’s play area, to the tune of Abigail’s high pitched “give it back to me” cry and Isaak’s “go away I’m reading” growl.

[snipped here for the sake of brevity, if you want the rest check it here]

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Hey, everyone out their, its Matt from Play the Dad? Be the Dad! and I have a question for ya. One of the things my wife and I have noticed my older child attempting to get out of her “Just Punishments” resulting from her disobedience. Now, I consider this direct defiance of her parents and worthy of harsher punishments than the origional offense entails. Here is the problem, if you punish a child more (i.e. more time in timeout) when they are refusing to serve their punishment, whats the point?

Is not the ultimate point not to control them but to motivate them to choose what is right? This is a question that was posed to me by my dear wife. I know that the balance between control and freedom to choose changes as the child ages but its hard to figure out where it is at times. Also, how do you add punishment for say, an eight year old, when they are refusing to undergo their punishment?

To me it would seem to be similar to what a bank does when you overdraft, they take away more of the money you don’t have. So when a child refuses to go to timeout (really, a problem for my wife and not for me) do you just keep adding time to the punishment they refuse to do? Just curious is anyone has any practicial ideas or even better suggestions from your wife as that is where the problem is in our house. My wife and I are looking for suggestions to help us along. Just trying to keep ahead of the curve and wanting to make sure our kids aren’t abnormal in their want to avoid punishment. Of course I do remember when I was a kid and may have done that very thing myself.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S.

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