Jane and I have been reading Amy Welborn’s
weblog for some time
now, so when I ran across this book at the Border’s in Newport Beach I
grabbed. It’s an interesting book, and I’m glad we got it.

First, some context. When I was a kid, my mom taught me to pray. Prayer
usually involved the Our Father, and “God bless”‘s: you know, “God bless
Grandma, God bless Grandpa,” and so on. In catechism class (I was raised
Roman Catholic) I learned a number of other prayers, especially the Hail
Mary and the Act of Contrition. And except for those “God bless”‘s,
pretty much all the praying I did took the form of one or more of these
traditional prayers.

During high school my faith lapsed for a time; and though I remained
Roman Catholic when it came back I also got involved with Protestants.
(Mostly Episcopalians, but still, Protestants.) And in some Protestant
circles, traditional prayers have a bad name. How can you pray sincerely
when you’re using somebody else’s words? You should always, or at least
mostly, pray in your own words. Have a conversation with God, I was told.
And that’s how I mostly prayed all through college, during which I was
still Catholic but mostly hanging out with Protestants, and it’s how I
mostly prayed after I got married and joined the Episcopal Church, and
it’s how I’ve mostly prayed until now. I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer
fairly often during all of that time, but other traditional prayers very
seldom, except as part of the normal Sunday liturgy. The Hail Mary
I prayed very seldom; if Protestants are down on traditional prayers, they
are especially down on Mary.

In the last few years, though, thanks largely to the efforts of certain
lunatics in my denomination who shall remain nameless, I’ve been
re-examining my faith, and especially the roots of my faith. One of
those roots is liturgy–I’m simply not comfortable attending a
non-liturgical church. And really, in light of this, it’s surprising
that I absorbed so much of the Protestant attitude toward traditional
prayers, because that’s really what the liturgy is. And the joy and
delight of the liturgy is very simple–it’s always there, it covers all
of the bases, and it makes sure you don’t miss anything. The liturgy
isn’t there for those days when it’s a joy to go to church; it’s there for
those days when you’d rather be anywhere else, and when trying to focus
on the service is nearly impossible. It’s there, it’s an anchor, and
because it’s always the same it helps you to stay focussed.

Standard prayers are really the same thing–but for every day, rather
than just on Sunday mornings.

So this book came into my hands at just the time when I’d find it the
most useful.

The Words We Pray is a survey of nineteen traditional
Catholic prayers, many of which I learned as a child, and many of which
were new to me. Only a few are specifically Catholic; most are used by
Christians of all traditions. Each chapter begins with the text of one
of the prayers, followed by Welborn’s commentary. She discusses the
origin of the prayer, how it evolved over time, and how and when it is
usually prayed; and the purely factual material is leavened with her own
personal reminiscences about occasions of prayer. (As fellow parents,
Jane and I felt right in tune with many of them.)

The old familiar prayers include the Sign of the Cross (about which there
is more to be said than you might think), the Our Father, the Hail Mary,
the Creed, the Act of Contrition, and the Prayer of St. Francis; I was
also already familiar with the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ,
have mercy on me, a sinner), and St. Patrick’s Breastplate, though I
learned both of those as adults–that one’s particularly stirring, and I
need to spend more time with it. Of those that were new to me
my favorite is the Anima Christi, which somehow I never learned as a kid.

Anyway, it’s a quietly joyful book; and if reading it has turned my
prayer life upside down, that’s rather a good thing.