As I mentioned in my last post, prayer is one of the points on which I feel the greatest distance between myself and my non-Catholic friends. This has, interestingly enough, nothing to do with intercession to the saints or the BVM. That was a difference I expected but didn't find (not because it doesn't exist but because it never comes up). What I didn't expect was to find such a great difference in the ways we pray to God. I pretty much hate--and not just a little--making up a prayer out loud.
The Latin phrase, lex orandi lex credendi means simply "what we pray is what we believe." What we believe does effect what we pray. But less obviously and, I think, more profoundly, what we pray has an effect on what we believe. Prayer is essentially getting to know God, how we get to know God will change what we believe, and, if our prayer is spirit and truth, in a supernatural way.
I wanted to write a comparison and contrast--comparing the way Christians I know pray with the way Catholics pray. But because prayer is deeply personal, I think I can really speak only of how I pray. It is up to my readers to speak for their own forms of prayer, to educate me.
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I think you have "spoken" profoundly and accurately, on the way ALL Christians should pray, as it interacts with Christian beliefs. Not simply "speaking" for your own interpretation of prayer.
Truth is always Truth, objectively. There's no such a thing as subjective truth regarding prayer.
Deacon Kevin
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