Vocal prayers

 

 

And when you pray, do not use many words, like the Gentiles, who imagine that because of their loquacity they will be heard, the Lord tells us in the Gospel of the Mass.1 He wants to turn his disciples away from the mistaken view of many Jews of his time, who thought that long vocal prayers were necessary for God to hear them; and he teaches them to treat God with the simplicity with which a son speaks to his father. Vocal prayer is very pleasing to God, but it must be true prayer-the words must express the feeling of the heart. It is not enough to recite mere formulas, for God does not want a worship that is only external, he wants our intimacy.

Vocal prayer is a simple and effective means, indispensable, suitable to our way of being, to maintain God's presence during the day, to manifest our love and our needs. As we read in the same Gospel of the Mass, Our Lord wanted to leave us the vocal prayer par excellence, the Lord's Prayer, in which, in a few words, he summarizes everything that man can ask of God. Throughout the centuries this prayer has gone up to God, filling countless souls with hope and consolation in the most varied situations and moments.

Neglecting vocal prayer would mean a great impoverishment of the spiritual life. On the contrary, when these prayers, sometimes very short but full of love, are appreciated, the path of contemplation of God in the midst of work or in the street is made much easier. "We begin with vocal prayers, which many of us have repeated as children: they are ardent and simple phrases, addressed to God and his Mother, who is our Mother. Still, in the mornings and afternoons, not one day do I usually renew the offering that my parents taught me: O my Lady, O my Mother, I offer myself entirely to you. And, in proof of my filial affection, I consecrate to you on this day my eyes, my ears, my tongue, my heart... Is this not - in some way - a principle of contemplation, an evident demonstration of trusting abandonment? (...).

"And St. Teresa, like all the saints, knew well this path accessible to all to reach our Lord: "I know," said the saint, "that many people, praying vocally..., are raised up by God, without knowing how, in contemplation.

Let us think today of the interest we take in our vocal prayers, of their frequency throughout the day, of the pauses necessary so that what we say to our Lord is not "mere words that come after one another. Let us see to it that every ejaculatory prayer, every vocal prayer, is an act of love.

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