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If when we want to make any request to powerful men, we do not presume to do so, except with humility and respect: how much more should we offer our prayers to the Lord God of all with all due humility and purity of devotion?
Si cum hominibus potentibus volumus aliqua suggerere, non praesumimus, nisi cum humilitate, et reverentia: quanto magis Domino Deo universorum cum omni humilitate et puritatis devotione supplicandum est?
And let us be conscious that we will be heard, not for our talkativeness, but for our purity of heart and tears of compunction [literally: the pricking or stinging of tears].
Et non in multiloquio, sed in puritate cordis, et compunctione lacrimarum nos exaudiri sciamus.
Therefore prayer should be short and pure; unless it is prolonged by the inspiration of divine grace.
Et ideo brevis debet esse et pura oratio; nisi forte ex affectu inspirationis divinae gratiae protendatur.
Prayer in common, however, should always be short, and at the signal of the superior, all should rise together.
In conventu tamen omnino brevietur oratio, et facto signo a priore, omnes pariter surgant.
Comment
This chapter starts with a description of how we should approach our prayer and this has been a theme of the saints through the ages.
St Teresa of Avila, in The Way of Perfection (a recommended book, if you haven’t read it), explains the Our Father in the context of prayer. Here she talks about “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come”:
What person, however careless, who had to address someone of importance, would not spend time in thinking how to approach him so as to please him and not be considered tedious? He would also think what he was going to ask for and what use he would make of it, especially if his petition were for some particular thing, as our good Jesus tells us our petitions must be.
The word I have translated as “talkativeness” is usually translated as “much speaking”, but I think talkativeness is more helpful to me – bombarding God with words, requests, and not listening. It’s a reference to Matthew 6:7, where Jesus gives his disciples what we now know as the Lord’s Prayer:
When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Dom Delatte (in his commentary on the Rule) reminds us that external repetition of prayers, such as practised by pagans, and which was expressed as a kind of magic (like a spell in Harry Potter) is ineffective.
However, many words do not make real prayer. We pray in words only that we may one day be free of words, and adore, praise, and love in silence… prayer has its source in the heart; there is a prayer of the heart which is not tied to words.
This does not mean we should not use vocal prayers at all, but that the attitude of heart which accompanies them is important. St Teresa of Avila tells the story of a nun who could not practice mental prayer at all but simply vocal prayer, including the Our Father. St Teresa explains that by asking her about her prayer practices, she realised this nun was actually practising contemplative prayer, using the vocal prayers as (these are my words!) a kind of springboard to mental prayer. Without these vocal prayers, the nun simply could not pray at all, but with them, and along with her whole way of life, which was of an admirable purity, she reached the heights of prayer.
“Compunction”. I have retained the word “compunction” here as it is most commonly used in the translation of the Rule, but put its true meaning as well as I think it is very descriptive. Dom Delatte tells us that this phrase was borrowed from Cassian’s Conferences on prayer.
Thomas a Kempis, in the Imitation of Christ, also has a chapter on Compunction of Heart, in which he recommends we pray to obtain the spirit of compunction:
Give yourself to compunction of heart, and you shall gain much devotion thereby. Compunction opens the way to much good, which dissoluteness is ready quickly to destroy. It is a wonder that any man can ever perfectly rejoice in this life, if he duly consider, and thoroughly weigh his state of banishment, and the many perils wherewith his soul is surrounded.
Dom Delatte also reminds us that St Gregory related that St Benedict had the gift of tears and wept in prayer regularly:
The gift of tears is regarded as the least of the charismata, but it has the merit of not leading to pride and also of leaving no room for distractions at prayer; it drowns them all.
I love the image of compunction literally drowning our distractions!
St Benedict suggests that prayer should be short and to the point, unless grace inspires us to pray longer. In the secular world, we often have an approach to work which values the time spent rather than the quality of the work done. The same can apply to prayer; spending long hours in prayer privately does not equate to holiness.
Dom Delatte says:
We should reflect on the inevitable danger, which would have been incurred in St Benedict’s day, and which is still incurred in our own time by minds of small culture and imperfectly formed souls, in being held officially to prolonged prayer. Previous training is indispensable for mental prayer… For a moment we may find all said, and then the mind is off elsewhere. Sometimes we reach the end of our half hour and wonder what part God has taken in the prayer that has just abruptly ended.
So community prayer is to be kept short, but the monastic timetable is loose enough for everyone to be able to pray more, if the Spirit moves; and in any case, the whole of their life should be turned towards God, with prayer being entered into naturally throughout the day, whether in the oratory or not.
Dom Gueranger (in his Preface to the Liturgical Year, 1841) says:
For persons of contemplation, liturgical prayer is sometimes the source, sometimes the result, of the visits of the Lord.
This chapter ends the section of the Rule concerned mainly with the Divine Office and prayer; in chapter 21 we begin to cover the eminently practical matters of running a monastery, but which can have real application in our daily lives.
Thank you for this post. I very much enjoyed reading it! How do we reflect upon these truths when considering praying the Rosary?