There doesn’t have to be anything vain about formal, traditional prayer. It was clear during his temptation in the desert that Jesus had the Scriptures memorized. On the cross, Jesus was repeating, perhaps even singing, lines from a psalm.
If I’m blessed to live for a couple more decades or longer, it will be a comfort to know that younger people carry on our traditional prayers. I pray now that parents and parishes make a point of ensuring this. It is a matter of joy, of peace, to think that another generation will be reciting the familiar prayers of a rosary, for example, repeating, babbling, sending out many words, maybe for souls in purgatory—for me, for all of us.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Saying Our Prayers“
by Mary Ann Maynard
