The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 346: Meditation and Vocal Prayer (2024)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Because man is both body and spirit, our prayers can be vocal and meditative. We learn that vocal prayer expresses the movements of our hearts and minds, enabling us to pray with the fullness of our being. Another form of prayer is meditation, which the Catechism tells us is “above all a quest.” In meditation, we employ our thoughts, imagination, and emotions to deepen our union with Christ. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2700-2708. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 346. We're reading paragraphs 2700 to 2708. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of

the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. Lastly, you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 346. As I said, we're reading paragraphs 2700 to 2708. Yesterday we started chapter three, the life of prayer.

Remember we talked about this, that prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment, but we tend to forget Him who's our life and our all. We have to remember. Again, one of the things we have to do, always, always, always remember. So the tradition of the church we were reminded of yesterday,

the tradition of the church proposes to us certain rhythms of prayer. And some like daily rhythms of prayer, like morning and evening prayer, like grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours, having weekly prayer, Sunday Mass, being so critical, right? Today we're talking about expressions of prayer. If you remember

yesterday in paragraph 2699, it said that although we have a lot of diversity in prayer, I love the even the line that says, the Lord leads all persons by paths and in ways pleasing to Him, and each believer responds according to his heart's resolve and the personal expressions of his prayer." So prayer is very, very personal, very individual. However, the Christian tradition has three major expressions of prayer, vocal, meditative and contemplative. Today we're looking at those first two, vocal prayer and meditative prayer, meditation. So we will look at those two, vocal prayer and meditative prayer.

But before that, let's actually pray. Let's do that right now as we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Father in heaven, give you praise and glory. Thank you for bringing us to this day. Thank you for bringing us today, 346, for bringing us to this place where we can hear

the teaching of your church in such a brief way on what it is to express a vocal prayer, what it is to express vocal prayer, what it is to have meditative prayer. And you invite us into this Lord, you invite us into this expression of our love for you, of our pleading with you, your expression of praising and glorifying you through vocal prayer.

And we ask that you help us to enter it more deeply into meditative prayer, into that silent prayer, that quiet prayer in the depths of our hearts. Lord God, in this day, we ask you to help us. Make us prayers. Make us people who pray, people who talk to you and seek you at all times. And Lord, as we heard yesterday, we can't pray at all times unless we pray at certain times.

So we ask you please help us to make the decision, help us to make the choice to spend time just with you. To spend time just with you in prayer today. Bless this time. Help us to learn more about you and how we can talk to you. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is day 346, we are reading paragraphs 2700 to 2708.

Article one, expressions of prayer, vocal prayer. Through His word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to Him to whom we are speaking in prayer. Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls. Vocal prayer is an essential element of the Christian life.

To his disciples, drawn by their Master's silent prayer, Jesus teaches a vocal prayer, the Our Father. He not only prayed aloud the liturgical prayers of the synagogue, but as the Gospels show, He raised His voice to express His personal prayer, from exultant blessing of the Father to the agony of Gethsemane. The need to involve the senses in interior prayer corresponds to a requirement of our human nature. We are body and spirit and we experience the need to translate our feelings externally. We must pray with our whole being to give all power possible to our supplication. This need also corresponds to a divine requirement. God seeks worshippers in spirit and in truth and

consequently living prayer that rises from the depths of the soul. He also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer, for it renders him that perfect homage which is his due. Because it is external and so thoroughly human, vocal prayer is the form of prayer most readily accessible to groups. Even interior prayer, however, cannot neglect vocal prayer. Prayer is internalized to the extent that we become aware of Him to whom we speak. Thus, vocal prayer becomes an initial form of contemplative prayer. Meditation.

Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books and Christians do not want for them the sacred scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation and that of history, the page on which the today of God is written. To meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. Here another book is opened, the book of life. We pass from thoughts to reality. To the extent that we are humble and faithful, we discover in meditation the movements

that stir the heart and we are able to discern them. It is a question of acting truthfully in order to come into the light. Lord, what do you want me to do? There are as many and varied methods of meditation as there are spiritual masters. Christians owe it to themselves to develop the desire to meditate regularly, lest they come to resemble the three first kinds of soil in the parable of the sower. But a method is only a guide. The important thing is to advance with the Holy Spirit along the one way of prayer, Christ Jesus. Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart,

and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in Lectio Divina or the Rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further, to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with Him. Alright, there we have it, paragraphs 2700 to 2708. This is just beautiful. And it's just an incredible reminder. I mean, okay, let's back up.

These are two of the three major expressions of prayer. Tomorrow we'll talk about contemplative prayer, but today we have this, as you heard a couple of times already, vocal prayer and meditative prayer. I think this is remarkable just to realize, in paragraph 2700 it says of course we're reminded that through his word God speaks to man. Yeah so every time we pick up the scriptures and read God speaks to us in that next line says by words mental or vocal our prayer

takes flesh and this is so critical. I mean when it comes to vocal prayer and meditative prayer, the reality is we are body and spirit, right? That's what a human being is. We give expression to what's in our heart. We give expression to what's in our mind. We give expression to what's in our soul. And we do this through vocal prayer, through words. And so it's important, I think,

the reason I'm emphasizing this is because there are some people who might like really dismiss vocal prayer. And I don't know if I've ever come across as being someone who dismissed vocal prayer, like saying your quote unquote, saying your prayers. I know I have that quote from my friend, Mike Ormally, who had said, you know, we're not taught to pray, we're taught to repeat. At the same time, the catechism says that yes, we need to have those words, we need to learn how to repeat those words. But the depth of it, even paragraph 2700,

says so importantly, it's important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer. And so it's not a matter of just merely repeating. It's a matter of, okay, these are the words that are an expression of what's in my heart. Remember we talked about it so many times, but it's so essential. In fact, paragraph 27 to one says,

"'Vocal prayer is an essential element "'of the Christian life'." That we recognize that even the disciples in the gospels, they saw their master's silent prayer. They actually even heard Jesus praying out loud in the gospels, raising his voice to express his personal prayer from exalted blessing of the Father

to the agony in Gethsemane. So vocal prayer is a good thing. It is something that Jesus himself did and we need to do this. We must pray with our whole being to give all power possible to our supplication. And so that doesn't mean just our voices. It doesn't mean just our hearts. It means our heart and our voices united to each other, which is remarkable. I think this is so, so cool. It goes on to say, say 2703 this need that we have to pray with our whole self Seems to correspond to a divine requirement that God seeks worshippers in spirit and in truth And so we have a living prayer that comes from the depths of our soul

But he also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer Because you know God calls us to active and external worship, not merely interior conversion. And so this is so good. This is so good. The church here in the catechism is reminding us, okay, yes, pray with your words and let those words be an expression of the depth of your heart. And so if you're praying something like the rosary, if you're praying, you

know, holy cards, if you're praying the chaplet, any kind of vocal prayer that you're praying. Again, the Lord cards, if you're praying the chaplet, any kind of vocal prayer that you're praying. Again, the Lord's Prayer that Jesus himself taught us. All of those are incredibly good. Be attentive though. Of course, we have to be attentive to make sure that those words are connected to our heart. Now, the next step is meditation.

I love this is so powerful. Paragraph 2705 says meditation. What is that? What is meditation? It was just thinking. Well, it says this meditation is above all a quest. It's above all the quest. It's a search.

The mind seeks to understand the why and how of Christian life in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. And it's difficult. The next line says the required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. And this is so true. If you've ever tried just not just kind of going through your prayers, you know, spraying the Liturgy of the Hours or praying the Rosary

or something like this, the attentiveness of trying to have this meditative prayer is difficult to sustain. That's one of the reasons why this very paragraph highlights the fact that we typically use sacred books, whether it be the gospels themselves or the whole Bible itself, or even images we'll use to help us meditate,

or liturgical texts, or writings of spiritual fathers, or books of spirituality. Even, I love how it says the last two things. We could look at the book of creation or the book of history, and that's just so remarkable to be able to say, oh, I can reflect on this. I can seek out the Lord in all of these books, but also in creation and in history.

I can actually bring my own personal history to my, to prayer and meditate on that and just really remarkable. And what's the goal here? Of course, the goal is ultimately going to be Jesus. They keep that in mind. The goal is ultimately going to be Jesus, that in mind. The goal is ultimately gonna be Jesus. But paragraph 2706 gives us another target, another goal here.

And I love this. It says, to meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. And this is so good, right? How many times have you and I ever read a book, maybe even the Catechism, maybe even the Bible and okay, that's great, that's great, that's great. But we haven't meditated on what we read.

We haven't reflected deeply on what we read. And so we just kind of think, oh, that was a nice insight or that was a nice piece of information or I don't even remember what I read. And yet to meditate on what we read helps us to interiorize it, right? It helps us to assimilate it, helps us to make it our own by doing what? By confronting it with ourselves.

And there's something so powerful about that. If you've ever prayed the scriptures, Alexio Divina is mentioned in paragraph 2708. If you ever prayed the scriptures where you just have this kind of slow reading of say, we'll say the gospels, and you take a, say a parable of Jesus and you want to apply it to yourself and you think just for example the exact same way that in paragraph 2707 it references the parable of the sower we know the

parable of the sower that Jesus tells that sower goes out to sow and as he sows he scatters the seed everywhere right the seed some seeds falls on the path some seed falls on rocky soil? The seed, some seed falls on the path, some seed falls on rocky soil or shallow soil, some seed falls among thorns and some seed falls on good ground. We can meditate on that. We can just hear that and say, oh, that's neat.

Or we can confront it with ourselves and ask that question. Okay, is my heart like that first soil, the path, where it doesn't get in there? is my heart like that first soil, the path, where it doesn't get in there. So this hears God's word and oh yeah, there are some things God teaches that I just, man, I don't let them penetrate. The enemy can come by and he can steal them anytime because I have a hardened heart to this teaching of the Lord

or this teaching of the church. Or you could say the shallow soil and recognize, yeah, that's my heart sometimes too. I get really excited and I have these big plans but I don't follow through. I don't allow the Lord to take root or his word to take root deeply in my life to really make a change or you have the the seed that falls among the thorns, the thistles, right? And it gets choked and Jesus goes on to describe those thorns as the carers of the world, anxieties of the world. And you might meditate on that yourself and say, in my life,

are there cares that and anxieties that seem to choke out the life of God in my soul. See, I love this. To meditate on what we read, help us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. And there's something so powerful about taking what I've just heard, God's word or writings of spiritual fathers, insight, or even the catechism and reflecting and saying, where is this true in my life? I love, it goes on to say, we pass from thoughts to reality. How many times are you ever in a place, like again, a place of prayer, we just start dreaming

and just think like, oh yeah, this is great. That's great. This is the other thing. Here's my big plans for life as opposed to, okay, let's really confront this. Let's confront these plans, these hopes with myself, with my own heart, with reality. And although we pass from thoughts from reality to the extent that we're humble and faithful, we discover in meditation the movements that stir the heart and we are

able to discern them. And it's a question of acting truthfully in order to come into the light asking, Lord, what do you want me to do? Now, as we conclude this day, one of the things we just want to highlight, I just want to highlight, is to take the time today in some way to have some expression of vocal prayer and some attempt even at meditative prayer. And all that is, is any, there's so many different ways of doing this. I mentioned Alexio Divina where you, a couple days ago, right,

where you read that scripture slowly, then you go again and you just like take a little nugget out and like a little bite-sized piece out of that scripture, like something you can kind of chew on, meditate on, then talk to God about it and then have some kind of resolution. What am I going to do with this now? Again, four little simple steps. Read through, take a little bite, chew on it, meditate on this, think about it, apply it to yourself, confront it with yourself, talk to God about this and then make some kind of resolution. How will I move forward with this information in my heart and in my life? Very very simple. That's just one

That's just one form, but it's a great form that any of us can do and we can actually do it at any point We could you could do this as you're driving to be talking to the Lord and just like be able to say, okay today Lord I listened to the catechism in here that talked about the fact that I can meditate on The great book of creation or the book, great book of history, the page of which today is written. And then just talk to God, take a little bite out of history, take a little bite out of this book of creation. She wanted meditate on it, talk to God about it and make some resolution. God, what do you want me to do with this?

How can I carry this peace into the future? There's just one way just one way to do meditative prayer, but it's a way that I invite all of us to do today I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless