Too much talking during Adoration… what is the purpose of a litany anyway? Part I of II

Q: Dear Father John, I went to Adoration this morning with my prayer group.  There weren’t too many of us, but I always have a feeling that there is too much talking during our Adoration, and I just don’t get the “purpose” of a “litany” (which we pray together during Adoration).  Each time I hear a litany, repeating the same sentence 2 or 3 times gives me feeling of being brain washed.  I don’t see any love coming out of this kind of prayer.  I guess I am missing something. Could you explain it a little to me?

A: I detect two questions in your note.  The first has to do with “too much talking” during Adoration, and the second has to do with the purpose of praying litanies. We will cover the Adoration question in this post and then we will provide a follow-up post on the litany question.

Personal Adoration

As regards Adoration, I think I understand what you mean.  Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is an intimate encounter with Christ, who is present in such a quiet but powerful way.  Just as Jesus speaks silently to our hearts through the Eucharist, so we are drawn to listen and respond to him in the silence of our hearts.  And indeed, when we take time for personal adoration, this really should be the dynamic at work.  In that case, almost any extraneous noise ends up jarring or distracting us, even a group of people praying the Rosary, or an organist practicing with his ear phones on, so that the notes are only heard in a muffled way.

Communal Adoration

But sometimes, Adoration of the Blessed sacrament is linked to solemn exposition and solemn benediction.  These ceremonies form part of the liturgy of the Church.  An ordained minister must be present, and liturgical norms guide the celebration.  Even when we are not present for exposition or benediction, sometimes we purposely link our Adoration time with others, whether fellow members of a Movement or prayer society, or even of a family.

In both these cases, our Adoration is no longer only a personal prayer.  It has been plugged into the communal prayer of a group that tangibly expresses the reality of the Church, the Body of Christ.  In this kind of Adoration, it is common practice to weave other forms of prayer and worship into the times of silent adoration.  For example, there can be readings from the Bible and reflections on those readings, or even a homily (as when the Holy Father joins large gatherings of young people for prayer vigils that include Adoration).  There can also be personal testimonies, and hymns, or the solemn, vocal recitation of the Rosary, a novena, or some other form of popular piety.

A Question of Expectations

If we expect communal Adoration to have the same personal intimacy and silence that personal Adoration has, we will be disappointed and distracted, and maybe even frustrated.  Participation in this kind of Adoration involves a humble effort to enter into the prayer of the whole community, to link my personal preferences and prayers to the flow and rhythm of the larger group.  This can be hard to do, especially when we feel that we don’t have as much time of silent, personal prayer as we need.  But the rewards are great, because when we overcome personal preferences in order to enter into a larger act of worship, we are exercising the virtue of charity towards our neighbor.  God is always pleased when the family gets together to praise and worship him; it is a powerful expression of the reality that he is reuniting a sin-divided world through the power of his saving grace.

As regards the particular form of prayer known as litany, I also fully understand your hesitance.  When we repeat the same phrase or formula over and over again in our prayer, it can feel cold and superficial.  Where is the personal touch, the intimacy, the sincerity of speaking to God right from the heart?  Nevertheless, litanies have been part of our Christian tradition of prayer since the dawn of the Church, so there must be something to them.  In our next post we will review three reflections that may help you pray litanies more fruitfully.

Yours in Christ, Fr John Bartunek, LC, ThD

Self-knowledge and the spiritual life – Part III – Sacred silence

What is sacred silence? There are many scripture passages that convey important elements of a true God-ward silence. One that is sublimely concise is Psalm 46:10:

Be still, and know that I am God

This passage clearly reveals the type of silence necessary for a God-ward self-knowledge. First, we have the purpose of silence, to know and acknowledge that He is God. Silence apart from this acknowledgment and this pursuit of intimacy with God is a self-centered navel-gazing affair that will yield little more than an empty rest. With God, silence finds its highest value and meaning. It becomes not only restorative but also redemptive. It becomes an act of worship and lays the groundwork for a disposition that can receive the fullness that God has to bring to our souls – including self-knowledge.

The second element necessary for the fruitful pursuit of a sacred silence is to “Be still.” Stillness in this context is best reflected in the idea of the dedicated attention of one’s soul to another. As an example, my wife and I are very busy folks. We regularly communicate via text messages, emails, on the phone between meetings, or running errands etc. At times, usually after several months of this type of communication we run into a situation where our ability to connect breaks down. This often happens when we attempt to deal with the weightier issues of life on-the-fly. Sometimes we are looking to be efficient with one another rather than present. When this happens frustration rises. The only remedy is to slow down and spend time face to face, without interruptions, and with the demonstrated commitment that in the time we set aside to connect, there is nothing more important than loving and serving one another. This concentrated encounter captures something of the essence of stillness with God.

So, we have two simple elements that make up a truly sacred silence 1) being alone with and acknowledging God, and 2) being still before God.

The challenge for most of us is that this can seem like a lofty and out of reach ideal. How can we legitimately aspire to this kind of silence when the world demands so much of us? Most of us are not cloistered contemplatives. Most of us battle with an endemic busy-ness. However it is a reality that many among us achieve the goal of silence necessary to know ourselves and God. These will never be in the majority, but God is always calling and equipping willing hearts to enter into a deeper relationship with him.

That said, as with any meaningful accomplishment in life, loving God through this spiritual discipline of silence is not something we can simply snap into existence. It takes time, dedication, commitment and energy to achieve. Breaking away from the Martha-syndrome to achieve something of what Mary understood (Luke 10:42) is more than worth the effort. The lover of our souls is waiting in the silence. Only through silence will we find him and know the love that he has for us there.

For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.

In our next post we will begin to talk about ways to cultivate silence in the midst of our busy activity filled lives.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

Self-knowledge and the spiritual life – Part II

In Part I of this series we discussed the problem of spiritual delusion and darkness as a consequence of the lack of a God-ward self-knowledge. The purpose of this awareness is simply this: To reveal the sin(s) that hinder our relationship with God and that keep us from the fullness of God’s person, love, and provision for us in this life and the life to come. As well, we desire to respond to this great love by a life of devoted service to him and for him for all eternity. To do this, we need to identify the barriers to growth and pursue those things that propel us deeper into the heart of God.

In our first post, we established – through our brake light analogy – that that there are things we cannot know unless someone else reveals them to us. So then, how is it possible that we can discover these challenges within our soul on our own? Doesn’t “self” knowledge imply we have that knowledge within our grasp? The answer is no… and yes. A God-illuminated self-knowledge is often beyond our reach, but we can work to acquire it with the help of the Holy Spirit and others. In fact, only with this help can we ever hope to really grow to the degree that God desires for us.

So, what are the key elements necessary for one to begin the lifelong quest to understand ourselves in the context of God and develop the ability to route out those soul-tainting defects that hold us from fully loving and being loved by him?

Silence: The noise and relentless busy-ness of modern life is a blight on our souls and a favored tool of the enemy to drown out the still small voice of God. Often we welcome this evil ambiance in order to to hide from the thoughts and feelings that cause us pain and anxiety. As with substance abuse, hiding from our thoughts and avoiding the discomfort of quiet doesn’t solve anything. Similarly, ignoring the signs of a serious illness like cancer allows the disease to progress unchecked in our bodies. So too, our hidden (or not-so-hidden) faults promise the same result in our souls. Silence is one of the most basic elements necessary for us to come face-to-face with these issues, with God, to hear his voice, and see our way clear to healing and growth. In the classic Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis reveals a demonic diatribe (a senior demon on a rant to an apprentice demon) about the value of noise to the enemy of our souls. An important side note here is that when the demon is talking about music he is speaking about sacred music:

Music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell—though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express—no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end! We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of heaven will be shouted down in the end!

For most in modern society the enemy’s plan has worked. Between tweets, texts, telephone calls, TV, Internet, radios, computers and iPods, we wake up to noise, we are inundated with noise as we move through the day, we get in our cars and turn on the noise, we work with the noise in the background, we leave work with noise in our cars again, we return home to noise. Where in all this noise will we find God? How can we hear the voice of God when our hearts, minds, and hearing are constantly bombarded by the endless “noise” of modern life?

The truth is, we can’t. There is no way around this problem. We may limit the noise to those things compatible to our faith like contemporary Christian music or great programming like EWTN; however, regardless of the degree of piety or putrification we allow to occupy our souls, there is no way we can claim to hear God if we don’t first create space to listen to him in silence.

In Part III, we will explore exactly what we mean by silence and begin to identify ways we can incorporate it into our lives.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan