Hi Ps104_33,
You wrote, "Which type of praying do you think is most Biblical. Baptist, which is extempoaneous and from the heart, or the cold much repeated vain repititions of the rosary and Christ's example prayer the "our Father"."
First, Catholic prayer incorporates every sort of prayer. For instance, I just returned home from a "Festival of Praise" where less than two thousand students at my university prayed in charismatic song, in tongues, out loud in shouts, quietly amongst small groups, and silently among oneself.
Earlier this morning, these same students gathered around the table of the Lord in the chapel and prayed the ancient divine liturgy.
The Rosary is a beautiful combination of vocal prayer and meditation that centers upon the greatest Gospel mysteries in the life of Jesus Christ and secondarily in the life of the Mother of Jesus. It is an "incarnational" prayer, a prayer consisting of both vocal and mental prayer that serves to incorporate both body and soul into the spiritual communion with Our Lord.
The physical use of the beads and formation of the words in vocal prayer are important in this body-soul complement of the Rosary. As we count the prayers by the physical use of beads, the soul is freed from the practial distraction fo counting and able to focus upon the prayers and meditations. This helps keep the body at the disposition of the soul, to keep the body focused and subordinated to the soul soaring higher in prayer.
Meditation can, therefore, be considered the "soul" of the Rosary, while vocal prayer (coupled w/ the physical use of beads) can be considered the "body" of the Rosary. The beads are there for the sake of the prayers, and the prayers are there for the sake of the Mysteries.
"They are in error who consider this devotion a boresome formula repeated w/ monotonous and sing-sing intonations... Both piety and love, although always breathing forth ethe same words, do not, however, repeat the same thing, but they fervently express something ever new which the loving heart always sends forth" (Ingravescentibus malis, Pope Pius XI)
A German Lutheran minister, Richard Baumann, stated in the early 1970's, "In saying the Rosary, truth sinks into the subconscious like a slow and heavy downpour. The hammered sentences of the Gospel receive an indelible validity for precisely the little ones, the least, to whom belongs the Kingdom of Heaven... The Rosary is a long and persevering gaze, a meditation, a quieting of the spirit in praise of God, the value of which we Protestants are learning more and more."
"Vain" means "worthless". Repetition that leads to greater filial love through slow and constant meditation upon the Gospel reaps abundant spiritual fruits - a result far from prayer that is "worthless", "futile", "unsuccessful", or "of no real value" - all of which are definitions of "vain".
Jesus, in Matthew 6:7, condemns the heaping up of "empty phrases". Surely, no Christian would consider the Our Father or the scriptural salutation of the Hail Mary (Lk 1:28, 42) as "empty phrases," without meaning or content.
And, the legitimacy of repetitious prayer is obvious by its unquestionable presence in the Bible. For example, Psalm 117 is completely structured upon the frequently repreated phrase: "His mercy endures forever." So, too, is repetitious prayer an integral part of the cantical of Daniel 3:52-88, which is built upon the constantly repeated phrase, "praise and exalt him above all forever."
The repetitious nature of the Rosary prayer is a means of entering more deeply into the revealed Gospel mysteries of Jesus Christ thereby promoting Christian meditation. Far from being an empty repetitional structure, the peaceful repetition of the Hail Marys is an incarnational way of keeping the body focused on the disposition of the soul in order to penetrate the mysteries of Christian salvation.
Our Lord condemns the "empty" repetition and quantity of words that are bereft of the attentionof the mind and devotion of the heart. The Rosary is vocal and mental prayer form that utilizes a prayerful repetition of the Gospel-based Our Father and Hail Mary and has no intrinsic connection with the "heaping of empty phrases" condemned by Christ.
But it is important to remember that every prayer form can be abused by a type of formalism that practices the external act without the proper internal intention of the heart to "communicate with the One whom you know loves you," in the words of St. Teresa of Avila.
When the Rosary is used as an authentic form of Christian vocal prayer and meditation and is prayer with the proper internal disposition of love of God, necessary for any true Christian prayer form, it is then a litany-like succession of Hail Marys that, in the words of Pope Paul VI, "becomes in itself an uneasing praise of Christ."
To learn more about the Rosary and our Blessed Mother, consult the $6.95 text, "Introduction to Mary" by Dr. Mark Miravalle (Queenship Publishing Co. 1993), available from Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
Carson Weber
