Since leaving behind corporate Mormonism I have become quite anti-religion. I view pretty much all forms of it as thinly veiled money-making/power-grabbing ventures in which a pretended salvation is offered in exchange for money, control, and adoration. I do not oppose capitalism, however, and therefore take little umbrage with, or have much sympathy for, those who buy this particular milk and honey (with money and with price) if that is what they choose to do.
Given this stance, it should be no surprise that when I first became aware that WJT, a fellow post-Mormon I have lately been following, has made a habit of praying the Catholic Rosary I was at first very dismissive. It sounded downright foolish to me like he had fled one set of chains only to willingly take on another. WJT says he followed a prompting in doing this, however, and reports the following noteworthy experience:
Earlier this month, after more than a year of praying the Rosary every day, I decided to stop for a while just to see what would happen and to prove to myself that it hadn’t become a superstitious compulsion. The main effect I noticed was that syncs stopped as if turned off with a tap. (I wish I’d known that trick back when I was trying to make new syncs stop for a while!) On Sunday, I took up the Rosary again after my break, and the sensation was remarkable. The beads felt like a living thing in my hands, and I could feel my mind sliding into a subtly but distinctly different mode of consciousness. I thought to myself, “It’s magic!” and was immediately answered by a mental voice in my head, a woman speaking French: Oui, c’est l’une des clés. “Yes, this is one of the keys.”
The French woman is a spirit named Claire or Joan of Arc, according to WJT, and I believe Bill sees this person as also one of Asenath’s seven daughters. Regardless, WJT is a proponent of praying the Rosary, in Latin I should add.
I have had a real issue with prayer for a few years now. It was Moroni that scared me off:
8 For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.
9 And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
I read that several years ago and suddenly felt very sheepish about routine prayers, especially prayers with other people, including my family. Family prayers or meal prayers I think are rather unintentional as a rule, practically scripted as a meaningless check box and seemed pretty much exactly what Moroni was referring to. In my heart I worried it was a bad example to my children to pray in such a way and hearing that “God receiveth none such” caused me to want to stop them altogether.
This caused my wife some distress, and in fact is still a sore point for her (expressed as recently as this weekend) as she sees it as a lack of leadership on my part. And maybe it is? That’s not fun to hear but she may be right. It’s not just scheduled prayers in groups but even private prayer is something I am hesitant to do. Granted, I do sometimes plea with God in my heart or mind if the mood strikes me, primarily if there is some worry or concern in my life since in those moments there is certainly “real intent”. I ate some semi-raw chicken a few weeks back and yeah, I was praying with some real intent that night.
But I don’t follow a pattern of prayer even remotely like I used to as an active Mormon, kneeling by the bedside morning and night, for example. Couple prayers. Fasting and prayer. The “true order of prayer” (yes, I consecrated an altar and used to do that in my home). I used to pray avidly, sometimes for extended periods of time, even hours. But now, all of that prayer has been done away with. You could say I am retired from prayer, as a general rule, which is probably not a good thing. This is not for a lack of belief or even laziness. It’s really that I don’t feel like I know how to pray and would rather not risk doing it wrong. I’ve viewed it as an experiment to see if some new way of praying would reveal itself.
I don’t advocate this approach, by the way. I’m just explaining my view and how I got here.
As for family prayer, my wife is the main instigator there, which as I said, bothers her. We’ve established a rotation since no one, including my wife actually, wants to say the family prayer. The kids have a running joke that they can’t remember whose turn it is and so “let’s just start at the top again”. The top, in this situation, is me, so realistically I bet I say the family prayer more than half the time even though in theory it should be spread across 4-7 people depending on who is home. I suppose that’s irony or at least just desserts?
As for meal-time prayers, I’ve defaulted to just saying thanks, essentially. I’ve modeled this after the example of Faramir and his men before their meal with Frodo and Sam. They turned and faced West for a moment of silence before eating, in a gesture to the Powers and Eru from whence all blessings flow. I like this gesture because it requires no words and makes “real intent” easier in my view. I can just mean it in my heart. My second favorite meal time prayer comes from my Protestant uncle who simply says “thank you, Father” as he sits down to eat, to which any may repeat the same or simply say Amen. I use a few more words, but I like the idea of just saying thanks at meal time. Sometimes I’ll use the prayer of St Bart to make the kids laugh.
Coming back to WJT, his preference for the Rosary has me intrigued and I have been experimenting with it rather clumsily. For one, I still lack the Rosary beads so I can’t test his theory of them feeling like a living thing. I also was confused about how to do the Decades/Meditations. I thought until Saturday you just had to do one round, not all 5 rounds every day. Let me tell you, 50 Hail Marys is a bit of a grind but I do have that prayer memorized now as a result.
What do I like about praying the Rosary? Let’s start there. My favorite part is making the sign of the cross at the beginning and end. I have no idea why but that somehow feels like the best and most sincere part. I get a physical reaction to it sometimes. I like doing it in Latin. Since I speak Spanish and I am sorta familiar with Catholicism, I can deduce a lot of what I am saying and each day I have added a little more to my understanding. There is something about speaking in Latin and understanding the meaning. Somehow it feels more serious or real. It makes “real intent” a little easier for me.
My favorite prayer is the prayer to Michael the Archangel, which I’ve realized isn’t actually part of the normal Rosary but WJT includes it at the end for some reason. And I also like having a feeling that maybe I am saying something important to God, the words, that is, and if I just mean it, you know, real intent, it can profit me. I also like praising Mary although I admittedly think of her as Varda more than what most people think of as Mary. The repetitive nature of the Rosary reminds me of certain Mormon temple worship, specifically baptism/confirmation and washing/anointing. Why? Because like the Hail Mary, those are relatively short and repetitive chants. It’s a similar vibe and I actually don’t mind that. Maybe it just feels familiar.
What do I not like? I strongly dislike the Apostles’ Creed, really just this part: “Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclésiam Cathólicam, Sanctórum Communiónem”. I actually don’t believe in the Catholic church on any level. If it was once holy, I am pretty certain it no longer is and has not been for some time. In fact I would bet money it is now Satanic like pretty much all religions. That should give you an idea of how much I dislike religion now. Joseph Smith reports that the Personages he saw strongly dislike the creeds of religion:
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,
I can’t imagine the Apostles Creed is an exception to this and in fact maybe is near the top of the list. I am very much inclined to change that prayer to say that I DON’T believe in it just so anyone listening in knows where I stand. But I have hesitated just because WJT and Claire really think this Rosary is a “key” so perhaps I should experiment? In this moment, I don’t think I can say that part anymore. It feels wrong.
Overall, though, I do like the experiment. I have found myself throughout the day chanting random pieces of the Rosary, even parts I don’t really understand or have fully memorized. Just little bits and pieces that come back to me even though I’m not trying to think of them. For some reason they come to mind and mouth at random times, which probably isn’t a bad thing.
As most know, Tolkien was a very devout Catholic. This page has a really nice summary of his worship. He was, like WJT, a believer in the Latin prayers and much disliked the switch to English. He also advocated memorizing the prayers so that one could utter them whenever the moment was right. He also recommended to his son memorizing Mass in case due to hard circumstance he could not attend, which suggests Tolkien viewed attendance and participation as essential. I looked up the Mass liturgy and memorizing that is no joke. Tolkien was either built differently or thought memorizing 41 pages of Latin is really that important. I would say Tolkien likely had no qualms about the Apostles Creed. He seems to have firmly believed in every bit of Catholicism.
And that leads me to wonder if Claire and WJT are correct that the Rosary is a key, because I admire Tolkien so much. Of course, not all keys are necessarily good. Some keys open things that would be better left closed, or open things that don’t matter, which I suppose is only discovered by experimenting.
One final thought on the Tolkien connection is that despite being a huge fan of the Latin prayers, he saw fit to translate some of the prayers into Quenya elvish. I find that odd since he protested the switch to English by loudly responding in Latin during Mass liturgy while everyone else spoke English. Since he took the prayers so seriously, it’s a little surprising he would tinker with them in this way. It perhaps shows how he really viewed his mythology or perhaps that to pray certain parts of the Rosary in Quenya is an acceptable, even preferable, substitute.
In conclusion, I am terrible at prayer, I am probably a very bad prayer example to my kids and others (sorry, honey), and I am experimenting with memorized Catholic chants as a substitute. No version of old me would at all recognize current me.
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