The Law of Prayer is The Law of Belief. This phrase was used by the Prosper of Aquitaine in the fifth century and the original version goes, "ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi" or "that the law of praying establishes the law of believing. [1]
Some of this may mirror what I have already said in a previous post but I have been reflecting a lot lately on the importance of how I pray, how I teach my kids to pray. Particularly in how I approach the Holy Eucharist and the liturgy. There is no doubt in recent years there has been a lack of good Catholic education in the church. I am not only talking about Sunday school classes, but a whole generation of parents and even priests that have failed to pass on to their children and parishioners even a basic understanding of their Catholic faith. It seems that the bar has been getting people to agree to the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but even that effort has failed for many.
This is why our focus needs to be bringing Catholics back to the true faith. The way to do that is to return sacredness to the liturgy and demand respect for Christ's Presence in the Eucharist. It starts with the priest and bleeds down to the lay person in the pew. The way we pray, is the way we will believe. When the liturgy is approached in a haphazard lighthearted manner, people believe in a haphazard lighthearted manner. The priest at the alter has very specific, careful words and actions that represent the sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross. The same precision does not seem to be required of the people in the pews.
Many take a very hedonistic approach to their faith, words like joy and thanksgiving, overshadow words like reverence and sacrifice. I am not downplaying the importance of joy and thanksgiving, but when those words and phrases are used almost exclusively it brings one to believe that their faith is based on what they get from it and has very little to do with what they give to it. It overshadows the great sacrifice of the Mass and makes us more protestant than Catholic.
I saw this this past weekend. Our family attended a Eucharistic Procession for the 125th anniversary of our diocese. It was a beautiful event and our family was very blessed to be able to participate. I was rather surprised however at how many people (and I include myself here) did not know the proper way to act during the procession, and especially at the benediction that followed. Because so many of us Catholics did not know the proper gestures, when to stand, when to kneel, to enter the room quietly and reverently while the Body of our Lord is on display, the room was generally lost with many people visiting loudly and having to be repeatedly reminded to have respect for Our Lord. The hedonistic approach to faith led many to treat the procession as a skip in the park with Jesus, rather than a solemn possession with Our Lord.
Catholics have almost universally lost their Catechism. While efforts are being made outside of mass to try to draw people back. the truth is that Sunday Mass is the only chance we get to catechize most Catholics. If we use the liturgy to insist on reverence and demand respect in the tone of the Mass, the music, the way Holy Communion is distributed, and insist on adherence to basic etiquette then we will all believe more deeply and reverently.
As a Catholic who was not brought up with strong Catholic teaching (by the time I hit Sunday school it varied very little from what the Lutheran church was teaching up the road) I personally long to be instructed in my faith. I want to hear what I am doing right, but more importantly to hear what I am doing wrong. Christ in the Eucharist is the objective truth of our faith, because of that we need to be strong in defending Him. If we insist on a reverent attitude we are not insulting but instructing.
That is one of the things that I love about the Traditional Latin Mass. The structure of that liturgy is such that it insists on reverence, and focuses on sacrifice. It brings unity to the faith not by hand holding but by standing together with the priest looking to the Lord. There is very little room for self interpretation and for me is a perfect example of lex orandi, lex credendi. When you look at those families that almost exclusively attend that form of the Mass you notice something right away. There is a definite difference in the way they live the rest of their lives outside of church. The way they pray permeates into the way they believe and becomes the way they live. If we wonder how we can bring that kind of faith back into our Catholic Church we only need to look as far as those churches that have successfully done it. It isn't by allowing peoples' personal beliefs about God and happiness to dictate the Catechism of the Church but by allowing the Catechism of the Church to permeate peoples beliefs. When we stand up for Christ the King and insist on proper prayer, then those actions manifest in a stronger belief, and that belief then spreads beyond the walls of the church.
1. http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/catechetical-sunday/word-of-god/upload/lex-orandi-lex-credendi.pdf
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