How are  liturgical prayer – the Mass, the sacraments,  the liturgy of the hours– and devotional prayers like the rosary, the stations of the cross, and other spiritual practices related ?  As we hear the teaching of Jesus on prayer this week, we need to consider this important question for understanding  the prayer of our church today and how we should pray. 

According to a 2001 church study on prayer  liturgical prayer after the Council of Trent “entered a static period of substantial uniformity while popular piety entered a period of extraordinary development.” Devotional prayers like the rosary and spiritual exercises like novenas, parish missions and retreats “were seen as an important means of defending the Catholic faith and of nourishing the piety of the faithful…they still continue to nourish the faith and religious experience of the faithful.” At the approach of the Second Vatican Council ordinary Catholics, particularly in the western world, were deeply attached to the Catholic devotional tradition.

In pastoral practice, devotional prayers and the spiritual exercises that marked devotional Catholicism “were sometimes more important than the Liturgy and accentuated a detachment from Sacred Scripture and lacked a sufficient emphasis on the centrality of the Paschal mystery of Christ, foundation and summit of all Christian worship, and its privileged expression in Sunday.” (Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy, Rome, 2001,  41)

The Second Vatican Council sought to restore and renew the prayer of the church in its  constitution, Sacrosanctum Concilium. It envisioned the church’s liturgical prayer renewing the faith of its people and aiding the church’s outreach to the world and to separated believers. (SC 1) It also saw it more important than devotional prayer.

In the council’s program for reforming the church’s prayer, the transition from a church strongly attached to devotional tradition to a church praying through the liturgy received little attention, however. The council acknowledged popular devotions in one short paragraph: “Such devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the sacred seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, and are in some way derived from it, and lead the people to it, since in fact the liturgy is by its nature far superior to any of them.” (SC 13) 

At the time of the council many believed the harmonization of the liturgical and devotional traditions would occur easily, but in fact that harmonization is still going on and will likely take time.  

Some examples? The reformed liturgy, while emphasizing  “its privileged expression in Sunday”, also emphasized daily prayer, the liturgy of the hours, a prayer rooted in the scriptures and flowing from the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. How many have made some form of the liturgy of the hours their daily prayer?

Our present church calendar offers a rich selection of the mysteries of Mary in feasts throughout the year corresponding to her mysteries recalled in the rosary and the church’s devotional tradition. I’m not sure we appreciate this treasury of prayer in our church calendar as much as we do the rosary.

Popular saints from the devotional tradition are also celebrated in the liturgy. Our church calendar is a wonderful way to study the saints. Do we use it?

The seasons of advent, lent and easter are times for deepening our understanding of the mysteries of Christ each year. Have they become ways for us to enter the mysteries of our Savior?

In the church’s liturgy, the ordinary Fridays of the year are days for recalling the Passion of Jesus, the ordinary Saturdays are days to keep Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in mind. The liturgical prayers and readings for these days have been chosen to recall their meaning. Have these days become holy for us?

Liturgical prayer roots devotions, devotional practices and prayers more deeply in the scriptures and in the spiritual experience of the church. The liturgical celebrations of Mary in our calendar reveal her place in the mysteries of Christ through the scriptures. The liturgical celebrations of the saints place them in the context of saintly companions who reveal other patterns of holiness from other times and places. 

The liturgy brings us beyond the writings and revelations of mystics and visionaries and the devotions they made recommend. In calling for the spiritual restoration of Friday and Saturday, for example, our liturgy made every Friday and Saturday a First Friday or First Saturday, as it situates them in the light of the scriptures and the larger spirituality of the church. 

So, say the Rosary, pray the Stations of the Cross, keep your other devotions? Keep our devotional tradition, the church says, but harmonize it with the liturgy and enter the prayer of the church.

We never finish the work of prayer and learning to pray. The Lord teaches us.