Question on formal prayers

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jesusmademe

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A famous prayer is “Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ”.
This prayer is said to a person who is in Heaven.
If I were to speak ask a person here on earth to pray for me I would not say eg “Pray for us, O beloved Priest. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ”.
Why would we only say formal prayers to peoole in Heaven? We sometimes use a morw formal language on when speaking to a Priest but using formal prayers is out of the question.
Why is this? This confuses me!
What is the reason we use formal prayers when speaking to people in Heaven?
 
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This prayer is to the Virgin Mary, our greatest saint. And asking her to pray for us so we are worthy of the promises of Christ.

Its not just a prayer to a person in heaven.
 
There is nothing to stop you from asking anybody to pray for you that you be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
 
We often use formal prayers, yes, but many of us also talk to those in heaven informally all day long. You never do this?
 
You don’t have to use formal prayers to talk to people in Heaven.

The Church has developed some formal prayers over the years, often based on very old prayers that weren’t written in English or any modern language to begin with, and were translated in an era when the language sounded more “formal” than it does today, and the traditional wording of the prayer was kept.
The Mary prayer that you used as an example falls in that category.

If you don’t like the formal prayer, you can buy a book of modern prayers that are written less “formally” or you can talk to Jesus, Mary etc in your own words.

And you could certainly talk to a priest asking him for prayers in a formal language if you like. There would be nothing wrong with saying, “O beloved priest, pray for us that we be made worthy of the promises of Christ”. There’s probably some people for whom English is a second language who talk just that way.
 
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I like that question. People like to compose prayers, poetry and songs to honor and love God…and to be grateful for our saints who pray for us before the throne of God. It is like being an artist who makes beautiful things for the honor and glory of God. It is like the psalms of David filled with all types of sentiments. You don’t have to be formal, just loving, respectful and yourself. Just my opinion. 😊
 
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mrsdizzyd said:
Formal prayers are just individual prayers which others decided they liked and started praying themselves.
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Usually formal prayers were composed by the Saints. We may find them too vague or.too meek, but in the end we pray to find Redemption. We don’t pray to get things. We pray so we may be accounted on the right side of Christ at our Judgement.
So what a Saint, who is now at His right, prayed, is very important, because that worked, that happened.
Christ told us the world is vain (for Him) so for us to pray for worldly things must be vain.
He gives what we need so we can be Redeemed at the end.
 
So you are saying that those prayers are like hymns?
What I really don’t understand why we say litanies. I mean, who would kneel in front of someone and repeat Pray for us 20 times?!?
We would probably only say it once.
 
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Kneeling in front of a Priest and say Pray for us, dear father…would’t that come across as a bit strange?
 
jesusmademe said:
What I really don’t understand why we say litanies. I mean, who would kneel in front of someone and repeat Pray for us 20 times?!?
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How about you just accept that there are prayer forms that seem very natural and traditional to others, but you personally don’t like them?

Prayer is not necessarily the same as sitting with your friend having a talk over a pizza. It can be, but it can also be something more formal and ritualistic. A lot of people enjoy some ritual in their prayer. Other than participating in Mass, you are allowed to structure your own prayer how you like, and you should leave other people alone to pray how they like.
 
Depending on the situation and the person, it could be totally normal. A priest isn’t going to expect people to kneel in front of him, but if someone was feeling very emotional or very humble and did that, the priest isn’t going to say “stop that, you’re being weird, sit in a chair and talk normally”.

A general comment: Based on your frequent posts here, you need to develop a lot more tolerance for things like prayer forms, music etc that aren’t to your taste. Every time you find something that you don’t personally like, you seem to start a thread criticizing it or saying “that’s so weird” rather than just accepting that people have different tastes. Old fashioned prayers are part of the tradition of the Church and often they have some catechesis contained in them as well. You sound somewhat immature and intolerant when you make such a big deal out of them, especially since no one is requiring you to pray that way.
 
Yes, but can I use a formal way of asking a person on earth for prayers? Would it be ok and how does one do it?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
You sound somewhat immature and intolerant when you make such a big deal out of them, especially since no one is requiring you to pray that way.
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I am only trying to make sense of the way I am supposed to be social with the saints. I just don’t understand why I should use pre-writren prayers for the saints but talk normally with people on earth.
 
Once again, it’s not a “should”.

Many people like to use pre-written prayers because it connects them to tradition, it keeps them from having to figure out what to say in a prayer every time, the prayers sometimes teach us about the faith, and the prayers are pretty, like poetry. It also makes it easier for people to pray as a group if they all know and say the same prayer. All this has been stated above in the thread. It’s not hard to understand.

As several people have said, if you don’t like pre-written prayers, then outside of Mass requirements, you don’t have to use pre-written prayers. The important thing is that you pray, not what words you use as long as you’re reverent.
 
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jesusmademe said:
What is the reason we use formal prayers when speaking to people in Heaven?
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jesusmademe said:
I am only trying to make sense of the way I am supposed to be social with the saints. I just don’t understand why I should use pre-writren prayers for the saints but talk normally with people on earth.
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As others have said you do not need to use formal prayers. You can always and should speak to God, the Blessed Mother or any of the saints informally.

Hopefully you have your own personal patron saints that you speak to regularly.

Something else to remember is that praying many formal prayers, such as the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Rosary, Acts of Faith, Hope and Love, Litanies and a whole bunch more have indulgences attached to them, so when praying these particular formal prayers we are building our relationship with God and the particular saint but also gaining a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven,

I personally love formal prayers. Mostly because on my own the type of beauty found in a formal prayer just doesn’t come out of me.
 
jesusmademe said:
If I were to speak ask a person here on earth to pray for me I would not say eg “Pray for us, O beloved Priest. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ”.
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You might not speak formally, others may.

You can pray in any language you like “Mary, please pray for me that I grow in grace.”
 
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