valid prayer

[ryanoneil]

Here is a question i’ve been thinking of recently.

If I’m watching EWTN and the sisters are saying the rosary, or listening to Relevant radio and some one is praying, how valid is to say “Amen” or “That’s what I say Lord”, instead of actively participating. It seems like spiritual laziness to do this, but I catch myself doing it in all sorts of curcumstances.

Does God honor this passive sort of prayer? AND

Does it depend on the circumstance? Like when we say “Lord hear our prayer” during intentions at Mass

I appreciate anyones thoughts.

Ryan

 

[NotWorthy]

Your good. God understands EXACTLY what you mean, so don’t worry.

BTW, I thought you might like this clarification of what “Amen” means. I came across it the other day in a Bible Study.

in Revelation 3:14 Jesus announces to St. John, Here is the message of the Amen, the trustworthy, the true witness, the Principle of God’s creation*…” *In this verse Jesus uses the Hebrew word, “amen” as a title. We understand the word “amen” to mean “I believe” or “it is true,” or “so be it;” but this meaning is not indicated in this passage. Instead Jesus is using the words most literal meaning.

In Hebrew “amen” is an acrostic, a word formed from the words of a sentence or series of words. “Amen” or “emen” is the acrostic formed from the first letter of three the Hebrew words, God (is a) trustworthy King, “El Melech Ne’eman.” The word “amen” appears for the first time in Scripture in Numbers 5:22. Moses was a trustworthy servant but Jesus is the great Amen, the Trustworthy King.

So the word “Amen” just by itself is a Prayer of Praise!!!

AMEN!!!

 

[maryj]

Again I say AMEN!!!

 

[Leopard]

What you are doing is listening someone else’s words that have been previously recorded and joining your own prayer to that earlier person’s prayer. This is esentially the same thing we do as when read the Bible prayerfully. If the first case were a matter of spiritual laziness, then it would necessarily follow that reading the Bible would also be spiritually lazy. Since this is obviously not the case, be assured that your prayer also is not.

Now if you are merely leaving the recording on as background sound while your attention is elsewhere, that may be spiritually lazy if that is the extent of your prayer life. This is not necessarily so if you are leaving the recording on while you doing something else that you ought to be doing, such as cooking dinner. As your main responsibility at that time is to cook dinner, it is not any sort of laziness for the majority or even all of your attention to be on that rather than on praying along with the recording. This not to say, however that this sort of multitasking with prayer may not also be very good prayer.

 

[NotWorthy]

I often pray while pre-occupied with something else, such as when I drive to work. But it’s not the only time dedicated to prayer in my day.

To me, it’s including God in my daily life, as well as setting time aside just for Him. If I include God in my daily life, then my mind is never too far away from Him, right?

 

[Alma]

What counts is your intention.

If you say: ‘Amen to that’ because you do not care about talking to God yourself, then it is not right.
But if you have a prayer life, that is, moments you specially set aside to talk to Him and praise Him, thank Him, ask for His forgiveness, tell Him your troubles, etc. then it is perfectly right to sometimes simply listen to prayers on the radio or TV and say ‘Amen to that’.
Remember nothing can substitute your own precious time alone with the Lord! :hug3:

Alma

Pray always (1 Ts 5, 17)