Prayers Known By Heart: Is Rote Memorization Vain Repetition?
“I yuh you”
The sweetest words ever uttered out of the mouth of a toddler. And yet, we know they have no idea what they’re saying. Or do they? They aren’t yet saying: “I would sacrifice for you,” “I accept all your faults and flaws and choose you anyway,” or any other deeper dimension of love we’ve come to know as adults. But they are saying: “I need you,” “I desire you,” “I care about you,” in the simplest way.
Three words spoken so many times and used to cover such a broad range of emotions, the phrase has been stretched beyond recognition. Still, somehow our hearts melt to hear it spoken from a toddler's mouth.
Being raised Catholic, I learned- memorized- many critical prayers. Now, as I find myself teaching my children those prayers, I’ve been hit with the conviction of this world: Is this rote memorization of prayers the “vain repetition” scripture warns us against?
That was until those three sweet words came out of the purest of sources- my toddler. He told me he loved me. He doesn’t even speak in full sentences yet. A rote memorization of words strung together still held its meaning. He knew what he was saying even if he had only memorized the structure and cadence. I was struck with the realization that is what we’re doing when we pray memorized prayers as children. I had no idea what the Hail Mary prayer would mean to me until I was an adult, desperate for God’s assistance, and with no strength in me to produce the words. What came out was a cry to my mother to pray for me in the form of a prayer I had committed to memory as a child. The next came in a moment of total surrender. I lay on the floor as The Lord’s Prayer fell out of my mouth. The fact that I could hardly focus on the words in no way cheapened the cry from my heart.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
Luke 6:45
So teach the prayers- choppy and memorized as they may be for now, but first and foremost, teach the heart of those prayers. Teach them about our mother, present and still living out her role to bring souls to Jesus. Teach them the perfect love of the Father and what it means to surrender to His will. Teach them the realities of the constant battle between good and evil in this world, and that there is an archangel to defend them. Aside from that, we live these practices ourselves and let our example teach what rote memorization
never could.