When you learn poems, prayers, nursery rhymes, etc. at a very early age, the chances are that you don't really know what they mean. And if you repeat them regularly, as is very often the case with a prayer, you may paradoxically NEVER get round to finding out what they mean!
Take as an example, and without the slightest blasphemous intent, the Hail Mary:
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
When you, as an adult, see the prayer written out like this, its meaning is perfectly clear. But a child will almost certainly recite rather than read a prayer and therefore will be unaware of the comma between "womb" and "Jesus". In any case, he will probably have only the haziest idea of what "womb" means. I myself recited "thy womb Jesus" in much the same way as I might have recited "my brother Jonathan" (to name an epic film starring the inimitable Pete Murray). It's taken me all of sixty years to work out what that last line means, although I have to say it hasn't commanded my undivided attention over that time!
This has also been my non-enquiring recitation of the Hail Mary, probably because it was learned at the knee of a parent and not from the written page.
ReplyDeleteThe Our Father posed no problems, though for the other occupant of this household it certainly did. For him, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" was a total puzzle as he thought trespass meant "keep off the grass" and "no ball games allowed here". Maybe the difference between a city and a country upbringing?
Greeting Barnaby
ReplyDeleteAs an adult perhaps especially because of pilgrimaging to Lourdes, I find the Hail Mary very calming and fulfilling to pray and meditate upon.
As a young child however I could never understand the:
"Blessed art thou amongst swimming" section .
To Anonymous
ReplyDeleteAnd why do we Catholics end the Our Father with "... but deliver us from evil. Amen", whereas the Anglicans go on to say "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen"?
To Maytrees
And how about "Pray for our sinners", so much more appropriate than "Pray for us sinners"!
Lol Barnaby
ReplyDelete