There's a difference between praying and reciting a prayer

By Jeannette Timmerman

Marriage between an agnostic and a Roman Catholic leads to many discoveries in what is believed and not believed. Delineating the difference between “saying” and “praying” as the words relate to the Our Father is one of them.

The first time we attended mass together Peter recited the Our Father by heart. I was amazed.

It struck me as odd that he would say the prayer to a God he didn’t believe in. Each time he came to mass he did the same thing. I said nothing about this, choosing to just mull it over. The mulling went on for a number of years.

Recently we discussed his recitation of the prayer. He explained that although his parents never attended church after his father came home wounded from the Second World War, they never objected if he or his sister wanted to go to church on their own.

As a youngster in London, England, he belonged to the Boy Scouts. One of the requirements was mandatory church attendance. Since it was part of being a Boy Scout, every week for years he went to the local Church of England on his own. Naturally the Our Father was part of the worship service.

In his teen years, daily school assemblies included a Bible reading and the Our Father. Once again, he spent years verbalizing this prayer.
It is so ingrained into his being that he says it automatically as an adult whenever and wherever he comes across it in his life.

A practical person who is a physicist, Peter somehow sees no anomaly in being agnostic and joining in when people pray the Our Father. The two things just don’t seem to make sense to me: no belief in God and yet saying the prayer that Jesus gave and taught us.

For his part, although he is very supportive of my Roman Catholic faith, he does find it strange. He cannot comprehend why I would praise, thank and beseech an unseen God with prayers, and believe in heaven.
So, while we don’t understand these things about each other, there is mutual respect for our individual viewpoints and actions.

We recently attended three Catholic funerals. In addition, Peter came with me to mass at Christmas and New Year’s. At all five, he said the Our Father. He never says any of the other prayers even though he could read them from the missal.

Through my ongoing mulling, I now realize he participates in the mass as he sees fit for him. He sings all the hymns and gladly greets people at the sign of peace. He goes up every time for a blessing when I go to communion and, of course, recites the Our Father. These are the ways he is part of my church community when he attends mass.

Although Peter is adamant he is “saying,” that is, repeating the prayer as he would a memorized poem, and not “praying,” I am still happy to hear the words on his lips.

What could be more beautiful than:

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
They will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Whether he is saying or praying, I say Amen!

Timmerman is a freelance writer from Winnipeg.