To Pray and to Pray: two words, one single Christian soul
1. Starting point: a pious confusion
In ordinary Spanish speech, “rezar” and “orar” are used as synonyms.
We say “I am going to pray (rezar) the rosary”, “we pray (rezamos) for the
sick” or, in a more solemn register, “let us pray (oremos)” at the beginning
of the liturgy. The Royal Spanish Academy records that
closeness: it defines “rezar” as “to address to God, or to a divine
or holy person, the prayers of a set text”, and “orar” as
“to pray to God, vocally or mentally”. The boundary,
apparently minor, is exactly the one that interests us: rezar
tends toward a fixed text; orar embraces every raising of the soul to God,
with or without words.
In liturgical usage the clue is even clearer. The
priest never says “recemos” before the collect; he says
“oremos” (let us pray). And immediately afterward there is silence: because
praying (orar) includes interior silence, while praying (rezar) calls for a text.
When, on the other hand, we together lead an Our Father, we say
naturally “we are going to pray it (rezarlo)”. Language, wisely, has
preserved the difference that theology specifies.
2. Etymology: from orare to rezar
Both words come from Latin, but by different paths.
- Orar comes directly from the Latin verb
orare, which means to speak solemnly, to ask,
to beseech. The same root gives oratio (discourse, prayer),
orator (one who speaks in public) and os, oris (mouth).
Originally orare was the verbal act of one who addresses
with authority or with entreaty someone superior. The Christian tradition
applied it to dialogue with God. - Rezar comes from the Latin recitare
(to recite, to read aloud, to repeat from memory), composed of
re- (again) and citare (to call, to summon,
to pronounce). In the Romance evolution: recitare > rezar
(Castilian), rezar/rezar (Portuguese), recitare in
Italian is preserved as such while the devotional sense passes to
pregare. The semantic root of “rezar” therefore carries
inscribed in it the idea of a text that is repeated, cited,
pronounced.
This etymological difference is not incidental: it explains why
rezar points more naturally to vocal prayer with a
formula, and orar to the interior act of raising oneself to
God in any of its forms.
3. To pray (rezar) according to the Catholic tradition: vocal prayer
The Catechism devotes numbers 2700-2704 to vocal
prayer, which is the proper sphere of “rezar” in the strict
sense.
“Vocal prayer, founded on the union of body and soul
in human nature, associates the body with the interior prayer of the
heart, following Christ’s example of praying to his Father and teaching the
Our Father to his disciples.” (CCC 2722,
verify wording)
Catholic praying (rezar) has three characteristic features:
- A fixed text: the Our Father taught by Christ
(Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4), the Hail Mary composed of the angelic salutation
and that of Elizabeth, the Apostles’ Creed, the Psalms, the Liturgy of the Hours, the
litanies, the Angelus, the Rosary. - A communal and ecclesial dimension: the words are not
mine, the Church or Christ himself gives them to me. That
is why the one who prays is never alone: he is inserted into the prayer of the whole
Mystical Body. - Repetition and memory of the body: the lips, the
breath, the rosary beads, bowing, making the Sign of the Cross. The
CCC 2702 recalls that “the need to involve the senses
in interior prayer corresponds to a requirement of our human
nature. We are body and spirit, and we experience the need to translate
our feelings externally” (verify).
The CCC adds a decisive warning: “Vocal prayer is an
indispensable element of the Christian life” (CCC
2701), but “it is not enough to pronounce the words
of a prayer outwardly; the attention of the heart is also necessary”
(CCC 2700, verify). To pray (rezar) without praying (orar) is, Saint
Teresa would say, to move the lips without the soul looking out.
4. To pray (orar): to raise the soul to God
The Catechism opens part IV with a definition that is the keystone:
“Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of
good things from God.” — Saint John Damascene,
cited in CCC 2559 (verify).
And a little earlier:
“Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and
man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man; it springs from the Holy
Spirit and from ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the
human will of the Son of God made man.” (CCC
2564, verify).
To pray (orar), therefore, is broader than to pray (rezar): it includes
vocal prayer, but also meditation on the Word, the
silent contemplation, the spontaneous aspiration, the simple being
before the Lord. That is why all praying (rezar) well done is praying (orar), but not
all prayer requires praying (rezar). Saint Thomas expresses it with sober
scholasticism: “oratio est ascensus intellectus in Deum”, prayer
is the ascent of the intelligence toward God (Summa
Theologiae II-II, q.83, a.1, ad 2, verify). And he adds that
prayer is properly an “act of the practical reason” by which
we ask of God what is fitting, but springing from the affection of charity.
5. The three forms of prayer according to the Catechism
The CCC, in its article 3 on the life of prayer (numbers
2697-2724), distinguishes three fundamental
expressions:
a) Vocal prayer — CCC 2700-2704
“Through his Word, God speaks to man… Prayer is interiorized
to the degree that we become aware of him to whom we speak.”
(CCC 2700, verify).
It is the form common to all: children, the elderly, communities. It unites body and
soul. Its perfect model is the Our Father.
b) Meditation — CCC 2705-2708
“Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks
to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and
respond to what the Lord is asking.” (CCC 2705,
verify).
The classic method: to read (Sacred Scripture, the Gospel of the day, the life
of a saint), to think, to let oneself be challenged, to decide. The lectio
divina of the monks and the Spiritual Exercises
of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (composition of place,
application of the senses, colloquy) are supreme examples. Meditation,
says CCC 2708, “engages thought, imagination, emotion and
desire” (verify).
c) Contemplative prayer — CCC 2709-2719
“What is contemplative prayer? Saint Teresa answers: ‘Contemplative
prayer is nothing other than a close sharing between friends; it means
taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.’”
(CCC 2709, citing the Book of Her Life, chap.
8).
It is the summit: a simple gaze toward God, a loving silence, “the hearing of the
Word of God” (CCC 2716), in which the soul “lets God act”.
Saint John of the Cross describes it as a “loving, general
and obscure knowledge” of the Beloved (The Ascent of Mount
Carmel, II, 13-14, verify), and situates it in the dark night,
when God weans the soul from sensible consolations
in order to lead it into union.
6. Saint Teresa: to pray is to share with a friend
The Teresian quotation is probably the most beautiful definition of Christian
prayer ever written. In the Book of Her Life, chapter 8,
number 5, she writes:
“Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing
between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves
us.”
The context is autobiographical: Teresa confesses the years in which her
prayer was “praying (rezar)” without interior prayer, and she discovers that
mental prayer is neither technique nor intellectual effort, but
a relationship of friendship — and, like every friendship, it requires
time, frequency, solitude and the certainty of the other’s love. In
The Way of Perfection (chaps. 24-29) she will teach that even
the Our Father, prayed (rezado) slowly, leads to mental
prayer: “I am not asking you now to think about Him, nor to draw out many
concepts, nor to make great and subtle considerations with your
understanding; I am asking nothing more than that you look at Him” (The Way,
chap. 26, 3, verify).
Here is the bridge: to pray (rezar) the Our Father well is already
to pray (orar), if the soul looks upon him who speaks to it.
7. Is praying the Rosary only “rezar” or also “orar”?
This is the question that gives this site its name. The answer of
the Magisterium is categorical: the rosary is vocal and
contemplative prayer at the same time, and if the second dimension is missing it ceases to be
a Christian rosary.
Saint John Paul II, in the Apostolic Letter
Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16 October 2002),
number 5, writes:
“The Rosary, in fact, is nothing other than a method of contemplation… Without
contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the
risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas,
in violation of the admonition of Christ: ‘In praying do not heap up empty
phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many
words’ (Mt 6:7). By its nature, the recitation of the Rosary calls for
a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the
individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the
eyes of her who was closest to the Lord.” (RVM
12, often cited together with no. 5; verify the exact
attribution).
The structure of the rosary explains it: the vocal repetition of
the Hail Mary is a vehicle, not an end. The soul prays with the lips
“Hail Mary…” while the mind and the heart
contemplate the mysteries — the Annunciation, the scourging,
the Resurrection — seen “through the heart of Mary”. That is why
the rosary is at once recitation (a fixed, communal, repeated text) and
mental prayer (meditation, savor, loving gaze).
8. Practical application: from mechanical praying (rezar) to praying (orar) from the heart
Four classic counsels so that praying (rezar) may become
praying (orar):
- Before beginning, place yourself in the presence of God. It is the
first point of the Ignatian Exercises: “a step or two before the
place where I am to contemplate… to lift up my mind and consider how
God our Lord beholds me” (Annotation 75, verify). Without this,
the lips move by themselves. - Pray slowly. Saint Francis de Sales advises in
the Introduction to the Devout Life (part II, chap. 1): “it is better
to say fewer prayers with devotion than many in haste and with
distraction” (verify). The hurried rosary kills
meditation. - Stop when the heart is inflamed. Saint Teresa:
if in the middle of the Our Father an affection draws you to remain gazing at
the Lord, remain; “do not weary yourselves in reasoning with
the understanding… to love much and not to think much” (Fourth
Mansions, chap. 1, verify). - Return to the words when attention is
distracted. The Catechism recalls with realism: “the habitual
difficulty in prayer is distraction” (CCC
2729, verify). It is not a defeat: it is an occasion to begin again
with humility.
9. Common errors to avoid
- Vain repetition. “In praying, do not heap up empty
phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many
words” (Mt 6:7). It is not the quantity of
Hail Marys that moves God, but the love with which they are said. - Praying without attention. The CCC, citing Saint John
Chrysostom, recalls that “to pray is to speak with God”: if the
heart is absent, we speak to the air. That is why attention is a duty, not a
perfection reserved to mystics. - Confusing Christian prayer with Eastern
techniques. The Letter Orationis formas (Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, 15 October 1989, signed by Cardinal
Ratzinger) warned against the danger of reducing prayer to a
psychological state, a bodily technique or an emptying of the mind. Christian
prayer is always a personal relationship with a God who
speaks, not an immersion into the impersonal. Posture,
breathing, silence can help; they never replace the You
of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. - Reducing prayer to petition. To pray is also
to adore, to bless, to give thanks, to praise and to intercede. The CCC 2626-2643
distinguishes five forms: blessing, adoration, petition, intercession,
thanksgiving and praise. - Despising vocal praying (rezar) in the name of a “higher
prayer”. This is the opposite trap. Saint Teresa, doctor of
mental prayer, prayed the Divine Office and the rosary until her last
day. The soul needs vocal bread, not only contemplative air.
Források
Magisterium – Catechism of the Catholic Church, part
IV “Christian Prayer”, nn. 2558-2865 —
https://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism_sp/p4_sp.html – Saint John Paul
II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16-X-2002) —
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/es/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html
– Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis formas
(15-X-1989) —
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19891015_meditazione-cristiana_sp.html
Mystics and doctors – Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologiae II-II, q.83 “On Prayer” – Saint Teresa of
Jesus, Book of Her Life (chap. 8), The Way of
Perfection, The Interior Castle (The Mansions) – Saint John of the Cross, The Ascent
of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, The Spiritual
Canticle – Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual
Exercises – Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout
Life
Scripture – Mt 6:5-15 (the Our Father); Lk 11:1-13; Mt
6:7 (vain repetition); Rom 8:26-27; 1 Thess 5:17
Language – Royal Spanish Academy, Dictionary of
the Spanish Language, entries “rezar” and “orar”