The featured image is the title page from my grandmother’s 100-year-old french prayer book titled, “L’Ange Conducteur Dans La Devotion Chretienne.”
Its title is loosely translated as “Guidance of the Angel in Christian Devotion.” The original author is Jacque Coret (1631-1721) of Liege Belgium. This particular 40th edition was likely printed during the 1920s.
My grandmother passed in 1974 from breast cancer at 69 years of age. I was seventeen years old. We affectionately called her Mom-mom. Her prayerbook includes the full range of Catholic prayers, a few personal notations, various prayer cards, and newspaper obits.
I don’t recall ever having a religious or spiritual conversation with her. Yet, her obit says she was a member of the Saint Ann Society, Bonne Mort Society, and League of the Sacred Heart. It seems she was a prayerful woman. And like many of her generation in south Louisiana, she would have learned her Catholic faith from community and family in french.
I was brought up with the same Catholic prayers, doctrine, and dogma as my grandmother, except in English. Like my grandmother, my faith foundation was set up by family and church tradition, but times have changed. And being able to look back causes me to think about how time, language, and custom evolve our understanding and practice in matters of personal faith.
It seems that personal differences derive from man, not God. And begs the question: To what extent are our belief systems conditioned from personal biases apart from what is freely given by YWHW?
If you and I were born in a different place and time, how would our faith or relationship with God differ?
The first written forms of the Old Testament were in Hebrew. The New Testament was in Greek. And Jesus’ language was Aramaic. The bible we read today is a modern English translation. On top of all of that, it has been thousands of years since the actual events took place.
So, anything beyond one’s personal, intimate, and direct experience with the “Divine Source of Life” is a translation of some sorts. Even the gospels of the New Testament which we consider as inspired are written by (unknown) human authors with a specific intent and audience.
Back to the prayerbook: I will share a few images and translations from my grandmother’s prayer book and close with a personal reflection.
PRIERE DU MATIN (morning prayer)
Acte de Foi
Act of Faith
English Translation: Eternal and Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons: I believe in you because you are infinitely good and faithful to your promises; I adore you and I love you with all my heart because you are supremely kind, and I love my neighbor as me for the love of you.
AVIS SALUTAIRES (beneficial opinions)
Sanctifier la Journee
To Sanctify the Day
At the time of your waking up so regulated, that nothing, as much as possible, is capable of disturbing it. When you wake up raise your god; pray while living there; then say your ordinary prayers, and plan for any opportunities you may have to offend God during the day, so that you may be on your guard to avoid them.
Attend to Mass with the necessary provisions to honor the holy Mysteries, and to profit from it for your salvation. Choose the prayers you should say there. The best are the ones that unite us with the Priest, or rather with Jesus Christ, who is the invisible Priest.
Give, if possible, half an hour, or a quarter of an hour to meditation on a truth of Christianity or on the Passion of Jesus Christ. Learn how to do this exercise. Perhaps the best is that given to us by healthy Francois de Sales in the second part of his introduction to the devout life, or of his Philotee. If you understand the importance of meditation, always find the time to do it, and if you do it, you will soon learn to do it easily.
Give some time to read a good book every day. Read to the presence of God who speaks to you yourself. Penetrate yourself of what you read, taste it, apply it to yourself, and ask him the graces to execute the good desires, that he inspires you by this reading, which is a kind of meditation, and takes the place of a sermon when you can’t attend.
Raise your Heart to God at the beginning of each action, offer it to him and make frequent and familiar use of the prayers which are short aspirations or affectionate impulses that bring to God: Lord, I hope in you … I love you with all my heart … Forgive me my God, the fault that I have just committed. Saint Francois de Sales, that these aspirations support in the absence of all other orations, and that all the others do not supersede the defect of these. They can be done anytime, anywhere, and in the midst of bigger occupations.
PRIERE DU SOIR (evening prayer)
Metton-nous en la presence de Dieu, et adorons-le
Let us put ourselves in the presence of God and worship him.
English Translation: My God, I appear before you, at the end of this day, to adore you through Jesus Christ your very dear Son, and to thank you in his name for all the graces I have received from you.
My God, sovereign judge of men, who, by infinite mercy, does not want the sinner to perish, but that he avoids by penance your fearful judgments; I humbly present myself to you, to give you an account of this day. Give me, Lord, the lights don’t I need to know my faults, and the pain necessary to hate them well.
Societe de l’ANGE-GARDIEN
“Je suis la resurrection et la vie”
Personal Reflection
“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12)
My grandmother’s prayerbook contains nearly 500 pages and over 40,000 words of someone else’s thoughts. May God bless them.
I am grateful for the faith formation by my parents and grandparents. It gave me a foundation and starting point. All was proper for the moment but I am no longer a child.
Trust in God, “as the source of all that is life,” – is to be lived in the present.
If one accepts a faith of redemption and grace, the divine relationship is to be lived in its present moment, not in the past nor the future. There is no need to build bigger barns to keep past thoughts, words, or actions.
Only gratitude and surrender required.
“The truth of the matter is that God is speaking to us all the time in all the circumstances of life. Every work that we undertake, every experience we undergo, every encounter and relationship we are involved in is a manifestation of God; revealing something of Creator and creation, speaking out of its own depths, in all of them.” (Cyprian Smith, OSB)
Today, my prayer is less vocal so that I may listen more intently to “things freely given.” Because of it there has been a reordering of my relationship with God, the larger Body of Christ, and with myself. This “free gift” requires willingness and readiness to receive. And a desire for change not “outside of self,” but within.
No words can adequately describe the personal encounter in the soul. It is the most private place of intimacy with our Beloved. The most I could do is a poetic reflection titled “Centering,” found under the tab “Conjectures.”
Que Dieu soit avec vous (May God be with you)
