When You Pray, Speak Your Language

Pray in Latin, or in your native language? Why the language you were formed in matters when you bring your heart to God. God receives the Latin, but he's after your heart.

It’s time for another VideoBlog, fans! Are you familiar with these? They’re a short video segment from a recent episode of Fire Branded, accompanied by a short write-up that builds on what I said in the video.

This one comes out of some pushback I’ve been getting from listeners who were surprised to hear me suggest that praying in your native language matters — and that Latin alone may not be the best way to give God your whole heart.

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There’s a moment most of us remember from childhood — your parent calling you by your full name. Not your nickname. Not a shortened version. Your full name. You knew immediately that something was different. The weight of it landed differently. Same person. Same name. Completely different effect.

Language does that. The words we’re formed in carry a weight that translations don’t. They’re not just sounds we recognize — they’re the sounds we think in, the sounds we feel in.

This is why, when it comes to prayer, it matters.

St. Teresa of Avila put it plainly in The Way of Perfection: “Vocal prayer must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I don’t call prayer — however much the lips may move.”

She wasn’t making a rule about Latin versus the vernacular. She was making a point about what prayer actually is. If the words aren’t landing in you — if you’re not present to what you’re saying — you’re not really praying. You’re reciting.

St. Bonaventure made the same observation even more simply: “When we pray, the voice of the heart must be heard more than the proceedings from the mouth.”

The voice of the heart. That’s the standard. And for most of us, the heart speaks in the language we grew up in. When I say Our Father, I mean it. Those words carry something — a relationship, a memory, a weight. When I say Pater Noster, I know what it means. But knowing what something means isn’t the same as feeling what it means. The difference is the difference between reading a word in a dictionary and saying it to someone you love.

God receives the Latin. Of course He does. But He’s also after your heart — not just your sounds. And your heart speaks the language you were formed in.

So pray in that language. Pray in the words that make you mean it.