Talk:Mental prayer

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Tanquerey

This page variously refers to "Adolphe Tanquerey" and "Alphonse Tanquerey". The latter appears to be in error. The online references that I find are all Wikipedia mirrors (plus this YouTube description, which rips off our article without crediting us). Although I'm no theologian, I'm going to be bold and make all the references "Adolphe". JamesMLane t c 19:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability

Where did all the content here com from? Many questionable items that may well be WP:OR. Unless refs are found and added, they need to be just deleted as WP:OR. History2007 (talk) 20:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)

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Tone and content of this article

This article seems to be mostly quotes from various figures - Teresa of Avila, Jacques Philippe, Mother Teresa, various Popes - without an awful lot of content, and what content there is doesn't seem NPOV or encyclopedic. If anyone's got the time to go digging through Catechism documents and tease out some neutral, encyclopedic descriptions of mental prayer, that'd do this article wonders. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ineffablebookkeeper: it's a mess. Blame the Caotholic Church itself:

One of the foremost writers on mental prayer, Teresa of Ávila, stated: "Contemplative [sic][note 1] prayer [oración mental] is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us."

There will be reasons to translate "oración mental" as "contemplative prayer," but it's a mistranslation, as far as I can see. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:36, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Joshua Jonathan: I'm not sure it's a mistranslation, even if things do get lost to the weeds of theological interpretation; I'm not sure the translation of "mind prayer" differs too greatly to "mental prayer", and I wouldn't think Theresa of Avila meant something wildly different from our modern understanding.

The section Mysticism on her article seems to support the view that her concept of mental prayer is roughly similar, if not close or exactly the same, as the modern view. Reading the sentence "Contemplative prayer is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us", it seems in line with a lot of Catholic mysticism and thought on prayer, even if it seems like she's describing it as a simple and undeveloped concept.

And even if it is a mistranslation, it seems it's had centuries of theology developed from that mistranslation. In much the same way, as much as I'd call the understanding of original sin a mistranslation by Augustine, who didn't speak, write or read Greek or Hebrew and relied on translations by others, it's had centuries of theological weight and development, so it's true enough for the churches that hold by it as a concept.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]