"But I must not try to dispense with the example of the words"

"the theology of the Middle Ages proposed that the aim of prayer (and the movement of being in which it consists) was that, through it, man should become an anima ecclesiastica—a personal embodiment of the Church.  This is both identity and purification, it is a surrendering of oneself and a being drawn into the innermost nature of what we mean by 'Church'.  In this process the language of our Mother becomes ours; we learn to speak it along with her, so that, gradually, her words on our lips become our words.  We are given an anticipatory share in the Church's perennial dialogue of love with him who desired to be one flesh with her, and this gift is transformed into the gift of speech.  And it is in the gift of speech, and not until then, that I am really restored to my true self; only thus am I given back to God, handed over by him to all my fellow men; only thus am I free.
     "At this point everything becomes very practical:  How can I learn to pray?  By praying in fellowship.  Prayer is always a praying with someone.  No one can pray to God as a isolated individual and in his own strength.  Isolation and the loss of a basic sense of fellowship in prayer constitute a major reason for the lack of prayer.  I learn to pray by praying with others, with my mother for instance, by following her words, which are gradually filled out with meaning for me as I speak, live and suffer in fellowship with her.  Naturally I must be always asking what these words mean.  Naturally, too, I must continually 'cash' these words into the small change of daily life.  And having done so, I must try to repossess them in exchange for my small coin, little by little, as I draw nearer the fullness of the mystery and become more capable of speaking of it.  And that is precisely why it is impossible to start a conversation with Christ alone, cutting out the Church:  a christological form of prayer which excludes the Church also excludes the Spirit and the human being himself.  I need to feel my way into these words in everything I do, in prayer, life, suffering, in my thoughts.  And this very process transforms me.  But I must not try to dispense with the example of the words, for they are alive, a growing organism, words which are lived and prayed by countless people."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "On the theological basis of prayer and liturgy," The feast of faith:  approaches to a theology of the liturgy, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1986), 29-30.  The immediate context of this, Ratzinger's third point under "2. The content of Christian prayer," begins with the second full paragraph on p. 28, and includes the reference, on p. 29, to the "two in one flesh" union of man and wife.  A quick and dirty search would indicate that the phrase anima ecclesiastica is to be associated first with Origen, but also Ambrose, and so on.  (I have not pursued this in any detail.)