“The use of formal prayers can, under certain circumstances, be a help even for a small family group. But often a ritual becomes only an evasion of real prayer. the wealth of churchly forms and thought may easily lead us away from our own prayer; the prayers then become beautiful and profound, but not genuine. Helpful as the Church’s tradition of prayer is for learning to pray, it nevertheless cannot take the place of prayer that I owe to God this day. Here the poorest mumbling utterance can be better than the best-formulated prayer.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), page 65.