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4 Part IV: Prayer
Prayer is the personal and living relationship of the children of God with
their Father who is infinitely good, with his Son Jesus Christ, and
with the Holy Spirit (who dwells in their hearts). It is very important
to keep God as the center of our lives; not friends, not family, not
jobs and not other stuff. To do this we must talk to God and spend time
with him. We must
listen for what God is telling us. This is prayer.
4.1 What is Prayer
Prayer is a form of communication, a way of talking to God and putting
ourselves in his presence. We each hear God's voice in our own way
because he knows each of us and speaks in ways that we can hear him. We
hear God with our hearts and our souls. God's voice is an
impression, a knowing that calls us in a certain direction.
Time with God, remaining quiet with God allows this to happen, it allows us
to understand what God wants us to do. If we are quiet when we pray, we
can sometimes hear God talking back to
us. If we are careful in watching what happens after we prayer, we can
see God answering our prayers through things that happen such as:
- our parents saying or doing things that help answer the prayer
- our friends saying or doing things that help answer the prayer
- something in nature that answers the prayer
- other people acting in a way that answers our prayer
We can pray ourselves, or ask others, including the saints, to pray for
us. In any case, we should set time aside every day to communicate with
God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
4.2 Forms of Prayer
Just like we have different kinds of conversations with people, not all
prayers are the same. Here are brief descriptions of five forms of
prayer.
4.2.1 Adoration
In prayers of adoration, we acknowledge how much we need God. It exalts
the greatness of the Lord who made us and the almighty power of our savior
who has freed us from evil. The mass and the other works
(liturgies) of the Church are full of prayers of this sort, such as the
Gloria (or Glory to God). Among private prayers, the
Act of Faith is a prayer of adoration.
Prayers of love or charity are just that—expressions of our love for
God, the source and object of all love. The
Act of Charity
is an example of a prayer of love.
4.2.2 Petition
Prayers of petition are the type of prayer we are most familiar with. In them,
we ask God for things we need - primarily spiritual needs, but physical
ones as well. Our prayers of petition should always include a statement
of our willingness to accept God's will, whether he directly answers
our prayer or not. The Our Father is a good example
of a prayer of petition, and the line " Thy will be done
" shows that God's plans for us are more important than what we desire.
One type of petition is a prayer of expiation or contrition, we ask God
for his forgiveness of
our sins and ask for his mercy. The Penitential Rite at the beginning
of mass, and the Agnus Dei (or Lamb of God) before Communion, are
prayers of expiation, as is the
Act of Contrition
which is said during the
Sacrament of Reconciliation
or other times, perhaps bed time.
4.2.3 Intercessory Prayer
Intercessory prayer is a type of prayer that is made on behalf of someone else.
God desires us to take care of one another, both physically and in prayer.
We often ask others to pray on our behalf as well. This could be asking Jesus to mediate
with God the Father for us. Or it could be Mary or one of the saints or even another person
that we know. The prayer of the faithful
during mass is intercessory, asking all the people there and in the whole
Church to pray for the petition.
4.2.4 Thanksgiving
This type of prayer gives thanks to God for all that he has done for
us. As Saint Paul says, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus for you." While
Grace Before Meals
is a good example of a prayer of thanksgiving, we
should get into the habit of thanking God throughout the day for the
good things that happen to us and to others and just for our mere
existence. The
Eucharistic Prayer
at mass is a prayer of thanksgiving. Eucharist comes from the Greek word
for thanksgiving.
4.2.5 Praise
This type of prayer has at its base recognizing that God is God. We give
him all glory and honor because he is God. The Gloria
and Holy, Holy (Sanctus)
during mass are examples of this prayer.
4.3 Expressions of Prayer
The important part of prayer is committing time to God. There are many ways
that we can do this. We can say our prayers out loud or quietly. We can
read the Bible and think about its meaning for our lives. We can sit
and just be in the presence of God.
4.3.1 Vocal Prayer
Vocal prayer combines our body and our spirit and the desires of our
heart. We express these in words, often praying them aloud. Because it
is external, these prayers can easily be prayed with groups. These
prayers are often prayers that we have learned such as the
Our Father or other prayers (see
PART5).
4.3.2 Meditation
Meditation makes use of our imagination, thought, emotions and desire. We seek to
understand the why and the how of Christian life. Often, this
is accomplished by having an object or the Bible or the like as a
source of inspiration and the person praying then uses imagination, etc
to place themselves more into the presence of God, Father, Son or Holy
Spirit. For instance, you could read about the
birth of our Lord in Bethlehem
and imagine yourself as a shepherd or the innkeeper and what this might mean
to you and what God has done for you. The Rosary
is a great example of meditation. Each decade offers a chance to meditate on one of the
Mysteries of our faith.
4.3.3 Contemplative Prayer
Contemplative prayer is the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer.
It is a gift from God, a grace that is given to those in a covenant relationship with him that
can be accepted only in humility and poverty. In such prayer the Holy
Trinity conforms man, the image of God, "to his likeness." Contemplative prayer is
a very intense time of prayer. The Father strengthens our inner being
with power through his Spirit "that Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith
" and we may be "grounded in love." Eph 3:16-17 . Saint Teresa of
Avila says about it, " Contemplative prayer in my opinion is nothing else than
a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him
who we know loves us."
4.4 The Lord’s Prayer (Our Father)
Jesus was asked by the apostles
to teach them to pray. His response was to
teach them the Lord’s Prayer, or Our Father. Because Jesus taught it to
us, it is an excellent prayer to say at any time. Here are the words:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass
against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
4.5 What does it Mean
In this section, we will go through the Our Father, line by line, and
discuss its meaning.
4.5.1 Our Father Who Art in Heaven
Jesus tells us to call God, “Our Father.” God is not some
remote being that barely cares for us or pays little attention to us. He is
Our Father.
How much more than our human fathers will he care for us? He is our
dad, our daddy, our papa! The Father is in
heaven, where we wish to
join him. The saints and angels are there and praising him. Since
heaven is being with God, when we are living his will here on earth, we
already are starting to be in heaven. Notice we don’t say “My Father!”
We are praying this prayer with everyone else and for everyone else in
the kingdom.
4.5.2 Hallowed be thy Name
Remember the commandment,
“You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” Hallowed
means holy. God is holy, his name is holy. God has allowed us to know
his name because he wants us to have a close relationship with him (he
is our Father). We must always respect his name. By respecting God’s
name, we respect God.
4.5.3 Thy Kingdom come
Jesus made the Church, God’s kingdom on earth. We pray for the final
completion of his kingdom, where we will join with the angels and
saints of heaven.
We also pray for ourselves to become more holy, that we may live the
Beatitudes,
so that we will perfect God's kingdom on Earth and join the Kingdom of
God in heaven.
4.5.4 Thy Will be done On Earth as it is in Heaven
Doing God’s will is the most important thing we can do. We pray that we and
all others do God’s will here on earth. His will is already perfectly
done in heaven.
We pray that his will be done more perfectly here on
earth like it is in heaven. By praying, we ask for God’s help in this,
that we don’t sin by doing our own will, acting contrary to God.
4.5.5 Give us this Day our Daily bread
We ask that God meet our daily needs, for food, for water for everything.
But we ask only for our daily needs, we wish for God’s abundance to be
shared generously with all. However,
“since man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of
God” Mat 4:4
and
"unless you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you" John 6:53
Thus, we also ask for the Bread of Life, Holy Communion,
and to have the Word of God to supply our
spirits with food.
4.5.6 And Forgive us our Trespasses, as we Forgive those who Trespass against us
Jesus told us that if we ask for forgiveness
from our sins, that God, in his great mercy
will forgive us. However, he also told us that God forgives us only if
we also forgive others. God’s
mercy
cannot be outdone by our own mercy
to others, but we need to show others mercy. Since it is hard to
forgive sometimes, we offer our hearts to the Holy Spirit, so that we
can be filled with the ability to forgive.
4.5.7 And lead us not into temptation
We ask the Father to be with us always, especially in the presence of
temptation to sin. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand what a
test to strengthen us is and what a temptation to sin that we should
avoid is.
4.5.8 But deliver us from evil
Evil here is Satan, the devil.
Jesus has defeated the devil by the cross,
but we pray that we and all of humanity be freed from Satan’s works,
his evil. Because we have free will, we can choose evil, so we pray that God
gives us the grace to avoid sin.
4.5.9 Amen
So be it – let all things happen according to God’s will. We ask for
these things, but “ Thy Will be Done! ”
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