Begin With Prayer

During Lent, we are called to the spiritual practices of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. During this Lenten Season we will be offering a variety of prayer practices. You may not experience an affinity with all of these practices. Nevertheless, they are practices found helpful and followed by many different people of faith.

Let us begin with an Opening Prayer:

Lord, I am yours,
and I must belong to no one but you.
My soul is yours,
and must live only by you.
My will is yours,
and must love only for you.
I must love you as my first cause,
since I am from you.
I must love you as my end and rest,
since I am for you.
I must love you more than my own being,
since my being subsists by you.
I must love you more than myself,
since I am all yours and all in you.
Amen.

St. Francis de Sales

Underlying all of these spiritual practices is prayer. Prayer is a lifelong and ongoing journey between God and you. Prayer helps us to grow in meaningful relationships with God, leading us to experience more meaningful relationships with others, with ourselves, and the world around us. In its simplest form, prayer is having a personal conversation with God, who calls us into loving communion and friendship with God and with all people of God. We respond to this call with an attitude of love, awareness, intention, awe, wonder, adoration, praise, worship, humility, surrender, dependency, and trust. In prayer, we talk to God about what concerns us, our needs and the needs of others, what we are thankful for, where we have failed to love, and we ask for God’s help, discernment, forgiveness, and grace.

Most importantly, we rest in the silence of our mind and with an open heart to listen to God speaking to us. Sometimes, we experience God’s voice directly and immediately in our hearts. Other times, we find God’s response unfolding through the events or persons we encounter in life. Prayer does not change God but rather helps transform us into the person who God calls us to become—the image and likeness of a loving, compassionate, and merciful God, exemplified by Jesus, the human face of God for us.

The basic ways of praying are adoration, petition, repentance, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise. The willingness to "pray in a daily, sustained, and structured manner is essential to becoming a prayerful person."

There are three, general kinds of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative. These forms include personal and communal expressions, formal and informal paths, popular piety, and the liturgical prayer of the Church.

We engage in vocal prayer when we offer our prayers orally, either individually or communally, such as during Mass. In meditative prayer, we use our thoughts, emotions, imagination, and desires to deepen our faith and to discern God’s will and plan for us. We do this through the use of aids such as Sacred Scripture, creation, sacred writings and icons, liturgical texts, and other resources. There are many methods of meditative prayer, with the most prominent being the Lectio Divina, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, and the simplicity of Franciscan spirituality. In contemplative prayer we rest and attentively offer ourselves in love, listening in the silence of our heart, mind, and soul to God, who speaks and transforms us.

Pray without ceasing" (1 Thes 5:17).

Follows are some videos and other resources to help you better understand prayer, some of its forms, expressions, types, and practices of prayer and to apply them to your life. However, the best way to start is just by offering your time, attention, presence, mind, heart, and soul to God.

VIDEOS

"What is Prayer? (Bishop Don Hying)

"How Am I Suppose to Pray?" (Bishop Don Hying)

"Prayer" (Bishop Robert Barron)

"Prayer" (Fr. James Martin, S.J.)

"Introduction to the Power of Prayer"

"The Five Forms of Prayer"

"Three Expressions of Prayer"

"Being Catholic: How Catholics Pray"

"A Users Guide on the Ways to Pray"

"The Nature of Meditation and Contemplation" (James Finley, Ph.D.)

OTHER RESOURCES

"Catholic Spirituality in Practice" (C21 Resources)

"A User's Guide on the Ways to Pray" (Vocationsnetwork.org)

"Catholic 101: What is Prayer? How Do I Pray"

"How to Pray: A Catholic Guide to the Interior Life"

"Prayers and Devotions" (USCCB)

"God Calls Us to Pray"(USCCA, pp. 461–480)

"Christian Prayer" (CCC, Nos. 2558–2758, pp. 613–660)

REFLECT ON YOUR EXPERIENCE

What practices help you pray?
Do you dedicate a particular time of day or place for prayer?
Do you focus on a verse from Scripture, an image or word, or hold a Rosary?
What else helps you pray?

How has prayer helped you to grow in your relationship with God and transformed your life?

We encourage and invite you to  spend time to reflect, pray, and write in your journal about what you have read, seen, heard, or experienced this week. You can find some questions you may wish to consider here.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, in now, and ever shall be.
Amen.