METHODS OF PRAYER
Basics of Prayer
"When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that God will hear them because their prayers are long... Your Father already knows what you need before you ask Him.” Matthew 6:7-8
Some Basic Attitudes and Dispositions for Meaningful and Fruitful Prayer
In praying we must:
Put ourselves in the presence of God.
Be honest and sincere, really open to His surprise(s) and generous in our response.
Learn to listen first.
Foster our awareness of the real needs of others.
Pray primarily out of love for God and not for any selfish reasons.
Gradually let our whole day become filled with little moments of remembering God.
Be disposed in sharing in the
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Starting to pray
Structure your prayer period:
1. In order to create the right atmosphere for prayer, at the start of each prayer period you must spend the first few moments doing some 'relaxation exercise' like deep-breathing, awareness of sensations, and so on. You could use these very exercises to become conscious of the Presence of God in the room, in your heart. They will serve as an effective transition from the other routines of the day. It is not always easy to plunge directly into prayer.
Next, you must become aware of God gazing lovingly at you, and acknowledge that Presence with a few loving words addressed to God, telling him how joyful you are in his presence, and asking for his grace to be receptive and generous during the period of prayer.
God, I thank you for this time of prayer, when I become conscious of your presence, and I lay before you my desires, my hopes, and my gratitude. This consciousness, this inner certainty of your presence is my greatest blessing. My life would be empty if I did not have it, if I lost you in the maze of the world, and I did not return to you from time to time, to be one with you, certain of your existence and your love. It is good that you are with me in all my difficulties and troubles and that I have in you a friend whose help is sure and whose love never changes.
(From Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship)
2. Then take up the topic for prayer of the day. Keep a copy of the Bible at hand for easy reference. Should you use other prayer materials for a particular prayer period, have them ready at hand as well.
3. End your prayer period with the Our Father. This prayer taught by Christ contains the core of our Faith – the purpose for which we are created and the goal towards which we are all striving: the praise, the reverence and the service of God.
Praise: Holy be your Name.
Reverence: Your Kingdom come.
Service: Your will be done.
We acknowledge God as Father and Provider, and we pray that we may live in harmony with one another.
(From At Home with God by Hedwig Lewis, S.J.)
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Where should you Pray?
Go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father." Matthew 6:6
Some people can pray while riding a bus, walking to work, or sitting on a park bench. But if you want to pray without interruption, you need to find a private place.
A private place has obvious advantages. For example, you may wish to pray lying down. Or you may wish to speak to God out loud. Or, you may wish to raise your arms to heaven, as some saints used to do. You can't do this easily in a public place. As a result your prayer is inhibited from the start.
Jesus prayed in private places. The Gospel says that Jesus
"departed to the mountain to pray." (Luke 6:12) And elsewhere it says
that Jesus "went off to a deserted place, where he prayed." Mark
Some prayer places you might try are:
Your bedroom.
A little-used room in your house.
Any room after the family retires or before it rises in the morning.
A corner in your garden or lawn.
An adoration chapel nearest your place.
(And if you can find one, a secluded place or corner in your working area during breaks).
The important thing about a prayer place is that it helps you pray better. The best way to determine the right place for you is through trial and error. Don't become discouraged if it takes a while to find "your" place.
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When should you pray?
Rising very early before dawn, Jesus went off to a deserted
place, where he prayed. Mark
A real estate man I know gets up early in the morning to pray; an aerospace engineer prays and reads Scripture on his lunch time; a production manager of a computing firm prays after the children are in bed at night.
Ralph Martin
Some people don't like to schedule prayer. They prefer to pray when the mood strikes. That sounds good, but it does not always work out. The demands of modern life are such that if you don't schedule a time for praying, you probably won't pray.
When two people want to become better friends, they arrange times and places to meet. They don't leave meetings to chance. The same is true when you want to deepen your relationship with God. Some popular prayer times are:
After rising in the morning,
During lunch break at
After returning home from work,
At night just before retiring.
Again, finding "your" time may take a little experimentation, but it's worth the effort.
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What posture should you use in praying?
After... Kneeling, Jesus prayed. Luke 22:41
How much would you give for a formula that guaranteed to make you look younger, brighter, more attractive---and feel that way too? Probably a lot. Yet the secret is built right into the human body, your body. All you have to do is take a few minutes now and then to check up on your posture.
Warren Young
Posture is also important in prayer. Jesus prayed not only kneeling down but also lying down (Matthew 26:39). Some acceptable prayer postures are:
Sitting in a chair, back straight, feet flat on the floor,
Kneeling at a bedside,
Lying down,
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, back straight (possibly pressed against a wall), hands on knees.
This latter posture combines rest with alertness. It may take you a couple of weeks to get used to this posture, but the effort will be well worth it. Again, trial and error offer the best way to discover which posture helps you pray best.
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How do you pray?
"This is how you are to pray." Matthew 6:9
The procedure for praying is always the same. It involves three steps:
1. Preparation - setting the stage for prayer
2. Presence - creating the climate for prayer
3. Prayer - meditating, contemplating
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Should you keep a prayer journal?
“Take a scroll and write on it. All the words I have spoken to you.” Jeremiah 36:2
A prayer journal is simply a daily record of the insights, feelings, or resolutions that occurred to you during your prayer. This record need not be long. A few sentences will do.
Spiritual directors recommend a journal to beginners to various reasons. For example, a young man who had quit praying for several weeks accidentally ran across his journal one day. He stopped what he was doing and began to read it. "Reading it," he said later, " inspired me to start praying again." Here's a sample journal entry.
March 11,
This morning I prayed sitting cross-legged on the floor, For me, this position is better than trying to pray while lying on my bed.
During prayer I felt the desire to make up with someone I've been on the outs with for a long time.
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The way some people pray.
Before the time of prayer: you usually succeed better when you have marked off a definite time and a definite place to pray and keep them carefully.
You will more readily go to prayer when you have gotten ready for it, particularly by looking over the materials you intend to use. For instance, you will have identified which passage in the Gospels you intend to contemplate, or what ideas you intend to consider.
At the end of prayer: "Since prayer means raising your mind and heart to God, you always begin by reverently asking the Lord God to let you come into the divine presence. You recognize that you are already totally known by God the Creator, who is making you moment by moment from nothing. So you will come before God consciously just the way you are at the moment, with the fears or joys, the convictions or doubts, the victories or defeats you now carry.
As you begin, you will sometimes compose yourself in a concrete place. For instance, if you are praying about the prodigal son's father, you might compose yourself at the place in the road where the father runs and meets the son. If you are considering the lilies of the field, you probably want to imagine yourself for a moment in a field riotous with wild flowers. Many of the periods of prayer in the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES suggest that you compose yourself in a specific place. Some call this "the composition of place", but keep in mind that you are rather composing yourself than a place.
At times, too when you are considering something historical, you will want to remember very briefly where your material fits into its own history. For instance, how the nativity fits into the course of human salvation or how it comes after the Annunciation. You have to decide whether this little recollection helps or not, because it is the kind of thing that helps some and hinders others.
Just as you start, remember to ask God the Lord for what you want. Each part of the Exercises offers some special gift, like accepting God's creative love or coming to know and love Jesus of Nazareth. Never omit asking God what you want just now.
While you are praying: You do not have to "cover" a certain amount of material. When you find some notion or feeling that holds you, quietly stay there. When you are finished with some prayer, move along.
About positions: When you are standing or praying along readily, you have no reason to change your position. When a position like sitting on the floor begins to distract you, then change it. You are right to try whatever position occurs to you. The point is to pray; the position makes a difference only in that light.
You help yourself a lot, and show generosity to God, when you do little things that match what you are praying about. For instance, when you are praying about Jesus’ Resurrection, have flowers on your desk or light a candle. When you are praying about sin, diet a bit or skip a couple of parties. After all, we go whole into prayer, not just our minds, so we need to prepare our whole self for it.
When you are coming to the end of the time you set for yourself, pause to ask yourself what you want especially to bring to God. Then talk with God the way you do to any revered friend. You might talk with Jesus of Nazareth or with one of the apostles or one of the groups of women who stayed with Jesus. During your prayer, you might think of God either as "You" or as "He" but when you end it, you ought always to think of God as "You".
Unless you have decided on another prayer, always end your time with the Our Father.
After that, take time for another kind of exercise, Review of Prayer. Jot down what you did during your time and what you experienced -ideas, emotions, affects, convictions, prayers. You will help yourself a great deal by this and it leads directly into preparing for further prayer.
Well before the time you set for prayer for instance, the evening before a time of Morning Prayer, look over the materials you intend to pray with. Sometimes you will even see certain points emerge from the material and note them down.
As long as you are going through the Exercises, you will tend to reflect on how well you are performing them and how seriously you are taking them. You might want to establish a specific time to do this reflection.
In everything, remember that you never make a generous gesture to God the Lord-determinedly being faithful to prayer on an occasion when it is very difficult, for instance, or putting in some added time to reflect and pray - that will exceed God's generosity to you. God always pours out gifts with regal largess when we offer to our Creator any of our own little gifts.
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Forms of Prayer.
Some Traditional Forms of Christian Prayer
Praying with Scriptures
Vocal Prayers - expressing truly what is in our hearts
The Rosary - meditations on the main events of Jesus' life
Meditation - interior reflection to have a deeper appreciation and understanding of God's presence in our daily life.
Wordless meditation or contemplation: there are neither words, thoughts nor feelings of God but rather a deep, subtle, indescribable awareness of God at a level deeper than words can express
The Jesus Prayer - consists essentially of the constant repetition of the name of Jesus: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner"
Communal Prayer
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CONSCIOUSNESS EXAMEN
St. Ignatius offers a simple technique to put you right on the track and help you "find God in all things and all things in God" – the CONSCIOUSNESS EXAMEN. This enables you to develop your spiritual resources, day by day. It takes you to where the action is.
Through the Consciousness Examen you examine the events of each day to see how aware you were of God's presence in them. In the process, you go deep into yourself to unravel the real meaning of the words you have used, the actions you performed, as well as the thoughts and desires that filed your mind and heart. Such an exercise puts you in contact with your inner self and gradually you discover the real "I" that is you. You touch the depths of your conscious and sub-conscious self.
The process of awareness that this technique envisages leads you to achieving greater spiritual freedom. You become sensitive to what or who is "pushing" you in life, and can thus determine what you must do to eliminate those that come in the way of your progress towards God.
The technique is a "feedback system" - a built-in conscience or challenge-system that monitors your progress, in an atmosphere of prayer. It is not a mere psychological or efficiency technique. It is directed towards "discernment" regarding your relationship with God. As everything else, it is God's grace that helps you to enter into it and empowers you to change your lives according to the insights received.
PROCEDURE:
You must go through this exercise at least once a day, generally at the end of the day it may last for fifteen minutes.
There are five traditional steps:
Give Thanks
Pray for Light
Examine your experiences and actions
Express Sorrow
Resolve to become and do better
1.Give Thanks
Begin this exercise with the awareness that all you are and have is a gift of God to you. You owe him everything. So naturally you will want to acknowledge his gifts and thank him for them. Such awareness will deepen your faith in God. You will realize how utterly "poor" you are, how dependent on God. You will discover how good God has been to you and thank him.
This sense of gratitude when evoked often will become an attitude that will remain with you constantly through the day. Gradually you will experience that ALL IS GIFT. This awareness alone could change your life into a thanksgiving.
Exercise: Arouse feelings of gratitude in your heart as you recall how everything you have and are is a gift of God. Thank God for everything and specifically for his gifts in the part of the day just completed. As you look over the events of the day you may discover gifts from God you did not realize had been given.
2. Pray for Light.
IT is not possible for you to look clearly into spiritual matters or into your true self with your human eyes or mind alone. You need the help of divine light to do so. You depend on God's grace for everything but especially when it comes to your relationship with God himself
Exercise: Ask God to send his Spirit to give you a growing insight into the mystery that you are. Pray that you may learn to become more and more open to all the ways which the Spirit speaks to you, so that you let your life be directed more and more by the Spirit.
Ask the Spirit to enlighten you as to how he has been directing you since the morning, in events, in people. Pray that you may be sensitive to is gifts ---peace, love, kindness, joy, patience, fidelity, gentleness, self-control. Pray that you become more and more aware of your negative attitudes which are clear signs of your lack of response to God's will and love - anxiety, restlessness, anger, jealousy, resentment...
3. Examine your experiences and actions
Look back slowly over the events, persons, and circumstances of the day. Listen to the Lord and allow him to show you where he was meeting, encountering, challenging, being present to you. Do not force yourself to remember things, but let them surface in their own way. In what way was God present in them?
Did you always behave in a Christ-like manner? Were your attitudes and feelings and actions in keeping with Gospel values? Were there opportunities for service, for doing something for the glory of God, that you let pass?
Following is a list of specific questions that a spiritual writer suggests for this exercise:
Did I feel drawn by the Lord any time today through - a companion, an event, a good book, nature, etc?
To what is he drawing me?
What have I learned today about him and his ways - in the ordinary occasion, in stray moments?
How did I meet him in - fears, joys, misunderstanding, work, suffering?
How did his word cone alive in me today - my prayer time, scripture, other readings, liturgy? In what ways have I encountered Christ through the members of my family, my community?
How have I brought Christ to them? In what ways have I been the sign of God's presence and love - to my companions, my friends, the people with whom I work, to the people I've met today?
Have I felt moved to go out of myself in concern for the lonely, sad, discouraged, and needy?
How am I becoming more and more conscious of God's work - in the larger church, in my country, in other countries of the world?
Have I experienced a growing awareness of - my being loved, my sinfulness, a desire to reciprocate, and my dependence? In what area of my being is Jesus not yet Lord?
4. Express Sorrow
You awareness of your failure to respond to God's love, whether in events or persons, will arouse in you mixed sentiments:
Sorrow for your sins and yet wonder at how God constantly brings you to newness;
A growing mistrust of self and a firm trust in God
A humble awareness of your weakness and a sense of deep joy and gratitude that you have been saved by Christ.
Exercise: There will always be some selfish attitude, action or inaction by which you showed your lack of adequate response to God's love. Express your sorrow over these.
5. Resolve to become and do better.
You must determine to keep your spirit filled with gratitude, and to take steps to get rid of mind-sets that stand between you and God. You must be open to accept the challenges God places before you.
Exercise. Get in touch with what you are feeling now: sad, discouraged, fearful, hopeful, grateful? Why? Pray for grace to recognize the ways in which the Lord is calling you in each situation of the future and to respond to his call with deeper faith, humility, courage - especially if he is calling you to a painful conversion in some areas of your heart. Ask to be filled with hope and optimism, knowing that Christ has been victorious over evil and death.
6.Conclusion
End with a prayer of confident to God. Pray the OUR FATHER.
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CONTEMPLATION
Contemplation is a deeply intimate encounter between you and your God in the depths of your heart. The secret of contemplation is to "taste and see that the Lord is good." In contemplation, you enter into a life-event or a passage of Scripture by way of imagination, and make use of all your senses.
In case of a Scripture passage, if it describes an event in the life of Christ, make the scene appear as real as possible to you by imagining you are there. Imagine what clothes the people wear, what words they speak, what things they do. Join them and get involved in whatever is going on. Talk to them. Talk to Jesus. Watch, listen, smell, touch, taste what is going on in your imagination. At times, if it seems appropriate, imagine you are the person who is directly involved with Jesus in the passage (the blind man, a disciple, the woman at the well...)
When something strikes you, gets your attention, touches you deeply, even moves you to tears, pause, ponder, pray. Become aware of God who is present there with you. Talk to Him honestly and intimately. Listen to what He says to you.
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CENTERING
"Centering Prayer" means coming to the center, the core of one's being for a moment, and desiring and acting out of that center. It is a process of collecting your scattered thoughts and feelings so that you can pray with an undivided heart and mind. Here are some practical ways of going about it. Use one or other of them each time for a short while, to come to the center so as to be ready for prayer.
Take a posture that is comfortable and prayerful. Pay attention to your posture for a moment to get your bearings. Then become aware of each part of your body, of the sensations, feelings that are present there. You may begin by becoming aware of the sensations on the crown and move progressively downward, to your nose, eyes, mouth, shoulders, chest, heels, soles, and toes. Or you may move upwards beginning with the toes. Do not linger on any part. If no particular sensation felt, move on. Gradually you will get a feel of your body as a whole. Just be aware as you stand or sit before God's presence. When peace descends, move on to prayer.
Take a relaxed, prayerful posture. Breathe normally, neither fast nor slow, deep nor shallow. Focus al your attention on your breathing. Feel the air as it touches our nostrils. Be ware of its warmth or coolness. Do not follow the breath inwards. Do not hold the breath or change the rhythm of breathing. Just breathe normally and become aware of breathing. Gradually your breathing may become more deep and peaceful. Be aware.
You may add spiritual sentiments as you go thought he exercise of breathing as described above. Each time you take a breath, be aware that the air you breathe is a gift of your Creator.
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SOME EASY WAYS OF DOING MEDITATION
Meditation is commonly done either using Scriptural passages or one's personal experiences. Going through such meditation is usually done mentally as it is basically a mental exercise. This material, however, will make use of writing as another way of doing meditation using Scriptures and Personal Experiences. Both have seven steps each as presented in by John Veltri, SJ in his manual for prayer, Orientations. Meditation is the basis of prayer. A lot of times, however, one finds himself in prayer in the course of meditation when he encounters his God in a very personal way.
WRITTEN MEDITATION ON SCRIPTURES
How shall I call upon God? The first step in entering upon the meditation is to reflect upon how God appears to me in the passage to be prayed over. What name or image do I wish to use in my personal dialogue? (Lord, Holy Spirit, Teacher, Light, Life, Provider, Truth, Friend, Father-Mother, King, etc) Using a personally chosen name in addressing God helps me to focus my thoughts and feelings and establish a sense of God's presence.
What is the heart of the matter? I begin to write a brief general statement of what is being expressed in the passage chosen. I try to capture the overall tone or quality and the essential point of the passage.
What context, background or interior dynamics involved in the situation? I allow my imagination to freely create an environment and a historical background to the scene. I feel free to creatively elaborate details in the scene, respecting still the facts involved. In so doing, I provide room for subjective feelings, memories and associations to become part of the prayer.
What do I want to ask for? I articulate in writing what I want to happen or experience in my meditation: What I desire to understand more deeply.... What I desire to be freed of... (My dear Lord, help me to understand my own blindness {pharisaical hypocrisy, self-righteousness, etc.} and heal me of it.)
What am I looking for and listening to? I take notice the different aspects of the passage such as physical details, persons, words, event of healing, forgiveness, death, etc and let thoughts, images, feelings and other associations present themselves. I keep returning to the word, image or event and take note of the symbolic connections that these details present. I record all these connections, be they direct or hidden, without judging or analyzing them. I simply make associations and connections as they arise.
What do I wish to talk about with God? I feel or imagine myself in the presence of God and enter into dialogue with Him. I say what I have in my mind and heart and then I allow or wait for God to speak to me or I allow God to speak to me first, then I respond. Then I record the dialogue as it comes to me.
I remember and evaluate. I review in my mind the sequence of feelings, free flowing thoughts and experiences involved in this prayer exercise and record these all. Then I re-read the whole meditation and note the emotions that arise from within as I read the account. I also write down how I feel about the experience as a whole.
WRITTEN MEDITATION ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
How shall I call upon God? The first step in entering upon the meditation is to reflect upon how God appears to me in the passage to be prayed over. What name or image do I wish to use in my personal dialogue? (Lord, Holy Spirit, Teacher, Light, Life, Provider, Truth, Friend, Father-Mother, King, etc) Using a personally chosen name in addressing God helps me to focus my thoughts and feelings and establish a sense of God's presence.
What is the heart of the matter? In a general statement, I write down what I intend to dwell upon during this meditation. (I wish to focus on my relationship with.... I wish to dwell on my experience of anger... I like to focus on my need for healing...)
What context, background or interior dynamics involved in the situation? I begin to fill in the details of the situation. I do this freely, without censorship or judgment. I allow what is raw in me to surface. (My feelings that time were...It all started when...
What do I want to ask for? I write down what I desire to happen or experience in this prayer period. (Lord, give me insights into this relationship... Heal me of the hurt and bitterness I am going through)
What am I waiting for and listening to? I wait and listen to any movement that surface. After focusing my desire, I wait in stillness for whatever comes to mind: images, feelings, memories or thoughts. I do not follow long associations so I keep my desire in mind as I wait for whatever appears. Some of these associations may be easier to understand but others may seem strange and obscure which perhaps may be clarified later. At this point it is essential that I simply gather my thoughts, feeling and associations without judgment as these occur. I need not be anxious should no insights take place from these chains of associations. I record them all.
What do I wish to talk about with God? I feel and imagine Jesus or any wisdom figure being present with me during my prayer. Then I enter into a dialogue with God. I allow the persons I included in my prayer to enter too in the dialogue. I say my mind and heart to God as I allow Him too to speak to me. I record the dialogue as it takes place.
I remember and evaluate. I review in my mind the sequence of feelings and experiences involved in the meditation. I record these all. Then I re-read the meditation and pay attention to whatever emotions that go with my reading. I also pay attention to how I feel about the experience as a whole.
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PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURES
Beforehand, find the passage you will pray with. When you open the book, be aware that you are in the holy presence of the Living Word; the One who guarantees all that is written.
Now, first, read through the whole passage slowly, moving your lips or even reading softly out loud (to distinguish this from that of reading reports or newspapers)
Then, second, put the book aside and from memory write down words or phrases that stay with you. (If you can recall none, check the text or read it once again, then jot down what impresses you.)
Third, take each of the words or phrases you have jotted down and think about it. What does it mean? Who said it? What was the speaker feeling? To whom was the word or phrase addressed? While you are considering this way, you may think of God in the third person.
Fourth, all along, or as you are coming to the end, think about what this all means to you: to your personal history, your life world, your life, yourself.
Finally, end this way: Consciously gather up your thoughts and then turn to God our Lord. Now think of God as "You". Tell God what you thought about, and feel in God's presence what you have felt. What would you give to God? What do you want of God?
In general, you do not "finish" a passage. A passage is not an assignment; it is a place to find God. Sometimes, you will find almost no meaning in a passage; then, beg God for insight and a tender heart and stay with the passage as long as you can.
Any passage where you find tremendous meaning, and any passage where you find nothing but dust and boredom, you need to return to these until you know you have done with it. Then go on to another. Praying with Scriptures has nothing to do with "getting through" passages and books; it has everything to do with letting the meaning and the values of each single word sink into your life.
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PRAYING WITH FANTASY
We have another way of knowing besides our reason and our memory. That way is the imagination. We use our imagination to make scientific discoveries and to create works of art that give others insight into the human condition.
We can very reasonably use our imagination to know God and His Christ better and the Church and our own selves as we grow in God. We find many ways of using our imagination in coming to know God and ourselves. To mention just a couple:
When we are considering whether to take an action even though we tend to think it morally wrong, we imagine to ourselves all the evil consequences that God would or might allow and that helps us turn away from this doubtful way of acting. Or again, when we do not know what God hopes for in us, we imagine ourselves taking one course or another, and seeing ourselves in those ways of living, we come to understand what our most authentic self calls for.
Another way of praying with our imagination is by fantasizing. In this activity, we imagine places we have never been and places that do not exist. We imagine events that never happened and could never happen. We imagine wildly and freely.
Then, in those fantasies, we let the Spirit of Life - who surely imagines infinitely more than we do - open our minds and our hearts to truths and realities that we may have been defending ourselves against by the ordinary and the conventional.
For instance, we can fantasize that we are in a place where no-good persona and no angel could come, and let evil toss us about. Then we could call on God to deliver us from temptation. Or again, we could fantasize that we are falling into the sun, which does not burn us and come to its still center; then we could shift the fantasy and imagine that we have fallen not into the sun but into God. We could let God tell us what it is like to rest at the center of the universe and of all that exists.
We can fantasize living as a lily and how utter our dependence on the Spirit of Life is then. We can fantasize living like a great person, and what we would do if we had vast fortunes and great personal power. Then we can ask which of the things we would do then we can do now.
Always when we use fantasy, we place ourselves in God's presence and beg for God's grace. We then imagine what we have set ourselves to imagine letting our fancy go free.. Even as we fantasize, we know that God our Creator and Lord stays with us. In the end, we turn to God with whatever real thing we have learned and ask the God of all consolation to confirm us.
HITS