Prayer

01The answer

What prayer actually is

The Catechism’s classic definition is short: “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”¹

That is it. Your mind. Your heart. Turned toward God. You can do that on a bus.

And here is the surprise: you are not the one who starts it. “It is he who first seeks us,” and prayer is “the encounter of God’s thirst with ours.”⁷

For a Christian, prayer is a living relationship with God the Father, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit.²

Which sounds lovely, until you sit down and have no idea what to say. If that is you, you are in good company.

02The request

“Lord, teach us to pray”

One day, after watching Jesus pray, one of his disciples asked him: “Lord, teach us to pray.”⁸

These were men who walked with him every day and watched him pray. They still felt they did not know how.

The Church says that is exactly the right place to begin. Only when we humbly admit that we do not know how to pray as we ought are we ready to receive prayer as a gift.¹ St Paul says the Spirit “helpeth our infirmity.”⁹

Jesus answered the request with a prayer of his own, which the Church calls the fundamental Christian prayer.¹⁰

“Thus therefore shall you pray: 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 supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen.”

The first Christian communities prayed it three times a day.¹⁵

Words are one way in. The Church knows two others.

03The three ways

Words, thinking, and simply being there

Christian tradition keeps three main ways of praying, and they share one thing: a heart that is paying attention.¹⁶

<b>Vocal prayer</b> uses words, said aloud or silently, and what matters most is that your heart is present to the One you are speaking to.¹⁷

<b>Meditation</b> is a search: you think about a Gospel passage, for example, to understand what the Lord is asking of you.¹⁸

<b>Contemplation</b> is the simplest of all, in St Teresa’s words “a close sharing between friends.”¹⁹

Then you actually try it. And within about ten seconds, your mind is somewhere else.

04The honest part

When your mind wanders

The Catechism does not pretend this is easy. Prayer “always presupposes effort,” and it even calls prayer a battle.²⁰

“The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction.” The advice is gentle: do not go hunting distractions down; simply turn back to your heart.²¹

So your mind drifts to the shopping list. Notice it. Smile. Come back. No scolding required.

Which leaves the most practical question of all. When?

05The ending

An ordinary Tuesday

The Church says we cannot pray at all times if we never pray at specific times.²² So it suggests simple rhythms: morning and evening prayer, and grace before and after meals.¹³

Look again at the painting at the top of this page: Millet’s The Angelus. Two farm workers have stopped in a field at dusk, heads bowed. No church. No special clothes. Just a pause in an ordinary working day.

Five minutes. Same time, same place, a few honest words. That is how it starts.