Prayer Life with God

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Prayer Life with God

• You are our Father
• you live in heaven
• We talk to you
• Father you are good

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What is prayer?

• Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to
  God or the requesting of good things from God.
• St. John Damascene
• CCC 2590

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• For me, prayer is a surge of the heart
• it is a simple look turned toward heaven,
• it is a cry of recognition and of love,
• embracing both trial and joy.
• St Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897

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The Why of prayer?

• You have made us for yourself O Lord
• and our hearts are restless until they rest in
  you St Augustine (354-430)
• Because I cannot rely on myself I rely on God
  twenty-four hours a day Mother Teresa
• Much knowledge is not what satisfies the soul and
  gives it contentment, but rather interior
  meditation on things and savouring them St
  Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)

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The How of prayer

• Abraham listened to God
• and went where God called
• Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country
  and your kindred and your fathers house to the
  land that I will show you. I will make of you a
  great nation, and I will bless you, and make your
  name great, so that you will be a blessing. I
  will bless those who bless you, and the one who
  curses you I will curse and in you all the
  families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram
  went, as the Lord had told him. Gen 12.1-4

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• Moses listened to God speaking in the bush that
  was burning but never consumed. Ex3
• Prophet Samuel Speak Lord your servant is
  listening 1 Sam 3.9-10
• David leads Gods chosen people and builds the
  temple as the House of prayer. He compiles the
  Psalms as the prayer of Gods people.

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Jesus Christ

• The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us
  in the Word who became flesh and dwells among
  us. To seek to understand his prayer through what
  his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to
  approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached
  the burning bush first to contemplate him in
  prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray,
  in order to know how he hears our prayer.
  CCC2598

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Prayer with words

• Formal
• Our Father Mt 5
• Hail Mary Lk 1.42
• Gloria Lk 2.14
• Informal
• Father forgive them for they know not what they
  do Lk 23.34
• Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
  Father, I thank you for you have heard me
  Jn11.41

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Prayer without words

• Jesus went into the hills to pray and spent the
  whole night in prayer with God Lk 6.12
• Meditative
• Contemplative
• Praying does not mean listening to yourself
  speak. Praying means calming down, being still
  and waiting until you hear God. Soren
  Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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• Prayer is noting more than a close sharing
  between friends it means taking time frequently
  to be alone with him who we know loves us. St
  Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
• I look at him and he looks at me A Peasant
  of Ars (1850)

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Posture in Prayer

• Stand
• Sit
• Kneel
• Hands together
• Hands held in orans

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Symbols in Prayer
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The What of prayer

• Blessing
• Petition
• Intercession
• Thanksgiving
• Praise

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Blessing

• Our response to Gods gifts we bless God who
  first blesses us and fills us with his gifts.
• God blesses us we bless God

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Petition

• We ask for Gods life to be active on earth,
  despite our shortcomings
• The greatest petition is Thy kingdom come
• We ask for pardon
• With humility and trust we ask for all our needs
  either spiritual or material.

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Intercession

• Asking God for the benefit of another.
• It conforms us to the prayer of Jesus who
  intercedes with the father for all people,
  especially sinners. Intercession extends to our
  enemies.
• We pray for the needs of all the world

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Thanksgiving

• We recognise the action of God in our world,
  especially in our need
• The Church gives thanks unceasingly, especially
  in the Eucharist in which Christ allows her to
  participate in his own thanksgiving to the
  Father.

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Praise

• The recognition that God is God.
• Praise is wonderfully disinterested prayer it
  sings Gods praise for his own sake and gives him
  glory purely because he is God.

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What is this all for?

• To this end we always pray for you, asking that
  our God will make you worthy of his call and will
  fulfil by his power every good resolve and work
  of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may
  be glorified in you, and you in him, according to
  the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 2 Thessalonians 1.11-12

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To Hold and to Share

• May you be made strong with all the strength that
  comes from his glorious power, and may you be
  prepared to endure everything with patience,
  while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who
  has enabled you to share in the inheritance of
  the saints in the light. He has rescued us from
  the power of darkness and transferred us into the
  kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have
  redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Col 1.11

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The Great Commission

• Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
  baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
  the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
  to obey everything that I have commanded you. And
  remember, I am with you always, to the end of the
  age. Mt 28.19