PRAYER

By Catholic Answers Chaplain, Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem

1. What is prayer? 

2. What are the kinds of prayer? 

3. What does the Bible teach about prayer? 

4. What is liturgical prayer? 

5. What is the Mass? 

6. What is the Our Father? 

7. What is the Hail Mary? 

8. What is the rosary? 

9. What is a blessing? 

10. What are some other important Catholic prayers? 

11. Doesn’t the Bible condemn “repetitious” prayers like the rosary? 

12. Is it wrong to pray using statues or religious art? 

13. Is it wrong to pray to saints or ask for their intercession? 

14. Doesn’t asking God for things in prayer attempt to change his will? 

15. I prayed for something and God didn’t grant it. Why? 

16. Why do Catholics pray for the dead? 

17. Why do I have to say traditional prayers in a Church? Can’t I just pray to God in my own way wherever I am? 

18. What is mystical prayer? 

19. How much should I pray every day? 

20. How can I learn to pray better? 

Introduction 

There is saying one sometimes sees on posters or bumper stickers: “Prayer Is the Answer.” Well, we can hope that in offering twenty answers on the subject of prayer, this little volume will be especially profitable to the inquiring Christian soul. There is no other activity more powerful and valuable than prayer. There is no better use of our mind and will, of our imagination, memory, and affections, and even of our bodies, than prayer. St. Alphonsus Ligouri calls prayer “the great means of salvation” and he goes on to say that “he who prays is saved.” There is nothing more important than our eternal salvation. Our salvation is due to our union with Christ and his holy ones, and prayer achieves this union. This little book is not filled with quotations and learned references; it is written straightforwardly and simply. Learning about prayer is really the work of a lifetime, and as we grow in the practice of prayer we are continually learning more and more. This work is just to begin or to fill in some gaps or to inspire or renew your life of prayer. That life is as vast and deep as is the love of God, who draws us to him in prayer by his great care and mercy. The tradition of prayer from which we will draw is predominantly that of the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, though much could be said along the same lines making use of the Eastern Christian traditions as well. It is hoped that these answers will be helpful to all Christians of whatever tradition, as the life of prayer is essentially one since it seeks union with the one God. We pray that the Blessed Mother of God, and our Mother, will be with us to make us feel most deeply what she can teach us best, namely, that prayer is indeed “the answer.” 

1. What is prayer? 

We may say most simply that prayer is asking for things from God or the angels and saints that we cannot get on our own. It is also for this reason an awareness of who they are in relation to us: a climbing up, as it were, to them, an ascent, a going-up in hope. This going-up to God and his holy ones is the expression of our will, our desire to possess the good things they alone can obtain for us. This desire , which is the basis of prayer, proceeds from the depths of our hearts where God dwells present even more deeply than we are present to ourselves. In prayer, then, to ascend means not only to rise higher, but also to go more deeply within. You may notice that this description of prayer includes every way of praying possible, from the first recited prayers of little toddlers to the contemplative rapture of the mystic and—for most of us—the busy, burdened practice of prayer in the midst of our duties as well as our prayers in common together in the worship of the Church. Prayer is both brief and prolonged, public and private, vocal and mental. When we say “things that we cannot get on our own,” we mean that they are really beyond our powers or our reach. Prayer expresses our real dependence on God and the saints. We have many things that with our human abilities we have learned to do “on our own”; for these we do not need to pray (except perhaps in thanksgiving, since we know we can never adequately thank our good Lord for all his has given to us!). 4 Happiness in this life and the next is perhaps the first thing for which we pray, since none of us can make himself happy on his own without God. Thus, when we ask for things that are mostly in our power, things we could buy or earn, we ask for them in prayer because we want them only if they can be a means to what we cannot have by ourselves: happiness, grace, holiness, eternal life. Thus we only pray on the condition that what we desire is pleasing to God and our heavenly friends on whom we depend. But even more than happiness, there is a second common motive for prayer: to seek God’s mercy in pardoning our sins and healing us from their accumulated (or accumulating!) effects in and around us. Because prayer for mercy expresses in the deepest form a need we cannot fulfill, it is the prayer that is most certainly heard as soon as it is offered. Happiness may come later, very much later perhaps, but mercy is a quality so proper to God that he bestows it at once when we pray going up to him with a contrite heart. We have a great and mysterious bargain here: nothing is more displeasing to God and more unlike prayer than sin, and nothing is more pleasing to God than when we ask him in prayer to forgive our sin. After our own happiness and pardon, we pray for those who are dear to us, of course, and our enemies (those who may have hurt us or whom we dislike or resent), that all may have the happiness and forgiveness we desire for ourselves. As you may have noticed, prayer is not exactly meditation or contemplation of heavenly things; meditation readies us and disposes us to pray and increases our desire for the happy-making union with these realities, but prayer is the causal force that obtains what we desire. It is a way of making the best things happen to us and to others because we are one with the One who is good and all-powerful and who can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. 

2. What are the kinds of prayer? 

Normally we ask for things in words. Prayer is no different. We must never look down on simple vocal prayers, no matter how common or simple or rote. If in prayer we happen to stop speaking in words, it is still a conversation of the heart, like the silent presence of two friends to each other, but we must remember that they got to where they are first of all by speaking. Thus we “say” our morning prayers, and our rosary, our Divine Office; and, for priests, our Mass. We should never be snobs about vocal prayer! Yet when we speak in words truthfully, we mean what we say. Meaning what we say is the essence of what we call mental prayer, which is the necessary participation of our inner mind and will in what we are saying in prayer. Now obviously, the “meaning” part of prayer is more essential than the more basic verbal or vocal part. When the meaning begins to predominate over the precise words used in prayer, then we have embarked on the journey of mental prayer. Our heart is attending to the presence of God and his mysteries, which our words cannot adequately express. Yet we are still asking, pleading for a greater share of these marvels that surpass our powers of speech or action. Usually, prayer in which the heart’s thought of the meaning predominates is called meditation or contemplation, and usually, but not always, this mental prayer follows on our vocal prayer, and 5 usually ends with it as it gently concludes its time with the Lord. In the matter of mental prayer, the one praying and God and the saints act with great freedom, adapting the prayer to the character of each. This is what we do in all conversation with those whom we love. We should not draw up a diagram of how it all works and try to follow it. We simply speak to and attend to the God whom we love, and many good things follow! But this distinction of vocal and mental prayer is just an indication of which of our human faculties are being employed in order to pray. There remain the various kinds of prayer based on our motives for prayer. Adoration is the first. This means the willing submission of our bodies and souls along with our possessions and powers to the One who is the source of them all and has power over them all. Thanksgiving is next. By this we acknowledge the gift we have been given, a gift that can never be fully repaid but must cause in us a response of gratitude. This should be done as soon and as often as possible. Prayer of thanksgiving protects us from many evils and misjudgments about God and about other people. A grateful man is never deceived in his judgments, even if he is not clever. Reparation is third. In this prayer we aspire to make up for the wrong we or others have done, and thus join our Jesus on the cross in his prayer: a very great thing indeed! Finally, there is petition. As we noted, all prayer is an “asking” in some way or other. Just as in the case of vocal prayer, we should never look down on prayers of petition. God loves to give us things that are good for us, and is very pleased when we ask and seek and knock. In a real sense, the prayer of petition includes the other types and forms of prayer. It implies adoration, thanks, and making up for wrongs along with the good things it seeks. 

3. What does the Bible teach about prayer? 

The most important biblical teachings about prayer are found in two places. First, in the Psalms. These poetic prayers cover all the aspects of human life and of creation, every emotion from the most joyful to the most desperate and bitter. They teach us how to pray and also give us the permission to pray in ways that can be very surprising, but that increase our confidence in praying. They are the predominant models of prayer and have something for every situation. The most familiar of them are Psalm 23 and Psalm 51, but any Christian should pray through them all. Then we have Our Lord’s teaching on prayer, which we call the Lord’s Prayer or “Our Father,” found in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. Along with this we have his teaching in Matthew’s Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. chs. 5-7) about the best dispositions for prayer. Most tellingly, we have the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee in Luke (18:9-14), where Jesus teaches us how to pray and how not to pray. Then throughout the Bible there are examples of prayer among God’s holy ones, like the song of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea in Exodus 15, or the song of the three young men in the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, the prayer of Susanna in chapter thirteen of the same book, the 6 wedding night prayer of Tobit in chapter eight the book named for him, Job’s complaints in his book, the canticles of Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon in Luke’s Gospel, and the magnificent prayers of the elect and the angels in the book of Revelation. In fact, any place in the Old or New Testaments when someone is speaking to God the Father or Jesus, or with an angel like Gabriel or holy person like Abraham, we have an example of how to pray. The most important thing that the Bible teaches about prayer, at least from the practical standpoint, is that it is meant to become constant, even continual. It is not dependent on our being in a devout or religious mood, or upon being elated or enthusiastic, although these feelings may help us from time to time. Prayer is for all times and occasions. The scriptures teach us this. If we are bored at the thought of getting to our prayers, this is all the more reason to pray. Weariness or disappointment are no excuse. Of course, what we say in prayer may change with our moods, and we are free to tell God whatever we want. He will know how to respond to us! The Bible reminds us that God is far greater than our hearts, so we are free to go to him in any state of mind or heart. (We cannot say this of any of our earthly friends, however close to us they may be.) God and his saints and angels can hear us out any time. What a consolation this is! They surround us like a cloud, we are told, and are always ready for us to ask for what we need; and since what we need is beyond our power, it is the object of prayer. The Bible provides us with many short prayers we can use all through the day. All we have to do is go to the Psalms or the Gospels and pick a phrase that draws us: “I love you, Lord my strength.” “I will give thanks to the Lord at all times.” “Have mercy on me O God.” “O God, come to my help.” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” “Glory to God in the highest.” “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” “My Lord and my God!” “Lord, you know that I love you.” Using these short vocal prayers over and over can lead us up to God and make our desires conform with his. This is the effect that asking God and the saints for what we cannot do on our own is supposed to have on our hearts: we are lifted up to him. The New Testament tells us that God the Holy Spirit himself prays in us. Frequent short prayers make us aware of this marvelous fact. 

4. What is liturgical prayer? 

Our prayer becomes especially significant and powerful when it unites us with the whole Body of Christ, that is, with Christ its head and with all of his members. This kind of prayer is the prayer of the Church; it is above all a communion of prayer through union with the Lord, who is the first of “pray-ers.” The word liturgy comes from an ancient Greek word signifying a public duty to be performed by the free citizens or subjects of the state. So we may say that liturgical prayer is the prayer that is a public duty. Its form and frequency are determined by the Church, which expresses its life and its needs and its desires through its prayer. Examples of liturgical prayer include the holy 7 sacrifice of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours (which includes the daily recitation of the Psalms at fixed times or “hours” throughout the day), Communion services, and each of the sacramental rites (such as the rite of baptism, confession, anointing of the sick, etc.). This prayer belongs to the whole Church, and yet certain members of the Church are designated to perform it daily on behalf on everyone else. Priests, deacons, and religious are the ones given this sweet duty, and they take it up when they are ordained or make their vows. Thus they are obliged to take up liturgical prayer each day in the form of the Liturgy of the Hours. Among the faithful in general, the only liturgical prayer to which they are bound is that of the Sunday or holy day Mass, and also to any parts of the rites of the sacraments that they receive or give. The rite of marriage, for example, is a liturgy performed by the lay couple themselves, and even confession has some liturgical aspects that regard the penitent. This last point shows us that the idea that liturgy is public does not exclude the possibility that liturgy may be performed by one who is alone. Even if said in private, the liturgical prayers we say are part of a public duty, as when a priest or deacon prays the Psalms of the hours by himself, or when a priest for some good reason says Mass all by himself. The truth is that every liturgical prayer, since it is the prayer of the whole Church, is made in union with the saints and angels in the heavenly Church Triumphant. As the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours states: The Church joins in singing that canticle of praise which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven; it is a foretaste of the heavenly praise sung unceasingly before the throne of God and the Lamb, as described by John in Revelation. Our intimate union with the Church in heaven is put into effect when “with common rejoicing we celebrate together the praise of the divine majesty” (16). It is important to remember, however, that even if most of the faithful do not have the official duty of prayer in the liturgy, liturgical prayer nonetheless belongs to them as members of the Church, and they may participate in it simply in virtue of the baptism that makes them belong to the Church. After all, the prayer is for them. All the faithful share in the fruits of this kind of prayer, even if they are not actually performing it. In a certain real sense, liturgical prayer is the highest form of prayer for Christians in this world since it is the most universal in scope and the most constant. It is also the most powerful and effective form of prayer. No mere individual or private prayer can claim to be the prayer of the Church. And because the Church is the Body of Christ, Christ prays whenever the prayer of the Church is recited: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:20). We get the grace to pray on our own individually from the grace that flows from this prayer for all. This is so true that the scriptures present the life of heaven in terms of a great liturgy. 

5. What is the Mass? 

When we say that liturgical prayer is the highest form of prayer, we mean that as prayer it is the highest. But prayer reaches its highest use in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in which we can say that prayer goes beyond prayer. 8 There is no doubt that the Mass is prayer, but it so in a way far more powerful than our other prayers, whether private or public, vocal or mental. For the Mass is not only a prayer, it is a sacrifice. The Mass presents, under the appearances of bread and wine, the body and blood of the Lord as an offering for the salvation of the living and the dead and for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. The Mass is accompanied by the most important and sublime prayers of the Church’s liturgy, but at its heart it contains a prayer utterly beyond any other in its power. When the priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer, he repeats Our Lord’s words that established and accomplished his sacrifice, and when he does so, the bread and wine on the altar are changed into the flesh and blood of the Savior. These holy things are thereby offered as a sacrifice as truly as they were when Jesus died on they cross. Thus this sacrificial offering contains the whole of Christ: his body and blood, his soul and his divinity. The Mass has all the power of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and petition, and accomplishes these actions without any limit for the living and the dead. All graces, all gifts, all blessings come to us from the sacrifice of Christ, and he has given us this sacrifice to offer to the Father surrounded by our prayers and containing all of his. The Mass is the source of prayer and so goes infinitely beyond it. The faithful have always wisely perceived this infinite advantage of the Mass over all other prayer, and so have been eager that their priests offer the Mass for their intentions. And they have, with true spiritual insight, learned to offer each day’s prayers in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass offered throughout the world. The Mass is especially desired for the souls in purgatory—the souls of the departed still in need of purification. Since they cannot pray for themselves, Christ’s sacrifice pleads his blood on their behalf and brings them into heaven. Further, when we pray after receiving Holy Communion from the Mass, we make our own prayers (for example, a rosary or some part of the Liturgy of the Hours) all the more precious and attentive by our union with the body and blood of the Savior. For this reason, too, the faithful delight to pray before the sacred Host, which remains in our tabernacles after Mass is ended to unite their prayers with this prayer that is beyond all prayer. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, in which when we come to the quiet of the presence of Jesus and pour out our hearts in prayer to him, are of all prayers the sweetest. Sadly, today, many find that they are unable to come to Holy Communion because of some problem with their way of life. Yet is remains true that they can still come to holy Mass or have Mass offered; and, most importantly for their prayer on their own, they can visit the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle at any time. They need not feel separated from the Lord in his presence and sacrifice; rather they should seek it all the more so as to have their prayers for healing and strength and pardon heard. If they do this, they will discover the happiness of prayer and so turn bit by bit from the sins and bad habits they have developed. Soon enough, if they pray like this, they will overcome whatever stands in the way. In the Blessed Sacrament, prayer is more than prayer: it is the all-powerful Son of God who became one of us so that we might never hesitate to come to him. 9 

6. What is the Our Father? 

If prayer is concerned with things we cannot do on our own, then a prayer that asks God how to pray is especially important. The Our Father is our prayer about prayer itself and it is perfectly answered by the Lord. “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). This is what the Savior’s disciples asked him. Of course any answer coming from his would be a perfect answer. His answer was the Our Father or the “Lord’s Prayer.” This prayer really is perfect model of how we should pray, for what things we should pray, and in what order. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. First off, this prayer teaches us that we should desire the glory and honor of God as the first intention of our prayer, no matter what we may be praying for. Thus we pray that God’s name be honored and held holy. Then we pray that his will be done as perfectly among us on earth as his angels accomplish it in heavenly kingdom. There would be no point in praying unless we wanted God’s will to be done. Nothing would be ultimately helpful to us if it is against his will, even if it is what we wanted. Give us this day our daily bread. Then, after those two most universal intentions—God’s glory and his will—we pray for the things we need in order to glorify him and be united to him. Our “daily bread” means all that we need to serve him here and now, first of all his supernatural gift of the daily bread of his body in the Holy Sacrament, and then the necessities of life we need each day. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. Thus far the prayer has been all about positive things: God’s glory and his gifts to us each day. But there are also obstacles to his glory and his gifts. These are our sins, and other people’s sins against us that we tend to resent. We need God’s forgiveness for our ungratefulness in sinning, especially when we are in the act of asking him for good things, and of course we have to be willing to forgive others if we ourselves want to be forgiven. This is the hardest petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the one we struggle with the most. It is so important that it is the only part of the Lord’s Prayer given in Mark’s Gospel (11:25). Really, if 10 we can forgive those who have hurt us, we will receive what we ask from God, because we will be acting like him and pleasing him. God loves a forgiving heart more than anything. And lead us not into temptation, But there is not only sin; there is also the struggle against sin we have to endure when we are tempted. Here we are in complete need of help and grace, even though we realize that is for our good—that we need to struggle in order to be faithful to God. He will be faithful to us as well in time of trial. But deliver us from evil. Amen. The last negative: there is the devil, our spiritual enemy who constantly tries to remove us from God’s glory, his holiness, his kingdom, his Eucharist, his pardon, and his help. Although the English and Latin versions of the Our Father pray simply for us to be delivered from “evil,” the Greek original clearly prays for us to be delivered from the “Evil One.” Thus our most common prayer taught us by the Lord himself contains a little exorcism against the devil. In short, then, the Our Father teaches us the goal and the means, and the obstacles to be overcome as we seek holiness. The Lord really did answer the apostles’ prayer when they asked him how to pray. Glory be to him for, as the liturgy concludes our praying of this prayer at holy Mass, his is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever! 

7. What is the Hail Mary? 

The Hail Mary is a short prayer of praise and supplication in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, Now and at the hour of our death. Amen. The first half of the prayer is taken directly from Scripture, combining the words of the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28) and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth at the Visitation (Luke 1:42). These words are words of praise, recognizing how much God’s grace has favored and sanctified Mary. It was commonly in use as a regular prayer by the mid-eleventh century. The second part is a prayer of supplication, beseeching the mother of God to pray for us in the two most important times in our lives: “now” and “at the hour of our death.” This part was added later, and we see the entire Hail Mary as we currently pray it appearing in print for the first time in 1495. The sixteenth-century Catechism of the Council of Trent says that since in the first part of the Hail Mary “we render to God the highest praise and return him most gracious thanks, because he 11 has bestowed all his heavenly gifts on the most holy virgin,” the Church has “wisely added prayers and an invocation addressed to the most holy mother of God” trusting confidently that “she possesses exalted merits with God, and that she is most desirous to assist us by her prayers” (IV). Scripture teaches us that both angels and saints have praised the Virgin Mary. Moreover, Mary herself, when filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied that all generations would call her blessed (Luke 1:48). It is clear, therefore, that in reciting the Hail Mary, the members of the Church are fulfilling the will of God in imitating the angels and saints and in fulfilling the prophecy of Scripture. Scripture also teaches that we should seek the intercession of holy persons (see Job 42:8), and that the souls of the just are alive in God and can hear our prayers (Luke 16:24; Mark 12:26-27). Therefore, in asking for the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray for us, we also fulfill God’s holy will. The “Hail Mary” is the oldest and most imitated and most powerful Christian prayer. It is the oldest because its beginning was spoken at the moment when Christ was conceived in Mary’s womb, at the very beginning of Christianity when the divine Son of God became the human son of his mother. It is the most imitated because its structure is used constantly in Christian prayers, whether long or short, public or private. It moves from announcing and praising the work of God to asking for something because of his work just praised. And it is the most powerful prayer because it focuses, right in the heart of the prayer, on the holy name of Jesus, in which we ask for all we need as Jesus taught us: “If you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name” (John 16:23). This prayer came literally from heaven, as it was first pronounced for human ears by the Archangel Gabriel when he appeared to Our Lady. Along with the Lord’s Prayer, with which it often prayed, it comes not as a mere human composition, but as one composed by God for our help and instruction. And so it is that heaven has continually reminded us and even warned us that we should use this prayer often by praying the rosary each day (see answer 8). In her apparitions, Our Lady told us to pray it. The Church has encouraged us to pray it. Pope Leo XIII was so convinced that the Church should recite the rosary that he authored twelve encyclicals on the rosary during his pontificate! Now, and the hour of our death: someday those two moments will become the same moment, our last. How blessed we will be in that hour to have prayed this wonderful prayer faithfully and often, echoing heaven and all the faithful on earth down through the ages! 

8. What is the rosary? 

If you have read attentively the first seven answers, then you will have practically all the material you need to understand what the rosary is. The earliest origin of the rosary is the liturgy of the Church, especially in monasteries, where the monks and nuns pray the 150 Psalms at various times of the day spread throughout the week in what we call now the Liturgy of the Hours. This can be a very time-consuming practice lasting some hours each day; thus there developed for private use the practice of substituting the Our Father and the Hail Mary for the Psalms. These were divided into three sets of fifty Hail Marys in sets of ten called decades. Each set was headed by an Our Father. 

Yet the rosary offers something new in addition to these familiar themes: mediation and contemplation with the vocal prayers recited. The decades are divided into groups of five decades, each of which is devoted to meditation of some mystery or event in the life of the Savior and his mother. This contemplative aspect nourishes the recitation of the prayers and allows the soul to experience the sweetness of prayer. It is a delving into the deepest meaning of our life of prayer. 

This may sound a bit complicated, but it’s not at all. As our bodies are occupied with reciting the prayers, our mind is freed up to consider the mysteries of faith. This combination of meditation and prayer establishes a rhythm and a pace for the movements of our soul. Not only this, but this type of prayer is possible at all times, and it is fully compatible with other things we may need to do (such as driving, or when unable to sleep when we are in bed, or when waiting in the doctor’s office, etc.). 

More often than not there are other prayers added before and after the rosary proper, but the essential ones are the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary Usually we pray the rosary using a chaplet of beads or knots, in order to keep track of the prayers, but as nature has supplied us with our fingers and toes, the use of the beads is not required! The string of beads is also called a rosary, although the term refers principally to the prayers and not to the physical object. 

There are other forms of rosaries or chaplets such as the Divine Mercy chaplet, the Servite Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, the Franciscan Rosary of the Seven Joys of Our Lady, the Brigettine and Carmelite rosaries, or, very importantly, the rosary of the Jesus Prayer, which is an ancient form that comes from the Eastern churches. The form we’re describing here, which is the one meant when we speak of the rosary without any other qualifications, is the form that according to tradition was given by Our Lady to St. Dominic. Many times in history, Mary has appeared from heaven to encourage us to pray the rosary. Its power is credited with the unlikely and crucial Christian victory over the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 (commemorated with the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary). And every modern pope has recommended that we pray it. The holiest prayers, used to contemplate the most powerful mysteries: here is an effective combination indeed! 

9. What is a blessing? 

A blessing is a prayer that does one or both of two things. It may make the person or the object into a sacred person or object—something or someone who is set apart for holy purposes— and/or it may be a plea for the health or happiness or success or good state of someone or something. Because a blessing has and confers a sacred significance, a blessing is also a sacramental: that is, a sacred sign that sanctifies. It is not as powerful as the sacraments, but it can help prepare us to receive and benefit from the sacraments more efficaciously. 13 Now, only God can make a person or thing belong to him alone, so we must ask him for this sacred character in prayer, and a blessing is this kind of prayer. Examples are the blessing of an abbot or abbess of a monastery, the blessing of holy water, and of holy oil in the oil of the sick, holy medals and images, and so on. These blessings are called constitutive blessings because they constitute the person or thing as holy. They are given only by sacred ministers, with few exceptions. But the vast majority of blessings are simply invocations: prayers for the protection or health or flourishing of persons and things. Examples include blessings before meals, blessings on our priests or ourselves or our little ones, blessings of crops or animals, and blessings of houses and businesses. The scriptures include abundant references to blessings in both the Old and New Testaments. In Genesis, God blesses all the living creatures and especially Adam and Eve, telling them to be fertile, to multiply, and to fill the earth and subdue it (1:22, 28). After the Flood, God blesses Noah and his sons (Gen. 9:1). The Lord commands Moses to confer this blessing for all the Israelites: “The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Num. 6:24- 26). In the New Testament, Jesus blesses people and things: the little children (Mark 10:13-16), the apostles at the Ascension (Luke 24:50-53). the loaves (Mark 6:34), and the bread at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:26-30). Jesus also taught his disciples to bless their enemies: “Bless those who curse you,” (Luke 6:28); and St. Paul instructed the Romans to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom 12:14). We put great value on the blessings given by priests, but in fact any Christian may bless as an invocation. It is an old custom for parents to bless their children before bed or before going on a journey, for example, and of course we bless our food before eating it. The Catechism says that “every baptized person is called to be a ‘blessing,’ and to bless,” although “the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons)” (1669). There is one aspect of blessing that is very ancient, and that is the aspect of thanks for the thing to be blessed. We actually bless a thing when we praise the work and power of God who made it. We tell of his goodness and so we are said to bless God, and in this way bless the things we have brought before him. A very beautiful and ancient example of this is the blessing of the Easter candle on the vigil of Easter. This is a solemn blessing that consists solely of praise and the narration of God’s works, though it never actually says, “Bless this candle”! A blessing is thus a very powerful expression of gratitude that pleases God and draws down on us further blessings. 

10. What are some other important Catholic prayers? 

There is a prayer that is both a gesture that has an obvious meaning and an invocation that brings us back each time we pray it to the beginning of our supernatural life of grace as children of God in baptism. It is called the sign of the cross.  In this prayer we bring together the saving work of Jesus in his sacrifice on the holy cross with calling on the Most Holy Trinity, who dwells in us by grace and who is the soul of our soul, as it were—the source and substance of our spiritual life. Tracing the pole and arms and of the cross from our foreheads to our breast to our shoulders, we pray in the name of the Persons of the Godhead. This gesture begins and ends all our prayers. It most clearly identifies us as believing, apostolic Christians. It is also common to make a small sign of the cross with our thumb on our forehead. This little sign of the cross is the usual way by which lay people bless each other (parents and children, for example). This is also a prayer in times of temptation and danger, and should be the first thing we do on waking and the last thing we do when doing to sleep. Among the churches of the East and the West there are slightly different ways of “crossing” ourselves, but everywhere the sign of the cross is the prayer that comes along with all our other prayers. The ultimate goal of our Christian life is the glory of the Blessed Trinity. “Glory” means recognition with joyful praise. The Christian prayer of praise is called the doxology, from the Greek word for praise. There is the lesser doxology, which is often called the Glory Be—familiar to many as the conclusion of the decades of the rosary or as the final verse of a psalm or canticle from the Liturgy of the Hours. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. There is also the greater doxology which is prayed at Mass on Sundays and feast days. This longer prayer begins with “Glory to God in the highest.” At Mass the Eucharistic prayer ends with its own doxology, as well as the Our Father. The lesser doxology is useful in the midst of our daily duties as a way of praising God and referring our works to him. Most prayers are directly addressed to God the Father or God the Son. Fewer prayers are directly addressed to God the Holy Spirit (there are reasons for this, but this not because the Holy Spirit is less divine or powerful than the Father and the Son), but it is the Spirit who moves us to pray. We ask him for his light and inspiration in all things. The prayer “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful” is commonly prayed before beginning any work or study or meeting for which we need the understanding and the love to accomplish our task. After the Hail Mary, one of the most common prayers to Our Lady is called the Memorare, which is Latin for “Remember!” This beautiful and consoling prayer shows great confidence in the power of her intercession and our awareness of our own weakness. Another important Marian prayer is the Angelus, which is prayed at dawn, noon, and dusk. This prayer brings to mind the great mystery of the Incarnation with three versicles and three Hail Marys. During the Easter season, it is replaced by the Regina Caeli or “O Queen of Heaven, rejoice!” which congratulates Mary for the triumph of Jesus over sin and death. These prayers are a very fine way of sanctifying our day, on rising, at noon, and on going to rest. In many places the church bells are rung to mark this daily praise of Christ and his holy Mother. 

The goodness of God has given each us a powerful and loving angelic spirit whose wonderful work is to help and protect us on the way to heaven. We should be eager to have access to his wisdom and power, but since these gifts are not magic, we should be mindful and ask for them. Thus the faithful pray the prayer to our guardian angels that begins, “Angel of God my guardian dear...” This is a prayer for children, of course, but even more for adults The blessing before and grace after meals is easily the most frequent of prayers that the faithful say together. The familiar form “Bless us O Lord…” is known all over and in every language. Unfortunately, the grace after meals has largely fallen out of use. We ought to try to remember to pray after meals as well as before, whether we are alone or with others. Christian prayer is always mindful of the faithful who have died. This prayer is essential to our Christian devotion. It shows that the communion of the life of prayer is not ended with death, and it helps the departed reach their eternal happiness. Thus we pray a common prayer for the dead: Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord And let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, Through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. When our time comes and we are perhaps in purgatory, we will not regret having prayed often for the faithful departed! There are some very useful prayers that come from the tradition of the catechisms in use at various times and places. These are the acts of faith, hope, love, and contrition. This last “act” is the most familiar to the faithful since they are taught to use it when they go to confession. There are various versions of these acts, but they provide the essential meaning of faith, or hope, or love, or sorrow for sin, and they ask for an increase of these virtues that knit our hearts and minds to God. These prayers teach and remind us as we pray. It is a very good practice to pray them in the morning each day, adding the act of contrition before we go to bed at night. With this simple repertoire of prayers we can surround our lives with the thought of God and holy things, and become people of prayer, growing in union with God all the way to heaven! 

11. Doesn’t the Bible condemn “repetitious” prayers like the rosary? 

In Matt 6:7, Jesus says, “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Notice first that this is not an unqualified condemnation of repetition during prayer, but rather of “meaningless” or “empty” repetition, “as the Gentiles do.” In contrast to this, we find many places in Scripture where saints and angels repeat their prayers. Jesus repeats the same prayer three times in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:44). In the book of Revelation, the four living creatures “day and night never cease to sing: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” (4:8). And the inspired word of God includes highly repetitious prayers such as Psalm 136 (more on that later). Jesus even implies that we should recite the Our Father daily since it makes reference to asking for our “daily bread.” Nowhere does he warn against saying this prayer too much. And so, far from condemning all repetitious prayer, the Bible often commends or commands it! What the Bible does criticize is the notion that the mere quantity of words makes our prayers acceptable to God. It also condemns empty or meaningless repetition. St. Augustine, in his rule of life, speaks to this very fact in religious prayer: “Ponder in your hearts what your lips are saying”; and again: “Your prayers should be the more sincere the more frequently you repeat them.” The Bible does not condemn praying for a long time or repeating a prayer over and over again. Indeed, nearly all the Psalms, which are the primary biblical models of prayer, are written so that most verses repeat the same thought in different words in parallel form. This duplication is very apparent in Psalm 119, the 176 verses of which practically repeat the same petition over and over in similar words and thoughts. The Psalms of praise repeat refrains over and over, for example, “His mercy endures forever.” This repetitive form of expression has the effect of fixing the mind on the content of the prayer while allowing enough variation to help with distractions. Repetition in prayer has two beneficial effects: perseverance and remembrance. These effects serve to increase our desire and make us more worthy of the goods for which we pray. After Jesus teaches his disciples the Our Father, he tells them a parable about perseverance in which he commends continual persistence in praying for the same thing even in the face of an initial rejection: “Because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs” (Luke 11:8). Repetition in prayer also serves to help us remember the good things of the Lord. The Lord commanded annual, weekly, and even daily prayers (for example, the Passover, the Sabbath, and the recitation of the Our Father). He did this so that the people might not forget the works of the Lord: You shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place which the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in hurried flight—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt (Deut. 16:2-3). In his rule, St. Augustine commanded: “That you may neglect no point through forgetfulness, let it be read to you once a week.” Repeated prayers like the rosary have the same effect. I have known people who, although they suffer from advanced Alzheimer’s or dementia, can still recite the prayers of the rosary when others pray with them! Christian tradition, from the earliest times, recognizes the use of short verses of Scripture repeated to focus the heart, and indeed this is the origin of the rosary. Objections to the rosary are often based on an ignorance of the biblical roots of that most scriptural of prayers. 17 The rosary is like saying “I love you” over and over to the one we love, not boring him with a long monologue. Obviously short prayers repeated with intensity and persistence are more delightful than lengthy speeches. Christ and his Blessed Mother obviously find the rosary delightful, and she has come many times to encourage us to speak to her and her son in this way. 

12. Is it wrong to pray using statues or religious art? 

There are actually two implicit objections here. First, is it wrong to make religious images like statues or paintings? Second, is it wrong to use statues and religious art as an assistance to prayer? The first part of the objection is often based upon a Scripture passage: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exod. 20:3-4). The second part of the objection is often based upon what immediately follows: “You shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:5). Do these verses forbid making images and using them to assist our prayer? Clearly they forbid some images and some types of prayer. For example, they forbid making likeness of animals and worshipping them as if they were gods (for example, the golden calf of Exodus 32). But this commandment does not forbid all images nor using these images in worship. The clearest counter example is the making of the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 25, God not only commands that Moses make images of cherubim (angels) as part of the propitiatory (mercy seat), but he also makes these cherubim the very place in which God wills to speak to the priest during prayer (Exod. 25:22). So the commandment of Exodus 20 clearly is not to be read as a universal prohibition of making any religious images whatsoever. To help understand the proper role of religious images or art in assisting prayer, consider that a sculpture or a painting is simply a representation of one of God’s creatures. And so, for that matter is an image in our imagination. Ask yourself if you are allowed to use your imagination in prayer and you will understand why it is not only permitted to use art as a focus of our prayer, but it is in fact helpful and natural to do so. When we think of our deceased parents, for example, looking at or kissing a picture or portrait of them sweetens and intensifies the experience that began in our imagination and memory. Obviously we know that their picture is not their actual person, but the love we show toward the picture honors their real person represented in it. God forbids worshipping an artifact in place of him, but he blesses the honoring of the images made of him and holy things. After all, God the Son became a man of flesh and blood, so there is all the more reason he may be depicted, along with the communion of the saints, because he has become visible. There has never been a time when Christians did not use holy images at least to some extent. Any holy practice can become distorted by some superstitious practice, but that does not mean that they should be judged by that false use of them. Historically, those who rejected holy images (they were called iconoclasts) were recognized as heretics or schismatics influenced by ways of thinking that are not Christian. After all, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we 18 beheld his glory (John 1:14). The veneration of images is an essential aspect of the Christian faith because of this mystery. The Catechism sums this up nicely: By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new economy of images. The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.” The honor paid to sacred images is a respectful veneration, not the adoration due to God alone. Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate (2131-2132). 

13. Is it wrong to pray to saints or ask for their intercession? 

No. In fact, God sometimes commands that we ask holy persons to pray for others. In the book of Job, God commands Job’s friends to ask Job to pray for them: “Go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly” (Job 42:8). In the Gospel of St. Luke, the friends of a paralytic man bring him before Jesus, lowering him through the tiles of the roof. Luke records that Jesus forgives the paralytic’s sins because of the faith of his friends: “When he saw their faith he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.’” (5:20). This injunction to ask for the prayers of holy persons does not extend only to those in this life, but also those in the next. The souls of the just are alive in God and can hear our prayers (Luke 16:24; Mark 12:26-27). St. Peter implies that he will pray for the Christian community after his death (2 Pet. 1:15). St. Paul describes the saints who have gone to rest in the Lord as a “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) which indicates that they see us and care about our lives. As the Catechism explains, when the souls of these holy persons “entered into the joy of their Master, they were ‘put in charge of many things’ (Matt 25:21). Their intercession is their most exalted service to God's plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world” (2683). The saints in heaven are perfect in the love of neighbor. The saints also have a deeper, wider knowledge of those who love them and those whom they especially love, like sinners, than when they were in this life. This is because they see God face to face, and God is the source of all those whom they love and who love them. From the earlies times of the Church, there was great faith in the prayers of those who had reached heaven. Since martyrs were considered to enter heaven immediately upon their death, they especially were invoked with confidence as being already there. Remember too that the 19 intercessions that the Lord Jesus offers for us before the throne of his Father are made in his human nature, using his human mind. How bizarre is the notion that Christians can pray for each other in this life, but when they have reached the goal and the full flowering of their knowledge and love they are walled off from each other! This is not a biblical idea. As Jesus was dying on the cross and cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” the Jews, aware of the intercession of the saints, thought he was calling on the prophet Elijah. At the root of the denial of the intercession of the saints is the conviction that God does not desire to use creatures as instruments of communicating grace and salvation. But this is not in keeping with biblical revelation, either (though it is consistent with non-biblical nominalist philosophy, which denies an order of causality and which influenced the thought of many Protestant Reformers). The Lord said, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5) implying that the life within him flows through us as living instruments. God in his wisdom knows that if he communicates his greatest gifts of grace and salvation through human instruments, when we are at last united in heaven we will be grateful to one another for being true causes of our salvation. We will not love God less, nor be less grateful to God, since we will see clearly that he was the original source of salvation, but we will love one another more. And what father does not want to see his children love one another as much as possible? And so the practice of speaking to Our Lady and the saints and angels in prayer increases our love for them in the communion of saints, just as praying for each other does the same here on earth. What could be better than that? 

14. Doesn’t asking God for things in prayer attempt to change his will? 

To say that asking God for things attempts to make him change his mind or his will would be contrary to sound philosophy and biblical faith. “I the Lord do not change” (Mal 3:6). So what is the goal of intercessory prayer? We might say instead that prayer attempts to fulfill the conditions of God’s will by which he has ordained that certain goods be given to us. God has ordained that certain goods be granted only on the condition that we pray. And so it is truly the case that if we do not pray, those goods will not be given. Nevertheless, this does not mean that prayer changes God’s mind or will. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, “We pray not that we may change the divine disposition, but that we may ask that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers: in other words ‘that by asking, men may deserve to receive what almighty God from eternity has disposed to give,’ as Gregory says (Dial. i, 8).”i A correct understanding of the nature of prayer teaches us that prayer does not change God’s will but accomplishes it. The only wills that are changed are those of the persons praying or being 20 prayed for. The Our Father prays, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” This means we pray that that God’s kingdom come in us, and that his will be done in us. Thus, by prayer we are changed to conform to God’s will. Prayer is the most noble of the many created means whereby God accomplishes his will. In his wisdom and providence he has determined that there are many things that will only be brought about by prayer. Prayer is thus an instrument of God’s supreme causality; that is, prayer is a way that God makes things happen with our cooperation. When we pray and are encouraged to do so by God, it is with this awareness. Of course, we don’t always know what God wills, so we pray faithfully for what we ask, trusting that if what we ask for is his will, he has used our prayer to accomplish it. When an intention of prayer is certainly God’s will, as for example, “Lord, increase my faith” or “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner” we can be sure the prayer is granted. We can say simply that prayer is the spiritual, intelligent, and free way that God has his creatures accomplish things. It is the supreme way that God makes things happen when he uses created instruments. There are all the forces of nature, the laws of physics, the reliable rhythms of the universe that the human mind may discover and make use of, but nothing is more powerful than prayer. The prayer of Christ always accomplishes what it seeks. The prayer of Our Lady, next to Christ, has the greatest power because her heart is so close to the heart of God. So we can say of all the saints and angels, each one in his own measure and in his own place. Our own prayers, too, have a place in God’s plans for what is to come about in his creation. Human beings are never so powerful and effective than when they pray. People read self-help books about being effective and successful, but the man of prayer has more power than these. Yet prayer also teaches us humility of heart, as we seek to conform our hearts to the heart of God. By praying we become once again like the little children to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs (Matt 19:14). 

15. I prayed for something and God didn’t grant it. Why? 

A simple answer to this question is to be found in the way parents deal with children. Why do you not give your kids everything they ask for, or even everything that is in your power to give? Obviously, because often they do often not know what would be good for them, even as they are attracted to various good things. We love our children and so we do not let them have everything they want, since sometimes ther desires are contrary to their true good. As St. James teaches: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (Jas. 4:3). And yet we do want our kids to ask us for what they want, even if the answer will be “no.” In this way they learn how to direct and moderate their desires, recognize their dependence on us, and learn obedience. The most important thing to remember about praying for something we want is that by so doing we express our confidence in God’s goodness and our faith in the fact that he answers our prayers. Our prayers are not commands, but filial requests that our heavenly Father answers as is best for us. 21 When we do not “get what we want,” it is for us to give some thought to what it is that God truly wills for us. We know that every prayer is answered and every prayer draws us closer to him. Perhaps he wants to increase our patience and trust. For he does not mind if we keep on asking for what he has not yet given us. He loves our perseverance and rewards it. St. Augustine teaches, “God wills that our desire should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what he is prepared to give.”ii There are so many examples, in the lives of the saints and in the experience of ordinary Christians, of those who have suffered long in expectation of some good thing from God and were ultimately rewarded for their faithfulness. Think of how difficult it can be to obtain the grace of conversion for a sinner. This is surely something God desires, and yet the grace may not be given until after long and persevering prayer. On the other hand, we can have desires for lesser goods that might or might not be good for us or others, especially for material things or social or professional advantage; and so God gives these things as is best for us under the circumstances, but we cannot be sure that he desires them for us absolutely. It is when our prayers seem not to be answered that we need to count our blessings and praise God for all the good things we have received from him. A grateful heart will keep us from being bitter about not getting (at least yet) what we ask for. God is pure goodness, and so asking him for a favor is the safest thing we can do, because we know that he will not give us things that are not for our good. As Job said in the midst of his trials, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21). St. Evagrius teaches: “Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask him; for he desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to him in prayer.”iii What is needed for prayer, more than anything, is trust in God. He finds the trusting soul irresistible to his fatherly kindness. We love our children, especially when they trust us even when we have to disappoint them. This is not to downplay the real anguish of the tragedies of life which afflict us and those whom we love, but the Lord himself spent whole nights in prayer and yet mysteriously did not succeed in converting everyone to his gospel. He joins us in his compassion for our suffering, he who prayed, “Let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). He is the model of how to pray. 

16. Why do Catholics pray for the dead? 

Christians pray for each other’s needs. This is one of the works of mercy: to pray for the living and the dead. It follows that those who are most in need of help, especially those who are unable to help themselves, are particularly the objects of our prayers. The dead are especially in need of our prayers precisely for this reason. After this earthly life is over, the soul is separated from the body. Without going into the philosophical and theological reasons for this, we can say that without the union of our body and soul we have no natural way of acting, coming to know, or choosing new things; in short, of changing for the better or the worse by our own unaided power. 22 It is fairly safe to say that many Christians die without having fully repented of their sins. Their sins have been forgiven and they are bound for heaven, but they have not done all they should to repair their faults, nor have they embraced penance for their sins. This happens to many of us: after confessing even many grave sins, we do not then take up the works of penance to make use of the grace of the sacrament and root out the remnants of our faults that remain. Or we have only venial faults and with some of them, since they are venial, we make no effort to improve, rarely or ever trying to overcome our bad habits in gratitude to the Savior who pardons us so freely. Death thus finds us in this condition. We are in the state of grace, that is, we truly love God above all things and do not want to offend him, yet there is, as it were, a lot of unfinished business in our spiritual life. But after death we cannot do penance for ourselves. Without help from others, who pray for and do penance and loving deeds for us, we will simply wait while the purifying fires of God’s love perfect and cleanse our souls. This is what we call purgatory. And so we pray for the departed to speed their entry into heaven. They are already secure in their salvation, but we can help them to come to the blessed vision of God. This is a great work of mercy indeed. Prayer for the dead obtains not just any good thing from God, but the very best and greatest thing of all, the end and purpose of our lives: the supreme happiness of possessing him in vision and in loving rest. There is nothing we could obtain for someone that is greater than this. Our gratitude for the dead—our parents and ancestors, our teachers and clergy and friends, those who died in battle, those who have no one to pray for them or remember them (and how many of these there are!)—should make prayer for them our favorite devotion. All we have to do is to make our prayer for their intention:, a rosary, time before the Blessed Sacrament, brief aspirations made in the midst of our day. These are treasures of mercy for those who are waiting so patiently in their necessary sufferings. The clearest biblical evidence for prayer for the dead is found in 2 Maccabees 12:46: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” This book of the Bible is considered canonical by the ancient Church, though it was rejected by the Reformers in the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, even for those Protestants who do not accept this book as inspired Scripture, it stands as a clear witness to the practice and belief of ancient Judaism and is perfectly consonant with the practice of early Christianity. St. John Chrysostom taught: “Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.”iv The Catechism adds: “From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead,” (1032). Prayer for the dead is the motive for the oldest evidence of Christians’ prayer for each other: the inscriptions found in the catacombs. We will all pass that way, so let us show the kindness of 23 prayer to the dead against the day of our own death. Great will be the mercy of God to those who have shown mercy! 

17. Why do I have to say traditional prayers in a Church? 

Can’t I just pray to God in my own way wherever I am? Our supreme example for prayer, as in everything, is Jesus our Savior. As true man, he prayed as human beings are meant to pray, and so we should look to him. Jesus prayed the traditional prayers of his people: the Psalms and canticles and readings and blessings from the Torah and the prophets. He prayed vocal prayers frequently throughout the day. He observed the liturgical calendar of feasts and fasts and the rites that accompanied the sacraments of the Old Law. So his prayer was liturgical to a supreme degree. At his own time, the Hebrew of the Bible was no longer a spoken language; it was a liturgical and learned language. So along with Aramaic, the vernacular of his time, he prayed in an ancient liturgical language. Even on the cross he recited Psalm 22. And yet, he also spent whole nights in solitary prayer to his Father in his intimate union with him. In short, the way Jesus prayed is traditional and common but also personal. The prayer of Jesus is the model for Catholic prayer, and even if the sacraments and feasts of the New Law have changed from those of the Old, the kinds of prayer are practically the same. So we pray traditional prayers in church together, and we also pray in private to our heavenly Father. Jesus teaches us that both common, traditional prayer and private, personal prayer are necessary.. Why are traditional prayers important? And why is it important to pray in a sacred place like a Church? One reason is that God wants us to pray together. Jesus indicated this when he said: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). In order to pray together, two things are necessary: first, we all have to be in the same place at the same time (which is one reason why having sacred places like churches set aside for common prayer is important); second, we all have to know the same prayers (which is a reason why traditional, common prayers are important). A second reason why sacred places and traditional common prayers are important is because human beings are both body and soul, both physical and spiritual. Therefore, we ought to have sensible and physical components to our prayers. Sacred places like churches give us an outward setting of silence and beauty. Traditional prayers give verbal expression to the loftiest sentiments of the holy ones from our tradition, including the Lord Jesus himself, who gave us the Our Father as a traditional, common prayer. 24 A third reason why traditional prayers are important is that in all humility we ought to acknowledge that we do not know how to pray as we ought (see Rom. 8:26), and therefore, we should say with the disciples, “Lord teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). The traditional common prayers that have been handed down to us are prayers composed by Jesus or by saints who were close to God, and so they give expression to the loftiest sentiments and desires of the human heart. As the Catechism puts it beautifully: [Jesus] not only prayed aloud the liturgical prayers of the synagogue but, as the Gospels show, he raised his voice to express his personal prayer, from exultant blessing of the Father to the agony of Gethsemane… We must pray with our whole being to give all power possible to our supplication. This need also corresponds to a divine requirement. God seeks worshippers in spirit and in truth, and consequently living prayer that rises from the depths of the soul. He also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer, for it renders him that perfect homage which is his due (2700- 2704). 

18. What is mystical prayer? 

The terms mystical and mystic have a very different sense in Catholic theology than in our popular culture. In our theology, mystical refers to the level of human spiritual life wherein the cooperation of the soul with God’s grace becomes more passive; that is, God acts freely in the soul, with less active initiative on the part of the soul. This experience is a noticeable one, and the quality of prayer when this mystical element predominates is markedly different from that of prayer accomplished with more human initiative. This does not mean that the soul no longer prays using its own initiative as before, but rather that the experience of prayer is widened and strengthened by the movement of the Holy Spirit in the soul. This mystical stage has great variety depending on the person undergoing it. God may act strongly on the senses and imagination and memory, or he may move the soul strongly in the intellect and will. The gifts of the Holy Spirit make themselves more evident also in the other aspects of the moral life of the praying soul. The soul’s action leaves aside reasonings and sweetly considers the presence of the Lord and his holy ones. The conversation of prayer becomes more like a long embrace than a conversation. Prayer becomes a form of communing with rather than a considering of the mysteries of Jesus and Mary and the saints. Mystical prayer is frequently identified with the experience of more seasoned or advanced souls, though God sometimes gives mystical experiences to beginners in prayer by way of encouragement. We can see this, for example, in the lives of the children of Fatima, Jacinta and Francisco, and of St. Bernadette of Lourdes. 25 This kind of prayer is not always bright and consoling; it is often dark and painful as the divine Spirit purifies the heart of the praying believer. This darkness can be an obscuring of the imagination and memory, similar to the working of our outer senses, but on a deeper level it can be a trial of the intellect and the will’s affection. This latter is what is called by some the dark night of the soul. This experience is narrated to us in the lives of many of God’s saints. A recent and powerful example is St. Teresa of Calcutta, who underwent long and continual trials in prayer. This difficult prayer makes the soul feel as though nothing is happening, as though God is silent, but even so the soul is growing more and more in the love of God and union with him. As the Catechism puts it, “The Paschal night of the Resurrection passes through the night of the agony and the tomb” (2719). One thing is certain, however, and it is that what is called mysticism is the common gift of all persons in the state of grace. Mystical prayer is not for a favored few, but is the natural flowering of the spiritual life common to all believers. Sadly, few souls are generous with the Lord enough to reach these levels of prayer, which are freely given by him to those who devote themselves to prayer. Every Christian is at root a mystic, whether actually or potentially. We can learn this now by growing in faithfulness in prayer, or we can find out in that great place of mystical prayer called purgatory! The choice is ours. It is so very much better to grow in prayer while we are still in the flesh than to wait until we have died. The Savior is determined in any case to purify our hearts from any obstacle to the fullest possible union with him. 

19. How much should I pray every day? 

The eighteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel begins by relating how Jesus “told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (18:1), and Paul admonishes us, “Pray constantly” (1 Thess. 5:17). So the short answer is always. But how is this possible? St. Francis de Sales criticizes those who think that everyone from every vocation should spend all their time in church: “If the father of a family were as regardless in making provision for the future as a Capuchin, if the artisan spent the day in church like a religious…would not such a devotion be ridiculous, ill-regulated, and intolerable?”v So how do we pray without ceasing? Augustine answers: The very desire of your heart is your prayer; and if your desire continues uninterrupted, then so does your prayer. It was not in vain that the apostle said pray without ceasing. Can we be always bending the knee, prostrating the body, or lifting up our hands, that he says pray without ceasing? If that is what prayer means then I say that we cannot do it without ceasing. But there is another way of praying without ceasing, continues Augustine, an inward way that he calls the “desire of the heart”: 26 Whatever activity you happen to be engaged in are doing, if you only long for that Sabbath then you do not cease to pray. If you do not want to pause in prayer then never pause in your longing. Your continuous desire is your continuous prayer.”vi Granted that we should always pray in our desires, nevertheless our desire for prayer will necessarily lead us to set aside time exclusively dedicated to prayer. So how much time should we spend exclusively praying? The answer depends upon our state in life and our duties, but here are some rules of thumb: 1) Your first duty is to God, and so daily prayer should never be neglected altogether. 2) Have faith that you can accomplish more with God’s help than without it, so time in prayer is never wasted. 3) Just as a good rule of thumb for bodily necessities is to tithe, so also a good rule of thumb for spiritual necessities is to tithe your day to prayer, giving approximately one to two hours per day. For example, daily Mass, daily rosary and half an hour of mental prayer. 4) It helps to start small (perhaps fifteen minutes per day) and work up to longer times of prayer. More specifically, we can easily model the rhythm of our daily prayer on the natural movements of our days and nights. This is the way the Church orders its prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. The times for prayer are the morning soon after we rise (say for five or ten minutes) and the evening when our work is done (also for five or ten minutes also). These two times are the most important. Then we should pause to pray a bit in the course of the day at the best time for our duties: mid-morning, noon, or mid-afternoon (or all three!). The Angelus prayer is a beautiful way to do this. Or we can make an act of desire for the Holy Eucharist called a spiritual communion. Then we can pray immediately before going to bed at night. We might do well to spend some time prayerfully reading Sacred Scripture or some other spiritual reading to nourish our souls with new motivations for our Christian life, either early in the morning (usually the best time) or later in the day if we can fit it in. The choice of prayers is up to you, but the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, as well the acts of faith, hope, love, and contrition, are good for morning and evening. We can also pray the rosary spreading out the decades during the day and night. In this way we can pray many more rosaries than we might have thought possible! Before bed a review of our deeds and omissions and a prayer for pardon is in order, and a prayer to Our Lady to bless our night. We could also learn how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, or just pray through the Psalms directly from the Bible. All of this is up to the inspiration of the individual soul; there is no minimum obligation for private prayer. How often should I commune with the one I love? The answer is: as much as possible! Perhaps the best prayers we make are the short aspirations that indicate our awareness of the presence of God, the one we love. The great saints and mystics aspired to constant prayer, and short prayers from the heart as we go about our business are the best way to arrive at this lovely goal. 

20. How can I learn to pray better? 

Here are four ways we can pray better: 1) We can pray as Jesus and His saints have taught us (Luke 11:1-4); that is, we can take as our instructions in prayer the words and example of Jesus and the saints. 2) We can pray with more perseverance (Luke 11:5-8), not giving up when it is difficult. 3) We can pray with more confidence in God’s goodness (Luke 11:9-13). 4) We can pray with greater fervor (1 Sam. 1; Dan. 10). “Lord, teach us to pray” This is the simple prayer uttered by Jesus’ disciples. And this “prayer about prayer” had a very fruitful answer down to this very hour. Indeed, this little request made to the Savior shows us the power of prayer, even the simplest and shortest. All Christians have received the benefit of Jesus’ answer to this prayer. In prayer, the first teacher is our experience based on sincere effort and devotion. But along with this it is necessary to be instructed in prayer. The Church’s tradition of prayer is so rich and varied, and so complete, that we really need to become acquainted with the work of prayer as found in Sacred Scripture, the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, and the writings of the saints and other classic spiritual writers. First, we might read the fourth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, whether in its full form or in its abbreviated Compendium. This latter has a handy appendix of the most important Catholic prayers. The value of these two catechetical works is found in their special authority as documents of the universal Magisterium of the holy father. St. John Paul II emphasized the authoritative value of the Catechism, and it presents to us the most complete treatment of prayer in the millennia of the history of the Church of the Old and New Testaments. The so-called Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent is also of high authority, as John Paul pointed out in promulgating the new one. It was published in the 1600s and offers a lovely treatment of prayer and an interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, which, as in its contemporary companion, is found in the fourth part of this venerable work (which is easily available online). There are many writings of the saints on prayer, and the Catechism’s treatment of prayer gives us so many suggestions among them. One wonderful and brief work is Alphonsus Ligouri’s How to Converse with God along with his Treatise on Mental Prayer. His Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary gives us a supreme example of how meditation on the mysteries of faith can nourish our life of prayer. All of these works are easily available in print and in electronic editions. Then to sum up, there is the very useful and well-composed Handbook of Prayers edited by Fr. James Socias. This is an invaluable book with all the best examples of Catholic devotion. In addition, it is hoped that the present work will provide some ready-at-hand help! 28 We would do well, however, not to neglect the practice of prayer as a way to become wiser in the ways of prayer. The mother of God has come repeatedly to earth to inspire us to pray the holy rosary. This prayer is a true school of conversation with the Lord and it will teach us best about how to pray. If we are faithful to Mary’s rosary, we will surely prosper in our conversation with the Lord even without study or reading. Jesus tells us that we often treat our Father in heaven as worse than an unjust judge (Luke 18:1- 8), or worse than a bad human father (Luke 11:9-13). Our Father deserves more confidence from us! So often our response to darkness in prayer is determined by our disposition toward God. If a husband comes home late from work, the suspicious wife may think, “He’s out at the bar or out with another woman” while the trustful wife will think, “He’s getting me flowers, or planning a surprise.” If we do not feel God’s presence during prayer, we can either respond like the suspicious spouse or the trustful spouse. When all is said and done, when we want to pray better we should do what the disciples of the Lord did and simply ask him, “Lord, teach me to pray!” That will be a prayer he will surely hear and favor with many graces. Nothing is better for our prayer than to fly to the sources of prayer, to the hearts of Jesus and Mary and the company of the wise practitioners of prayer: the saints of God who pray for us without ceasing! 

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About the Author 

Hugh Barbour, O.Praem., is a Norbertine of St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California and the chaplain at Catholic Answers. He grew up in South Pasadena and is a convert from the Episcopal Church. Ordained a priest in 1990, Fr. Hugh earned a license in patristic theology at the Augustinianum and a doctorate in philosophy at the Angelicum in Rome. He has taught philosophy to seminarians for nearly thirty years and is a sought-after retreat master and speaker.