Catholicism 101 Basics of Prayer

welcome welcome back to some of you that it's very polite of you to come back if you were here for the first one of these things and again the disclaimer as I mentioned at the last one of the evening sessions is that we were actually recording this so if you don't want to be recorded leave now and the last one of these talks was on suffering and it's not up on the website yet but I'm told by people who know about these things and I'm not one of those people but by those who know that it's all recorded just needs to be posted somewhere so at some point soon you can look on the parish website and the suffering talk will be up there listen to be up there all for these will be posted at some point so you're really bored and can't fall asleep so I might go and you know tell your friends or whatever so tonight prayer right and two quick things before we go into the prayer for the prayer talk at the table in the back and you're coming in a Katy shake burger who is our youth minister and evangelization director left out a bunch of sort of you know sample kinds of prayer materials and I think many of you walked I think it was like required for the evening it's it's not so so you don't need them put them back but if you want them take them home they're for you and one thing that was not out there in the back although I just put them on this table are these little year of faith things and many of you would have gotten these at mass about maybe a month or so ago and if you did not you're welcome to take some because we've ordered some more and what they are are a bunch of different kinds of common Catholic devotional prayers so nice things for you to note right so there's there's here for you and the table back there so when you go home take them with you if you'd like one for your family your kids your mailman whoever and then I have another pack of them too in the event that we run out of those okay just so you know so we're gonna begin with prayer and like I did last time our prayer will be on a scripture passage which I do not have in front of you in your handout by the way you need a handout from that table if you don't have one that you will need it okay and the prayer comes to us from Mark's Gospel mark chapter 9 is the very familiar story of the Transfiguration begin in the name of the Father and Son and of the Holy Spirit amen after six days Jesus took Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white such as no fuller on earth could bleach them then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses and they were conversing with Jesus then Peter said to Jesus in reply rabbi it is good that we are here let us make three tents one for you one for Moses and one for Elijah he hardly knew what to say they were so terrified then a cloud came casting a shadow over them then from a cloud came a voice this is my beloved son listen to him suddenly looking around they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them the gospel of the Lord praise to You Lord Jesus Christ so we begin with this beautiful passage because especially for our brothers and sisters in the East the Orthodox Christians and Catholics in the Oriental Christians the Transfiguration is very much about what prayer is for okay you can think about prayer and discipleship is this journey up the mountain if you will like our Lord walks at the mountain and as it was transformative for the disciples it is for our Lord too and he is transformed before them he becomes if you will right in front of them what he always was they just didn't see it if you will that's kind of Eastern take on this passage and the idea is that as we walk and disciples with our Lord and as we pray and as we fast and as we do works of justice and charity as we climb this mountain that is discipleship we two are transformed and again to put in the Eastern terms all of the blindness that we have a stripped away to the point where we behold Jesus for who he really is and we behold our neighbors for who they really are and would behold God for who he really is right so the goal of prayer is this passage it's to go up the mountain it is to be transformed it is to become divine that's what our Lord holds out for us to turn us into himself that's what it's all about right so that leads us into the evening we're gonna talk about prayer and frankly it is such an immense topic okay it's huge and because it is so huge that the real Harper was deciding what to lead out of this okay and so it's gonna be a bit of a hodgepodge ative and things we're gonna go through parts but kind of fast and but just in a nutshell we'll talk a little bit about the origins of prayer and I don't mean historically I mean in our heart okay so why we pray etc then a couple of points on how to pray very practical things types of prayer at cetera and then we'll end with some common issues that people face in prayer that often arise right very typical ones and and by the way that the goal of this talk and it was true last week 200 how successful I was is it trying to aim toward if you will the what the middle of a level of comprehension here for some of you this can be very very review and very basic for some of you this would be really really complicated I'm not sure what to do about that other than that just sort of aimed somewhere right so so as we go along here if you want to say something you want to ask a question just raise your hand just just stop me and I mean it is possible to stop you from talking it's true but you know so just do that okay and that's fine so that'll be the peace of it right now lots of things have written on prayer that books and books and books have been written on the topic of Prayer here is my bias I don't trust most of it okay especially if it's written by an American and it's on the Shelf of Barnes & Noble okay I just it's probably lovely you know but but but the thing that is is that you know there are doctrinal points to prayer that we should really should pay attention to right and and anybody who's ever tried to pray has written a book on and I don't know that that's really helpful to read what they've written right so just be careful Chicken Soup for the Soul is not a doctrinal source on prayer okay Oprah is not a source on prayer she's a lovely person I'm sure but but the point is you know we have other things in our tradition right they're all there and that's fine but but somehow there is a precision to this that needs to be paid attention to me frankly I'm not a source on prayer either if you think about it right so I'm gonna stew at you for an hour here but the point is you know take what I say with a grain of salt - okay because I'm learning along with the rest of you that's a very important point to keep in mind okay what I'll be pulling from by and large is this the catechism of the Catholic Church and the next three talks was not true so much with the last one but this one of the next to it would be very true we'll come out of here right part of that is because as we find ourselves moving through the year of faith here it was 20 years ago in October that this was promulgated and it was sort of put out for the world to study and to pray for by Blessed John Paul the great and so I do these talks because I want is to become familiar with this book so if you don't have a Catechism I highly suggest going to pick one up you can get them electronically you can get them all over the place okay they're not for a long time now and people are sort of afraid of this and I'm not sure why because as one person very bluntly put it if you've been to high school you can read through this book okay it's not that hard right now I when I was young and naive perhaps I still am you can tell me later sat down and it's not to read the entire thing all the way through it and I did that I don't know that I would suggest that you do that you can go by topic there's a great index but I would say I will save that of all the parts of this book it's broke up into four basic sections right the first one goes to the Creed the second one goes through our worship and prayer and sacramental life so what we believe how we pray that we believe the third part is about life in Christ so it's about the moral law and about sin and grace that's next topic for the next talk right and the fourth section is on prayer of the four sections by far the one that I think is both the easiest to read and the most inspiring and profound is the fourth part I would definitely read the part on prayer it's very very good okay now we may get through this tonight you're gonna go I'm not reading that thing every father but but you can just try it okay so we're gonna be working with this book right if this intimidates you the US bishops came up with their own dumbed down American version of it okay so this is called the United States Catholic catechism for adults it's fine it reads a little more like a book this is a little more like a text book but again don't be afraid of that and if these things are too big they made a compendium too which is sort of like you know boiling down the boiled down version so if that helps you do that - okay and anything is fine but you have to get your heads and hands and hearts into the Catechism because it's it's there along with the scriptures and I always say this in college scriptures catechism you have the faith okay and they must be read through each other if you take one all by itself you begin to have difficulties right so that's my disclaimer for the evening what is prayer what is prayer a big question difficult one to answer maybe I'll ask you what do you think what is prayer maybe want to hazard a guess what's that talking to with whom okay good yes God's gotta be in there somewhere right so yes you're right so talking with God that's a very good definition any want to add subtract contradicts a debate vote no voting no more election stuff anybody else yeah listening to very true both of those are correct okay praising God thanking him thank you those are all very good okay so and we're gonna get through all those things as we go through the evening right part for the Catechism opens with two quotes from two very different Saints about what prayer is and that's your first quote on your handout a one from CCC is catechism of the Catholic Church 25:59 that's a section number that's how you find things in that big green book terezi bless you says for me prayer is a surge of the heart is a simple look toran toward heaven is a cry of recognition and of love embracing both trial and at joy that's the beautiful sentimental little flower right then we have Saint John of Damascus John Damascene and he is much more you know matter-of-fact the raising of one's mind and heart to God okay now the one's a very male answer it points a very female answer and they're both entirely correct right and so so if you take these things at their face value this presupposes a couple of things okay and again I love to read a surge of the heart I look toward heaven we recognize something and we'd love something and we embrace try and enjoy we'll get back to that later on because prayer is not for sissies okay it is a challenging demanding and I dare say sometimes terrifying activity right like I'm digressing now but you know rich treats okay every year priests and deacons are supposed to make a five day retreat right and that's in the canons of the church and we do that and I do it willingly and I love to do that and everyone I says Oh going you know joy your retreat and I and I guess I do but the fact is retreats are work and they're kind of terrifying because when you're on retreat you were just you're alone with yourself and with God and there's nowhere to run there's no distractions it should all be turned off right so so when Torres talks about trials and joy is prayer and compasses those things okay so pre so what is this presuppose right John of Damascus is definition Trez definition well first of all this is very basic but it's we need to say it this presupposes that there is a God to pray instruct knowledge that there is the divine that we are not alone in the universe that we're not an island unto ourselves that we are in a relationship right and there is something about the human person in the human heart that just cries out to be in relationship to something bigger than ourselves all by ourselves meant they were just kind of boring okay I mean the world reaches out and reaches up and indeed every thing that we chase after in this life you know be it the iPhone be it a BMW be it a country club membership be it whatever you can insert in some way shape or form we're trying to reach up to the heavens because there's something in our heart that nothing on this earth can really contain okay it's just bigger than us and so God is the answer to it he says I'm the one thing you can just lose yourself into and just keep going and going and going and going and never be exhausted right so this presupposes there's a God it presupposes that we know this and that we are not him okay so if we were him we'd be talking to ourselves in prayer right that's not the idea okay and this sounds basic but you know you have to understand this I mean the fact that we all have this sense about prayer means that we just sort of get to the basic level of our hearts that there is God and we're not here okay so we're in this relationship like Torres says we see in God the source of our existence and we see this sort of origin of love and because that is true we want to respond to it okay so so what is prayer it's this sort of response it is this idea that we're loved first and we love back so there's a God we're not him we're in this relationship and it's a give-and-take of love right and so because that's true then we share much like people do we share a heart we share our soul or emotions or thoughts were afraid of it we're happy about what we're worried about with thankful for such a right you know so so at the core prayers a conversation is a conversation with God right and it is initiated by him he always starts it we we have this mistaken idea that we're the ones who start this conversation and that we someone know what we're doing and how to talk right but that's not true God starts the conversation and we don't go out you know in search of him he really is the one running after us all the time if you want to a saint who was just stunning on this point read san agustin and read the confessions and this is a little heavier right so if you wanted an adventure then read the confessions it's a little bit deep but but but the confessions are full of this immense wrestling of the heart of this great saint who started off his life as this really bold sinner okay and you can see as he went through his life as a convert and as a Caprican as a priest and as a bishop you just seem rustling all until the day that he died you know I'm saying just trying to come into God's embrace right so God searches up for us Agustin eyes says he Isis I thought I was looking for you in the end you were looking for me you were trying to break through to me right so it's a conversation and a more deep level in this this is all part of the basics of prayer right because we're not gonna pray unless we know this stuff that there's a god and that we're not him and that He loves us and that we love him back on a deep level to tease this out it's true to say that we thirst for him and he thirsts for us if you could read the Saints on this again right and the most recent want to talk to this very famously is blessed Teresa of Calcutta Mother Teresa and she says this she says you know when when I'm the cross our Lord says I thirst she says he's talking about us not for a drink of water she says I'm thirsty he's thirsting for you and for me and it's it's worth sitting in our and in the quiet of our hearts and our heads thinking about the fact that someone out there thirsts for us that someone just hungers after and if you sit with that long enough how do you not feel compelled to just thirst back I mean we all want to be wanted don't we that's a being in love is all about and being in relationships or is about and be married and having a family having friendships I mean we we need to know that we're longed for sought after pursued thirst at for so he thirsts for us so prayer will make a lot more sense to us if we start off with the premise that someone is pursuing us right so what is prayer it's a conversation about two people who are thirsty between two people who are thirsty right that's what it basically fundamentally is why do we pray I can put this in three basic points why do we pray and there's much more again if you said about this but basically because we need to because we can and because we love pray because we need to because we can and because we love right why do we need to go back to Genesis and if you were here for my last chalk and if you here a couple years ago and went through the whole nine chapters of the opening shadows of Genesis what did we do hmm the Catechism does this the first the first example of Prayer that it points out in human history's in the Garden of Eden and it's not before the fall it's actually after and it goes like this Adam and Eve take the fruit off the tree they realize if they are naked and they make Len clothes for themselves and they hide themselves and the very next thing that happens is that God does what he calls out his where are you from where are you right and they they answer back you know we we hid ourselves to me we were afraid so we hid ourselves that is the first prayer okay why did this happen well before the fall prayer wasn't really necessary because we were just naturally friends with God there was no barrier there was no nothing getting in the way there was no conversational stoppages right we they prayed like they breathed like we breathed that was just didn't - think about it it was no effort it was just they were just in touch if you will right and then sin enters the world and darkens the heart and turns us in and ourselves and at that point all of a sudden prayer must be I'm a deliberate intentional activity and it becomes work okay and we'll come back to this a little later on how much work per actually is right so after the fall then you know life is no longer a prayer we have to actually work at it okay so we pray because we need to because there's no other way to talk to God before the phone we could just sort of be now we have to try okay to pray because we need to we pray because we can God starts the conversation and again this sounds so Elementary but you need to think about this okay I mean it's an awesome thing to think about that we can actually talk to God I mean we are able can we're able to do so that's a miracle God is infinite God is mighty God is glorious God is the maker of all things seen and unseen visible and invisible and we are these tiny little creatures and we can talk to him we said we pray because we can and he makes it possible because if you look at all the Old Testament and you could spend hours and hours and hours on each of the places in the Old Testament where God shows up to somebody that's a prayer exchange okay what is he doing he's trying to break through the fog of human understanding he's trying to become familiar to us and and show himself to us and open his heart to us and in more more time passes and he gets closer and closer and closer and so finally one day in the most divinely amazing feature in all of human history and all of on all of the cosmos he becomes one of us he becomes a baby and he talks and he walks and he does it last night puts on diapers you know and he eats and he teaches and he preaches and then he actually dies right so so we can pray because God has if you will come down to our level he's come down to our level and he makes this conversation possible right we pray also because we love and again I made the point before you know we need to we can and then I really do think that we pray because of some core of our being we just know that we want to be in Congress with this beautiful of the being LeBlanc says Simmons right and what is the point of Prayer on one level it's the one truly pointless human activity it exists only for its own sake not to get us somewhere else not to get us something we prayed just for itself you know it's like wasting time with God because he's so worth it he's nothing worth it okay so those are some basics on what prayer is I'm it's a conversation between two people two beings that thirst who thirst for each other in love this God starts the conversation we enter into the conversation because after the fall that's the only way that we can get to know him and be in friendship with him and it's a conversation that he begins and he does so by becoming one of us and opening up this ongoing link this always open channel to the heavens and we do so because God is worth it so that's sort of part one here on what prayer it basically is and again I am skimming over thousands of pages on this topic but anyone is standing at at first before I go on any further make sense so far questions are you all like enlightened it's amazing yes yes yes I agree yes he is after us why is that why is he after us and you're right because he loves right yeah me you guys who are parents you mean you really get this right I mean you know what would you do if you you should children were wandering off you you'd take off after them okay so that's how we are before him all through human history after the fall out of Eden he says I am pursuing you because for him we are so worth it we are worth his effort we are worth all that which is profound okay so we're gonna pray and pray well we've got to start with the immense love that he has for us and it will move us to talk and love back right anybody else it's good comment okay we'll come back to that that's good because as it turns out the next thing is how we pray so now again again thousands and thousands and thousands of pages written on this I am giving the thumbnail here right how do we pray the first thing to do to pray is to recognize the simple truth that we don't know what we're doing okay we do not know how to pray and it is prideful to think that we can figure this out alright and and what's really funny because God is and my I've called him this for years he's such a gangster okay he just plays with us if I could put it that way right I mean he kind of gets his thinking you know that we know we're doing he gives us just enough to get us started and then the more we're trying to stay with it and more we try and pray the more he starts to show us how we really don't know what we're doing right because we get frustrated and you know things happen right so God just said does this okay is that God calling does he call collect anyone knows any news we collect all anymore you don't have to right yeah anyway so we don't know how to pray right and Bishop Don Hanoi says this prayer is the one activity that actually gets better and better for us the more we realize so much we don't know what we're doing it's the one thing like that in life the more we know that we don't know the better it gets right so God must pray through us in for us and so the first thing to do is you ask you how do we start is I don't know how to pray and so I ask for help and if we go to God and say help me pray he will always answer that prayer always and it will never look like you think it's going to it will never turn out like you think it's going to your prayer will never go like you think it's going to if it is you're probably doing it wrong okay if it is perhaps he's giving you some consolation for some other grander purpose to move you on to something else okay so I mean because prayer means putting him in control and taking us out of control and we hate doing that I hate doing that and you are not that much different than I am if you admit it okay so scary thing to contemplate I know but you're not much different than I am so so prayer means saying he is in charge and I'm not we asked the Holy Spirit to help us pray the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us how to pray because the st. Paul says on our own we do know how to pray as me on quote a to prayer cannot be reduced through the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse in order to pray one must have the will to pray nor is it enough to know what the Scriptures reveal about prayer one must also learn how to pray through a living transmission sacred addition within the believing and praying church the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray so we pray within a community the community must teach us our traditions our sacraments or our scriptures and the Holy Spirit is a teacher so they're going to start by prank gonna start with I don't know how and then I'm gonna say help I guess they come Holy Spirit's help me to pray write another prayer tip another one for prayer you can only find God in the present he doesn't live in the past he doesn't live in the future he's right now and the great temptation of our life is to get caught up in either the realms and stay out of right now because right now is usually very uncomfortable for us okay it's like the retreat comment it's scary to be and then now and we feel alive as well these distractions to keep us away from the now but the fact is the past is done we can learn from it I guess and that's true and the future is out of my control you know so God isn't really down the road and he isn't really in your memories of high school thank God or you know or college you know I mean but he's right now so if I'm gonna live in his presence I got to focus not on where I would like to be or where I should have been but where I am right now okay so how do we pray we focus on now if that makes any sense right our Lord offers us some instruction in the Gospels because his disciples can't even say teach us how to pray Lord teach us to pray right now think about some things that he says he says at one point of the Gospels let the children come to me let the children come to me unless you acquire the heart of a child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven that tells us something about what prayer is supposed to be we're supposed to be childlike before our Father so think about when you were a little kid and how you related to like your mom right and what was it like for you you know so um you trusted your mom knew everything right when you were like six your mom is God okay you know so I mean you you sort of listen to what she had to say and you didn't put up any fuss you just sort of said I'm gonna trust you when you're having a bad day when you're sick you ran to mother and just let her hug you there was nothing there was no resistance right so prayer must be kind of like that it's sort of like going to God like we were run to her mom and saying you know I'm gonna cast myself in your arms I'm not gonna put up any fight I'm just gonna trust you and when we're kids we're also very bold you know listen little kids talk to their parents right that there's no you know polite talking around the point it's just I want this I need that I think this it's just straight from the heart right prayers like that - okay God sisters you can be bold in your print you can demand things and if you will in your prayer right so we can do that so we have this notion that mom was you know kind of gentle and kind and to be trusted and we cast ourselves in their arms and we were very much we're not afraid okay and yet we also knew that mom was definitely mightier than we were right there was still a little comfortable distance if you will God is the same there should always be a real sense of fall in the presence of something so amazing right so when Jesus says you must become like children he's saying you must trust me you must trust me like a child trusts his mom instinctively intuitively without anything holding them back right so we have to know that we don't know we're doing have the Holy Spirit help us find out in the present become like children Quartey three is interesting from the Catechism it says that three principal parables on prayer are given to us by st. Luke the first the importunate friend invites us to urgent prayer knock to be open to you and by the way if you don't that story is you know Jesus is saying what if your friend comes to you in the night and knocks the door and ask for loaf of bread you know who would hand him a stone instead or a serpent instead right you know so so he goes knock in the door be open to you seek and you'll be fine and you will find that's this parable so to the one who prays like this the Heavenly Father will give whatever he needs and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts he gives the Holy Spirit second parable on prayer from Luke that the gun that the Catechism points out is the importunate widow he sent it on the one of the qualities of Prayer it's necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith this is the widow who keeps asking and asking asking and Jesus finally says fine ok so if you will she she nags at him ok which is fine God doesn't mind that and we can nag him all the time ok he listens to be a nag all day long and yet when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth so there's something about urgency boldness asking that's part of Prayer there's something about persistence dedication and vigilance the third parable the Pharisee and the tax collector concerns the humility of the heart that praise God to be merciful to me a sinner the church continues to make this prayer its own kiri a la song right so this humility in prayer okay we'll come back to all the stuff a little bit later still on the how to praise peace of all this right how do we pray we should take a bit a moment to step back and contemplate the sign of the Cross against sounds so basic right but that is a really really bold gesture on our part there's a reason that we begin our prayer that way so the sign of the Cross case not familiar in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit right now by the way if you want to quiet down a room full of people just start doing that and it's amazing what they just did you know they just start praying it's amazing it works at Scout gatherings at meetings you know I could just ride in a riot sometime it see if it works right so if it's a Catholic riot it may actually work but the point is we learned some things from this gesture that comes down to us from the earliest earliest days of the church okay and again on the how old we pray a piece right this is important this is important first of all it calls to mind a couple of truths we're addressing somebody we're talking to God and again that just seems so obvious but we have to actually be deliberate about that I am speaking to God okay and we're doing it in his name in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit so we we are so daring to actually invoke his name you know invoke somebody's name we don't think about this so much anymore in the modern world but but to do something in somebody's name is to call down all their authority and all their credibility and all their might and the reputation that personhood right you know so um let's see what's a good example so Enrique father me I just got ordained on Saturday here right and we're all very happy for him as we should be you know so there are certain things that he that he can do now in his own as a priest and there are some things he doesn't my own name because as a pastor I delegate those things to him right so if he starts doing something in my name that I wouldn't really like or agree with and he's in serious trouble okay we'll see if he does but the point is when I say in the name of someone I had better mean it okay if father Ricky goes around saying in the name of father Nathan Riesman I'm going to bulldoze down the edge Center he's fired okay so I don't that's that's the thing if I say in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit and then I'll say it drive a plane to a building I am in real turbo God does not want that okay so it's a really really bold action on our part and we can do it because we're baptized so this calls to mind the fact that I have been incorporated into Christ Jesus I become part of him and filled with His Holy Spirit like a temple and I can talk to God as a father because I'm in the person of the son in baptism but the power of the Holy Spirit so this is all about who I'm talking to and who his name I am speaking with his authority with his blessing he blesses me he blesses me and says you can speak for me you can speak with me okay also very simply it's it's a it's a physical gesture isn't it this reminds us that prayer is a bodily activity it's not only just in our head so we stand and we kneel and we go in processions and we can lie prostrate like father Marika did before you got ordained on Saturday we can use it we can move our hands you know we we our bodily people and God knows that so he lets us pray with our bodies okay it's very important that we call it to mind right so how you sit helps you pray uh sometimes how you kneel forces certain add to the prayer standing as an attitude right so all that's part of how we pray okay one last piece on you know how do we pray Lord's Prayer and this one I'm going to do no justice to you because you could again spend years and years on the our Father but just just to say it because it needs to be mentioned because we're talking about you know in Lord just how to pray right you know so again how to pray I know that what I'm doing I asked the Holy Spirit I focus on the present I become a little child I'm persistent I'm vigilant I use my body I invoke the father his name when the disciples go to Jesus and say Lord teach us how to pray he teaches them the Lord's Prayer now in the Catechism the part for business right that we're working our way through here the first half of that is on everything I'm talking about tonight the second half which I'm not going to get to is all about the Lord's per they take it apart line by line it's really good and if you want something a little bit more advanced on its the read recently this is just again one example Pope Benedict when he wrote in his book on Jesus as Ruth he had two volumes out now which are both outstanding and the first volume he goes through the Lord's Prayer and again very very very interesting very nicely done so you can look at that too but I mentioned only just to make the point that the Lord's Prayer establishes for us a pattern of how to pray and if you think about it it's a series of statements all stitched together okay our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come it's a bunch of invocations the first to our Father who art in heaven our actually acknowledgment their praise those are praise prayers I'm praising my father okay and I'm acknowledging that he is immense and he's awesome the rest of it are all petitions may your name be holy may your kingdom come may we'll be done right so I mentioned it's only because next time you're mumbling through it a mass you should stop and just so - think about what am I saying and in the Luigi you know as the new translation gives it to us it says at the Savior's command and formed by divine teaching we dare to say that's that we say we dare why because we're actually gonna make our words my words that very same ones of God he gave us that prayer and it's it's the one time the mass that all of us together not just the priest but all of us together actually speak Jesus's own words in this contained little unit that's a prayer right again you know what we're Americans we don't think much about this but I mean but to kind of take someone else's words like that and make them our own that's a it's a big deal they make God's words my words why would I do that because Jen had told us to because God says you can because you're my children because you are me and virtue of baptism awesome stuff I will say one quick thing with a very last petition but lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil look it up in the Catechism it 28:46 CCC 28:46 it's very hard to translate that and I simply mentioned because both asked about it and Benedict says it's another way of saying don't let us be tested beyond our ability right isn't life that way it's full of little trials okay they're practicing for the Bradish oh isn't that nice listen to the background music to me here I feel enlightened a four basic modes of praying and we're still on the how to park right anybody lost yet oh may be asleep yet anybody I mean levitating that'd be awesome I have never done that but maybe one day so we can well prayer down to kind of for basic you know sort of expressions right and we could say I love you I'm sorry I thank you I need right that's kind of what's going on and most of our prayers okay I love you as is adoration we should always as we're praying include in some way shape or form some gesture of simple praise God is just worthy of all praise he is worthy of all of our adoration all of our affection all our attention all of our mighty is the one thing that is exist just for his own sake okay so it's good to just sort of sit back we're gonna pray and just call to mind the truth that he is before us that we're in the presence of the one who is and who is life itself and who is mighty and small all at the same time and big and little all at the same time and changeless and has suffered all at the same time it's just awesome to contemplate okay so prayer needs to have some element of praise I praise you I praise you my heart needs to go up and praise I'm sorry prayer will always involve and some at some point a plea for forgiveness because again to be before God has to acknowledge the truth that we have we're not worthy of something so amazing we shouldn't be in his presence if you look at the Old Testament every time God shows up without fail opiate to Moses in the burning bush in a butte to Elisha on the mountain you know to to get into to Jeremiah to Isaiah to the to all the prophets the judges I mean to to to Abraham the first reaction is to go whoa I'm not worthy to be in your presence okay I mean they just acknowledged the fact that they were very small okay when you see an angel you freak out okay this missed time you know but a hallmark look cuddly cute little angels in the windows you know that is not how angels were they were terrifying okay because every eyes runs away from them you know I mean doesn't make any sense to me but but the point is what we pray we should understand that we are unworthy and we need to say that we're sorry that's just a necessary part of our life of discipleship is to say I praise you and boy if I messed up okay I thank you gratitude should also always be part of our prayer right we are not going to be people who are good stewards of our gifts that were given unless we have gratitude in our hearts so all things come from God all things are gifts from God and in my prayer it's good to say here's what I'm thankful for today and it could be the smallest of things I'm thankful that the Sun came up I'm thankful that the Packers won I'm thankful that I made it to work in five minutes less time than I'd planted me whatever you wanted I'm thankful that I got a job I'm thankful that my children are healthy we have lots to be thankful for if we think about it right and the more that we call to mind our blessings our heart kind of lifts you know and then that we just appraise him then we just like oh gosh I'm sorry for being so ungrateful you know it all kind of comes together you know and that lastly there's the I need business right we ought to ask for things in our prayer like the Catechism said a bit ago we should be bold we should knock on the door right and we can ask for things for ourselves God says that's fine and we should also ask for things for other people that's called intercessory prayer now the cool thing about that is I mean you know what that is the cross it's it's a big giant act of intercession acting on behalf of somebody else the son is offering up himself on behalf of the world and so when I offer a prayer for my grandmother or for you as my parishioners or for person the hospital bed or the people in New Jersey in New York you know god bless those people I'm interceding for somebody else and as I intercede for somebody else I'm doing what he's doing so I'm conforming myself more and more and more to him so intercessory prayer is a good thing it shapes us into Christ the great intercessor you know that the the evangelicals and I shouldn't pick on them but I can't help it sometimes they they're all very um either talk about what about Mary and what about the Saints and what about you're always you know invoking the heavenly intercessors but there's only one in ss between God and man that's what it says in the New Testament I said true but he has chosen to make all of us intercessors with him including the Saints he doesn't just hog it for himself okay I'm the only intercessor here you can't do it they work that way it says you can become like me you can do what I'm doing you can intercede for the people right so it's a beautiful thing to pray for other people okay make sense so from now I'm a five I'm not going to talk about because um I just won't but you look in the Catechism and they break down these different methods of types of prayer a five vocal prayer meditative prayer a template of Prayer all I will say is that for the purpose of this conversation tonight you know there are different ways to pray and we're kind of getting out there right we need to speak because we're bodily people meditative prayer the dudes between these last two meditative make a template of to me is a little bit hard to tease out and even if you look at those catechism paragraphs I think you'd have a hard time figuring out what the distinction is but if I could boil it down you know meditative prayer is sort of a very deliberate focus on a method to get you somewhere in your prayer your temple to prayer is just sort of resting in his presence it's not quite so driven I could put it that way right but that's a little bit of a non academic distinction okay it's gonna call to mind some different examples of Prayer so we're still on the how-to part right you know we've had our Lord's commands about the Lord's Prayer we've had you know praying like children we've had come Holy Spirit teach me to pray because I do not know how to pray as I ought to on my own I'm inadequate okay and we have these different sort of you know I love you I'm sorry and I thank you I need and by the way if you're gonna cheat your little kids how to pray you can teach them these categories I love you I'm sorry I thank you I need you do you want to know where I got these from the kindergarteners when I go and teach kindergarten this is how I explain they go so you're all a bunch of kindergarteners tonight it just makes sense doesn't it so they get that we have liturgical prayer liturgical prayer is a its first and foremost a prayer of the whole church okay so it's good for us to understand that there are some prayers that are just in my head they're just kind of spontaneously it's sort of you know spew out at God and then there's other prayers that we do as a community and those community prayer is really shape us so the Turgeon chol prayer is governed by official books with official rituals and official translations and times and places and seasons and persons who do different roles it's very very formal it's very very necessary you can't have just all spontaneous prayer and no logical prayer and you can't have this altar djegal prayer and no spontaneous prayer you need to have them both and all other churches life if they have both been at the heart of who we are okay I have one visual aid here this is my bravery bravery is the liturgy of the hours and so deacons and priests and bishops are obligated to pray this and all the late people may join in the career as well as the spirit moves you to do so but the point is this is liturgical prayer and if simply assume that I pray five times a day at different times of the day different seasons of the year with songs and readings and writings of the saints and it's structured and there's a format and as a process and even if I'm praying it all by myself because I'm following the public prayer of the church I'm praying with the whole community okay mass is illogical prayer this morning is Monday so I was you know hit off today but so because I didn't have mass here I woke up in the morning early and I said mass on my own I have a little chapel and hold the angels little altar and a little you know stand and things like that and the crucifix and candles and investments it's all very cute but but and I said Mass every day as a priest for 69 years without fail I've just always done that okay and even though I was praying all by myself because it's liturgical prayer I'm praying with the whole church right so it's a community event the sacraments those liturgical prayer okay and loads of the hours there's also devotions there's devotional prayer now and that table back there when you walked in you know Katie's got some things up there I'm like Divine Mercy chaplet I'm the Rosary okay those are devotional prayers and they're not really liturgical in the sense that I'm governed by sacramental laws there's no requirements but they take on a kind of tradition to their own you know there's sort of a common way to pray the rosary right so that's a devotion Stations of the Cross that's the devotion which I really love litanies you know Sacred Heart devotions the you know the things in here I believe the Angelus is in here yes it is again the Angelus a lovely devotion of prayer you prayed at six noon and 6:00 every day the member RA okay these are all devotional prayer so what this is is not so much the mass and not so much the bravery but it's me getting in touch with the communities living breathing piety very important to know this in teacher kids these prayers prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel the Hail Mary the Our Father glory be the member our array the Angelus okay Sacred Heart of Jesus prayer that those are things that we should just have in our vocabulary as Catholics in our households you know I don't know mirrors in the morning offering you know which I make every day you write I mean that's very important stuff that's devotional prayer people talk about centering prayer which I will not spend a lot of time on but you know that's the idea that as we sit in God's presence we keep coming back to a phrase i lord have mercy on me the name of jesus jesus the name jesus is itself a prayer because it means God saves lectio Divina is another ancient way of trying to pray and what lectio divina is is sitting with the scriptures or some other holy texts like a reading of the Church Fathers but these are the scriptures and just sort of slowly reading it through in conversation with God I'm gonna take up three or four lines of Scripture I'm gonna read through once and then twice and then again and I'm gonna slowly but certain words come up that stand out to me and I'm going to trust it as those words come up the Holy Spirit is raising those up for me and I'm gonna stop up that word I'm gonna think of it about it and I'm gonna give it back to God and then I'm gonna go through the passage again you see you see what you're doing is you're talking to God through his scriptures right that's Lexi Oh Davina okay that's an example staying with the scriptures for a second scriptures are very very important to our prayer do I have them you I do on the floor shame on me so yet we have to learn the Bible right and some of the time I'll do a whole section on just the Bible another adult education course but because this is a very easily misunderstood collection of books but the point is if we're going to be people who are going to pray we have to know God's Word right and I recommend to scripture things to sit with if you want to pray at the Gospels and the Psalms okay the Gospels and the Psalms then you can you gets all nice to pray with okay but but but but those two things I might just say is a nice starting point right the Gospels are the life of our Lord you know this beautiful imagery they have these great moving stories of conversion of forgiveness of transformation of healing obviously the passion narratives in the resurrection the call the discipleship that the teachings of the law that have been sort of fulfilled in the life and words of Christ you know so you can't go wrong with the gospel so they confront you every time okay and there's just an endless just think of other thousands of years that we have spent poring over these same words and we just get more and more and more out of it every single time that we do I mean only God could have written that okay I mean no one's going to back to it I wrote 10 years from now I mean good you know but but this you know there's something here that's priceless so in my prayer I take the Gospels and I read a couple of lines and everything maybe maybe read the story of you know the woman up there well in John's Gospel I go wow I'm this woman at this well place yourself in the story place yourself in the scene play look when Jesus is talking to the people in the Gospels it is true that he's talking to you to everything he says in he's saying to you you know I mean how is it that I work on a homily to the extent that I unfortunately do anymore I don'ts much time on them but but the point is if I do I would say what's as he's pissed passages are being read he's talking to me what's a sink to me because it's true he's talking to you too okay so that's the Gospels the songs the Psalms are priceless 150 of them they're the middle the Old Testament and the cool thing about the Psalms among other things is that they I'll say two things that are cool about them one they encapsulate all the human emotions of life I mean they're all in there okay fear hope joy Thanksgiving restlessness cries for help cries for mercy gratitude praise adoration thanks for creation of it's it's all in the Psalms and for years and years since the very beginning of the church we've made the Psalms our own prayer of the church so when I pre my bravery that that's basically all the songs okay and they're also a kind of our own sort of prayers I mean we we kind of made them up okay and so it's like one of the portions of the scriptures where God took our own prayer and made it his own words to it because if it's in the Bible it has to be God's Word right so he kind of borrows our words and makes them his own words so there's a sort of cool connection between us and him and the Psalms right this big long quote from a six a six is on the Psalms and I won't really read it because you can read on your own sometime fitara yeah well but I guess I read it certain constant characteristics appear throughout the psalm simplicity and spontaneity of Prayer the desire forgot himself through and with all that is good in its creation that Astron situation that believer who and his provincial love for the Lord is exposed to a host of enemies and temptations but it waits a pomp of faith what God will do a third root of his love and the submission of it to his will the prayer of the Psalms is always sustained by praise that is why the tireless collection as hand on to us a sir fitting the praises as it's called collected for the Assemblies worship the Psalter both sounds that call to prayer and sings response to that call' halle-loo yah praise yah praise Yahweh praise the Lord that's what Halloween means it means praise yeah how they do yeah I won't be the second part of it but but the point is the Psalms are priceless okay a couple last pieces on how to pray location is important location is important for prayer first of all public churches okay it is great to go to a church to pray very very good to be here in the opening prayer the transfiguration where the apostles say it is good lord for us to be here they recognized that they were in a sacred spot they remount table okay we're all kinds of cool things that happened before right and there before our Lord Jesus Christ and they realized that there was something about being there that mattered this is consecrated space I mean when they build a church building before you can worship in it the bishop has to come and has to consecrate it he invites the Holy Spirit to fill this house and as soon as that happens it becomes a place of Prayer cuz I set aside for him right now I cannot say that about my dining room and if you've seen holy angels dining room you know yep that's true father you can't but here is God's space he claimed it for himself so when I walk into a space that God has claimed for himself that means I become claimed to I become caught up in it because the Spirit is here okay so if churches are very important the tabernacle is very very important right I mean again from from the earliest times we began keeping Tabernacles as a long history but how those things evolved in Church spaces but the point is you know I mean we recognize it and the consecrated host God is present in a way that he's not present anyplace else right so it's nice you do what they call in the old days to make a visit remember that term those were old enough to make a visit okay so when you're walking during the day to stop into an open Church and sit down for a few minutes for the tabernacle and then to go back to your day that's called making a visit right we're fortunate West event to have our church is open here during the day it's not true Milwaukee unfortunate anymore I mean most places you go to churches in their lock but here it's it's open all the time okay hold Angela's open all the time the adoration Chapel at Holy Angels open 24/7 okay that's a blessing so take advantage of that right that's Church in your home in your home it's nice to have a little prayer corner you should make a little place that's just for prayer and if you have kids right make a place that your kids and you can pray together okay maybe it's a certain chair maybe it's you know a little table with a candle on it and a crucifix and a picture of Our Lady and the Saints you know I don't know you know whatever you want to put that don't don't put a picture of Anne Rogers there I know this is Wisconsin's but that should be another room of the house okay so you need to make a room for God or a space for God right so because because we're bodily people so location is very important for us when it comes to our prayer and consistency is important too it's good to have times a day they were that are the same a priest who's very wise once said to me he said most problems in a spiritual direction and in life can be solved with a consistent time to bed and it gets this a time to get up in the morning and he's so right okay the older I get the more realized that it's true okay so for me my routine goes like this I get up in the morning very early usually and I have got to go down to the chapel at Holy Angels or the church I should say and I've got to pray for buzz a sacrament that is and if I cannot get that in the morning then I I will not pray the rest of the day effectively I'm shot okay I pray all during the day because I'm obligated to I pray five times a day out of the dreary but my best time is always in the morning before the tabernacle I've got to do it and I can tell it on vacation or when I'm away from a church I just I miss it okay so for you guys you know you it may be a 10 minutes every morning as soon as get up you know my routine is I the alarm goes off at like 4:30 a quarter to five and I turn off the alarm and within five minutes you should be out of bed that's called the heroic moment okay you got a conquer the day right there I did not make that up that is an old term it's the heroic moment if you conquer it there you then you're on the rest of the day right so my rule is within five minutes I'd to be out of the bed okay I cold it is it holy angels will have any heat on in there you get up I walked the next room over which to my Chapel is there's an either I kneel down ice in the morning offering the Sacred Heart of Jesus Prayer sometimes Angela stiff I'm a little bit early and I look at the priest who've died that day out of the order and I pray for them and then I'm up and then it's getting ready from that point okay but without fail I have to hit my knees when I get a bit and just greet God you do the same thing it needs me a daily daily daily thing and then when I'm showered and presented welcome to my collar and ready I go down to the chapel and I sit before him at night and then we talk what do we talk okay so that's the day right so you need that you need a prayer space in your house you need a time in your house that's consistent okay and sometimes just a live in the location peace you know there are some kinds of prayer that we just don't do Jesus says go behind closed doors going to your room close the door and pray to your father in secret right now that's not the same thing as prayer at Mass it's a very different kind of try but you pray in secret because realize that there are some conversations that are just so intimate they require a certain kind of space you know I sometimes think that the reason why Catholics sit in the back at church as a rule is because they sort of have this sense of the vulnerable before God but it want somebody looking at us praying it freaks us out and because prayer is just one of those intimate quiet moments that where you're so exposed before God you don't want anybody else to see it you know there's an element to that that I think Catholics kind of pick up in our tradition okay what else Saints read the lives of the Saints very important to get that pilgrimage in holy places holy hill basilica the champion shrine and green babe places are sacred to us right don't discount that make little plug images go to confession go to daily Mass right you havin a hard time praying go to confession because something is in the way that's got to be unblocked and washed away this confession is for don't discount that okay so that's all in the how-to in the next ten minutes we're gonna marathon through issues in prayer here and this is actually my favorite part some sorry-ass a little space for issues with prayer and these are on your handout and these are all the quotes okay and I will not have time to read them all right but first of all prayer takes work it takes work and if you've been at it for a while you begin to realize my gosh does prayer take work and Americans just want things to be easy and simple and like Mike microwaved prayer you know just pop it in and punch in the right formula and then it's gonna it prayer is just not that way it's not you'll start out that way cuz God kind of cooks you he's very clever that way and then he takes away all the fun and then you've really got to pray okay and it's supposed to be that way that's the point a seven prayer is both a gift of grace and a trim response on our part it always presupposes effort the great figures of Prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ as well as the mother of God the Saints and he himself all teaches this prayer is a battle against whom against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can't turn man away from prayer away from union with God we pray as we live because we live as we pray if we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ thinking we pray habitually in his name the spiritual battle of the Christians new life is inseparable from that battle of Prayer it is a battle and if you do not believe in the devil you better start it is true there is Satan he does not want us to pray and you will find him in your prayer he will he will combat you in a again and again and again and the more you take it seriously the more we charm each out for God the harder he fights against you okay and I'm not being a crazy person here that is the truth I have met him and my prayer and he is fierce okay and the cool thing is God is always stronger if won't let me trust you trust right aah next court finally a battle has to confront when we experience a failure in prayer discouragement during periods of dryness sadness that because we have great possessions gospel story of the rich young man we've not given all to the Lord disappointment over not being heard according to her own will wounded pride stiffened by the dig digging that is ours as sinners our resistance the idea that prayer is a free and unmerited gift and so forth the conclusion is always the same what good is do to pray to overcome these obstacles we must fail to gain humility trust and perseverance is so true this that I could read this again again and again right I mean prayer is gonna be disappointing we're not gonna be heard we're gonna think God's not listening to me you know we're gonna we're gonna pray and get some temptation taking away from us we're gonna fall again then again and again we're gonna go why didn't you hear you know and God's gonna say stop being so proud you don't trust me enough so prayer is this ongoing move to trust him and he'll surprise us at every turn and then he'll throw more obstacles in their way and he does it all not to not to make us stop but to say you're not gonna get any stronger unless you keep pushing through this okay it's hard it's hard why don't we get we ask for I hear this a lot right and 8 9 10 11 these quotes are really really great for this okay but to summarize it right actually why don't we get we asked for it you the Catechism says you know we asked this question we're looking for something we never stopped and asked the question when we're praising God yeah we're saying thank you to rissalah did you hear me or not they were praising you to acidity hear me or not but when we need something we're like well did you hear me or is he you know and so that should make us stop right um how would we know if our prayer is heard what criteria are we using are we using our own regards he always works things out in his own terms and not on our own okay ATM filial drosphila means like childlike trust his chest it approves itself in tribulation the principal difficulty concerns the prepetition for oneself or for others some even stop praying because they think the petition is not heard here two questions should be asked why we think a petition has not been heard how was a prayer heard and how was it efficacious why big play of not being heard okay the one right above it was really good okay hey eleven in the first place we ought to be astonished with this fact when we praise God we give him thanks and his benefits in general we are not particularly concerned whether or not a prayer is acceptable to him on the other hand we demand to see the results of our petitions what is the image of God that motivates our prayer an instant to be used for the Fatherhood Lord Jesus Christ right do we punch in the right code in the ATM machine that is God to get out what we want that's a lot of our prayer and it's not acceptable okay distractions in prayer a lot of things on distractions right prayer is not an escape from life like my retreat comment right you cannot run away from yourself in your prayer he will bring you back face to face with yourself every single time okay and so what the distractions are in prayer are usually him putting things into our minds that were supposed to pay attention to because they have to be given over to him somehow okay but the danger is dwelling on them too much because after a while then we're not trusting him either okay I am this would not surprise you an obsessor okay yes it is true so in my prayer I obsess about things all the time and that's okay to a point because again those are things that had to be given over to God there's something that's not resolved that he must take care of and the distractions arise because he's trying to say to me you must give this to me but on the other hand if I hang on to it too much and pretty soon it becomes its own little demon and I become like a dog with a bone that won't let go and God says you can't do that either right there's a balance if you will that must come without distractions twelve eight twelve the habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction it can affect words and their meaning in local prayer it could concern what we're following him to whom we are praying in vocal prayer liturgical a person at Asia contemplatively to set about hunting down distractions would be to fall under their trap when all that is necessary to trim back to our heart for distraction reveals to us what were attached to in this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our prevention love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified therein lies the battle the choice of which master to serve okay so we give them back over to him okay last piece about dryness and feelings okay prayer is not about feelings it is to a point and sometimes God Grace's us with the ability to be able to have consolations and contentment those come from them and they're beautiful gifts and sometimes in our prayer we find real joy and real peace and real real solace that's those are from him and they're gifts from him and other times we don't feel a darn thing okay and we just pray anyhow because it becomes at that point a pure act of the will all right and when we're not feeling something it's always an invitation from God to go deeper and to be converted something must be changed in our hearts he's leading us somewhere and you know people come to me and say you know when I disputed director you know father I'm passing through this dark night like Mother Teresa I'm like ah no you're not that's no you're not mother Teresa okay you just you gotta gotta go to confession okay you need to be converted okay but in ops I'm not say you cannot become mother Teresa she rested with something profound but the point is for most of us most of the time God is trying to say - once you haven't given yourself over to me enough and I want all of you so because they want all of you I'm gonna make you sit through the ache of not feeling a darn thing or you pray for like you know months at a time because I want to see if you will keep coming back to me again and again because if you do like going to the YMCA every morning you're building the muscle that is your heart there's no other way to do it a spiritual director that I have says that to me she says this is a gymnasium for your soul father press through it don't ask to be taken away don't say I want to be healed she says press into it God puts in front of you a gymnasium for your hearts do not reject it that's what it means to pray through that okay yes and you know we have these notions that prayer is too much work takes too much time why bother not getting anywhere at cetera those are those excuses okay we give it over to God right so the word is persevere right a13 another temptation to which presumption opens the gate is a cheetah the cheetah is laziness and prayer the spiritual writers understand understand birth is a form of depression due to lacks ascetical practice decreasing vigilance carelessness of the heart the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and the greater the height of the heart of the fall painful as a scourge meant is it is the reverse of presumption the humble not surprised that a stress it leads them to trust more to hold fast in constancy so if I'm upset because my prayer is not getting any more than I'm being proud I am being proud okay and if I'm humble though I'm not going to be surprised at first frustrating sometimes right because I don't know how to pray I don't know how to pray Jesus must teach me I'm gonna end because we are at time just by reading Psalm 131 it's your last quote and again you before I do that you know I mean we went through a lot here okay and and and what I want you to understand tonight is this is just supposed to sort of whet your appetite to go and read more and learn more and pray more because again there's volumes that could be said about every single one of these points prayer is intimacy with God and you don't just encapsulate that an hour and 15 minutes okay so you need this should open your heart the floodgates of your heart to want to learn more to want to be more to want to pray more to want to work harder right you know so we pray because we need to and because we can and because we love because God has made him so small he teaches us how to pray we have all these different kinds of Prayer right difficulties in prayer or not to keep us from it there to keep us driving deeper into it so we shouldn't be afraid of them right we just give themselves ourselves over to it okay and so in the end back to what I said before you know what is our posture in prayer I love Psalm 131 it's in the bravery I think it's Tuesday evening week three Oh Lord my heart is not proud or haughty my eyes I've not gone after things too great no marbles beyond me truly I've set my soul in silence and peace as a child has rasmus mother's arms even so my soul O Israel hoping the Lord both now and forever so prayer cannot be about pride it cannot be about you know thinking that we got it all figured out about thinking that we have nothing to learn it is becoming a child at rest in the arms of our Father like we were our mother's arms we're babies as a child as rest as mother's arms even so my soul O Israel hope and the Lord both now and forever okay so make the Psalms your prayer and place yourself in his arms and let him meet you I didn't lead you always that is all for my formal talk I will take some questions until 8:30 if you have to get up and leave you can do that because I know there's other things going on downstairs tonight next chunk is the end of the month the 27th that's on sin in the moral law which should be lots of fun the title is is at mortal or venial and then last talk is our Catholic saved how does one answer the evangelicals what does it mean to be saved and evangelize right so those are coming up at the end of November and eleven twenty seven and twelve four okay so thank you for this I appreciate you being here I will take questions to get to leaves please feel free to do so even no questions and just go home yes yes yes yeah yeah first of all don't pray in bed that does not because it because gonna get in the bed what does your body know you're supposed to do sleep don't pray in bed okay if you did you kids that are pray that's one thing you know but I really think prays somewhere else as you possibly can right your question you know if are you supposed to take every little angel and st. prayer crab that you get you know the never-fail novena and everything else that you find you know and I mean no okay I mean there needs to be a kind of prudence about what you make your prayer I get a little prayer cut all the time again Davina's all the time that they're all beautiful I I cannot fit them all in either right you know so I kind of weigh them on set well you know in a particular moment does this help me does it help somebody else can I give it to them you know did I cultivate a devotion of the Saints yes I do but it's almost always based in the calendar of the year every day with a different st. to pray through right you know in the danger with some of those st. prayers and prayer cards and IV nians again if you kind of get in the mentality of you know if I just pray this prayer the right way I'm going to get what I want out of God right because interest said so and I just don't know if that's quite the right attitude right we're to have confidence we ought to trust no question and I believe in the miraculous power of the saints I do but in the end of the prayer will always surprise us right so you take the collection that you get and you think about very prudently what most speaks to my heart right now and you start with that and then you let the rest sit you know that's how it is anything else yes and that person so if you're praying for somebody else who is only our conscience or functioning or even alive for that matter how does it help them the tradition of though I said that it helps them in a way that we can't comprehend because you know as you understand you know death is not the end of our life and either a sickness as a person moves further and further away from conscious contact with us if you will they move closer and closer into full contact with God and so if we're talking to God God's still talking to them in ways that we don't see and pick up right if a person has died we like candles for them we go to the cemetery we offer masses for them because it still helps them somehow God continues to purify and shape us even when this life is over with and our prayers somehow help that process so we pray with confidence because we know that God works in ways that we don't see in the human heart and as for personally unconscious I got to tell you I will go to hospital rooms or the hospice rooms and I will stop to anoint people and even when the rest of the room things that they don't hear a darn thing yes they do I have anointed people and they have woken up I mean they have you know they they take in a lot more than we realize that they do right and that the doctors don't know everything and so it works in the power that we don't always see James they both because the Catechism talks about the fact that those vocal prayer if you notice that we come together for mass we pray out loud because there's something about the harmony of our voices and our hearts that is effective for us so we're bodily people or we can pray to ourselves I think we need them both right when I pray the breviary in the morning when I pray the Psalms when I first started praying it was a dozen years ago now I would kind of read them out loud and then I got sick of it actually so I stopped but it's nice and I pray them in my in my head okay but there something about reciting them sometimes that's just very very nice you know answer your question good question and you don't well those things help us right I mean I start by saying I don't know how to pray which is true and then because that's true I can go to the tradition and learn from people who have figured it out a little better than I right so all these prayers on here come down to us either from the lips of our Lord Himself or from the saints okay and so if I'm in the school of prayer and indeed I am and I want to learn from the Masters I I picked the stuff up okay and while this is not you know the answer to all of my prayer questions it's a start and it shapes me right I'm I'm shaped by praying the Angelus because of the words of the Gospel of Luke in the Gospel of John so I have the scriptures in my head as I'm praying these things and I'm shaped by praying the member re and the more that I learn it the more I learn how to pray right and the paradoxical thing is that the more I think I know that I'm doing the more realize that I don't okay but you got to start somewhere right so we give these things out because we can learn from the tradition does that make any sense yep yes yeah who do you want to know exactly big topic I'll get to that actually the last session on salvation but I'll just say now like I said before the idea is that the church is all one those living and deceased those fully face-to-face with God in heaven those on the way to him in heaven those of us here on earth you know so militant suffering and triumphant to use the classical term scored and because we're all one just because someone's dead doesn't mean I can't pray for them I can pray for like a praying for you okay and the Saints pray for me the people haven't prayed for us they they are a big cheerleading section if you will trying to Burgess on to victory to be with them if that's what they want for us to be with them right and so purgatory right is the idea that God continues to purify us and refine us and shape us and we believe that as we offer prayers for them just like I pray for you God uses those prayers to help in their own transformation in a way that is beneficial for them and for us so how that all plays out in its concrete form I couldn't tell you it's a mystery but it's what we believe and we'll make more sense when I talk about salvation in the last December fourth session at least I hope that'll make more sense people who have passed away I've gone before us and absolutely I think that you know we the the slightly tricky thing about that is that the churches say we should never presume anybody's in heaven that's kind of the hard part right but I really do think that at the core and at base you know God would say to us that our loved ones are always close to us and they always want to help us when they're not here anymore right so they pray for us and we can ask them to pray for us and we can be close to them and I think they would say to us pray for me to pray for me to write so we'll pray for each other even when we're not together anymore in the pew or in the bedroom or on there on the kitchen table we can still pray for each other you know so we can talk to them like when they were with us in this life you know does that make any sense good else no question down when what's the prayer against it right you know and if you heard this question but you know the st. Jude prayer and then if something happens to you there is an assertion you're supposed to publish it and supposed to thank him and if you don't you know then you what happened you gets taken away or something like that you know so so what does that mean no it's a Catholic thing okay and again those things come down to us because usually our Lord has appeared to the Saints and has given them a promise associated with them and and we should I make light of that okay I do not want to make light of the miraculous powers of those kind of very specific intentional deliberate sort of mechanical prayers I believe in that but we should be careful though because that because at the core the most fundamental prayer is always thy will be done thy will be done right and again I've learned in my short little life here that rarely happens like I think it's supposed to happen you know so I mean I can pray I mean I I can think of a bunch of situations I won't name them for you because you'd be amused but I can take a bunch of situations where I was praying while in this parish for some very specific things to happen around here and I did novenas and I went to the shrine in Green Bay and it was in which in which power I believe in strongly and it did not turn out like if I was going to at the time and then a couple of months pass and I looked back and realized thank goodness it did not okay I did not know what to ask for God did though right and so in spite of that never-fail novena it clearly in my case but it was supposed to you see so that's why I get a little skeptical about those kinds of things because we don't always know what we need right but the Saints do the Saints do okay so yeah one last question if there's any yeah yep I think that we should pray with a sign of the Cross and because it's our faith you know we shouldn't shy away from who we are and and if they don't like it too bad you know man I mean I I you know yeah and in a similar way you know I mean the evangelicals have a particular mode of praying that when I'm around them they're gonna pray that way whether I like it or not you know they don't they don't string this time across and I'm there okay you know so I mean I think we should all be comfortable praying in the way that we know is our tradition because it's who we are okay if I go to a Baptist Church I'm gonna be getting with Baptist prayer okay if they're at a meal table with me and I'm a Catholic I'm gonna make the sign of the Cross okay they don't like I think sit somewhere else so it's just way it is so and so why are they getting comfortable I think just well this the fourth session I getting this little bit more okay but I think it's because they're so schooled to think that anything Catholic and ritualistic is automatically bad okay and I can see that because I spent enough months in a church like that that I know that's how they think okay and it's mistake and unfortunately but that it's how they are taught right and we've our own biases to his campus okay we're not perfect don't think that we are that's we have our own problems here okay but they have those too and so for them it's just a reaction not so much against the gesture or posture it's just they don't understand it understand okay so we'll get to that the fourth session we'll talk about salvation it's a fastening little topic right thank you so much for tonight it was good to be with you and come back in a few weeks and one of these things are on the table have a good night you

Channel: StFrancesCabriniWB

Views: 7,743

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: prayer, catholic, Christianity (Religion), styles of prayer

Id: PdvsawIHy6E

Length: 87min 30sec (5250 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 09 2012