How to Pray - Catholic Prayers

You will learn what prayer is, why it's necessary, and how to practice

You will learn what prayer is, why it s necessary, and how to practice the essential forms of Catholic prayer. You ll discover how the Church s sacraments fortify your prayer and how prayer, in turn, enhances your reception of the sacraments. You ll find out how to bring to your own prayers the qualities that make prayer effective. Your prayers will become more heartfelt, more focused, and more full of love for God.

As Catholics, we are surrounded by prayer. We pray the liturgy (Mass, other sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours, and devotions), traditional Catholic prayers, and silent and spoken personal prayers.

But how is a Catholic prayer constructed? Let’s see what we can learn from the style of prayer used most often at Mass – a “collect.” The prayer typically unfolds according to a traditional format: YOU-WHO-DO-THROUGH. You can use the YOU-WHO-DO-THROUGH model to build prayers of your own.

Whether you have just begun to pray or have been faithfully praying for years, the wisdom in this application will help you pray better. It will rescue your prayers from distraction and superficiality and transform them into real occasions for communion with God.

Often people pray based on what they can get out of it - whether earthly attainments or spiritual consolations. In this app, discover how to embrace a method of prayer that is entirely unselfish and which will unite you with Jesus.

Prayer, the lifting of the mind and heart to God, plays an essential role in the life of a devout Catholic. Without a life of Catholic prayer, we risk losing the life of grace in our souls, grace that comes to us first in baptism and later chiefly through the other sacraments and through prayer itself (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2565). Catholic prayers allow us to adore God, by acknowledging his almighty power; prayers allow us to bring our thanks, our petitions, and our sorrow for sin before our Lord and God.

While prayer is not a practice unique to Catholics, Catholic prayers are generally formulaic in nature. That is, the teaching Church sets before us how we ought to pray. Drawing from the words of Christ, the writings of Scripture and the saints, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, she supplies us with prayers grounded in Christian tradition. Further, our informal, spontaneous prayers, both vocal and meditative, are informed by and shaped by those Catholic prayers taught by the Church. Without the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church and through her saints, we would not know how to pray as we ought (CCC, 2650).

As the Catholic prayers themselves witness, the Church teaches us that we should pray not only directly to God, but also to those who have the power to intercede upon our behalf. Indeed, we pray to the angels to help and watch over us; we pray to the saints in heaven to ask their intercession and assistance; we pray to the Blessed Mother to ask her to beg her Son to hear our prayers. Further, we pray not only on our own behalf, but also on the behalf of those souls in purgatory and of those brothers on earth who are in need. Prayer unites us to God; in doing so, we are united to the other members of the Mystical Body.

This communal.aspect of prayer is reflected not only in the nature of Catholic prayers, but also in the very words of the prayers themselves. In reading many of the basic formulaic prayers, it will become apparent that, for the Catholic, prayer is often meant to be prayed in the company of others. Christ himself encouraged us to pray together: “For wherever two or more are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20).

Keeping in mind the aforementioned characteristics of Catholic prayer will enable you to appreciate and to understand the list of prayers in this application.