Author: Graciela Beecher

Publisher:

Published: 2003-05

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9781403352750

What is prayer? Some say it is a conversation with God and/or His emissaries. Others say it is an act of faith. Which definition is right? Both are. Prayer is a conversation with God, His Blessed Mother, His Angels, or His Saints. The conversation is always precluded by faith. Without faith, there is no prayer, no communication with the deity. To elevate our minds, our hearts, and our voices to God, we first have to believe that He exists, and that He will listen to our prayer, be it of worship, thanksgiving, contrition, or supplication. Faith has to be present at all times. Let us examine faith, starting with Abraham's, whose faith was monumental. He was childless and quite advanced in age when the Lord told him his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the evening sky. He believed the Word of God, and the Lord accepted his faith as justice. By faith he justified himself. When the Lord asked him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, to Him, Abraham did not hesitate for a moment. By faith, he knew God could bring Isaac back to life. If we compare Abraham's wonderful faith with the faith of another great figure of the Old Testament, the prophet Moses, recipient of the Tables of the Law, we find Moses at fault. He doubted the Lord could forgive His rebellious and ungrateful people, and struck the rock twice. He was punished by not being allowed to enter the Promised Land. We find faith mentioned many times in the New Testament. Jesus told us that if we have enough faith to tell the mountains to jump into the sea, they would do it. Furthermore he told us, "Seek and you shall find; ask and you shall receive; knock and it will be opened to you." Jesus kept praising people for their faith, saying, 'Your faith has saved you." He did not say, "Your rightfulness has saved you, but your faith has." The same as with Abraham, the Lord Jesus kept accepting faith as justice. And justice in this case meant justification for the believer. We find an unfaltering faith in Mary of Nazareth, who believed, when she was told she was going to have a son, even though she knew no man. We find faith in Peter, when he confessed and boldly proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God. When the Apostle Thomas doubted the Lord's Resurrection because he had not seen Him alive, Jesus blessed those that did not see, but believed. For two centuries, saints and martyrs suffered, labored, and died, as an act of faith. Saint John Bosco said, "Faith, have faith, and you shall see miracles." Let's go back to prayer, now that we have established that faith has to preclude it. How many kinds of prayers are there? We can pray privately or in public. We can pray vocally or mentally. Usually, when we pray vocally we use the prayers or words composed by someone else. We can also compose our own prayers. All the prayers in this book, with the exception of the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be, were composed by the author. We should decide what we want to accomplish with our prayer. Do we want to worship God? Do we want to thank Him for His blessings? Do we want to express our repentance for our sins? Do we want Him to grant us a wish or satisfy a need we have? A prayer can include one, two, three, or four of the categories. With the same prayer, we can worship God, thank Him, ask for His forgiveness and ask favors of Him. We can pray mentally, improvising conversations with the Lord, or we can meditate, like we do with the mysteries of the Rosary, on the lives of Jesus and Mary. At times, our prayer or conversation is not directly with the Lord, but with His Blessed Mother, with His Angels, and/or His Saints. We go to The Lord