where heart speaks to heart

Lord, teach us to pray Luke 11:1

Those of us who want to make prayer a real part of our lives are in good company. Even those closest to Jesus asked him to help them. This is the best place to start. To open a conversation with Jesus in which we make a genuine request for help with the sincere hope that we will persevere despite the setbacks and disappointments that have afflicted even the holiest of saints.

There can be no substitute for our personal life of prayer but it can be inspired and nurtured in many different ways. The most important way we pray as Catholics is together as God’s People gathered to celebrate the Eucharist. This is our greatest prayer because it is the sacrifice by which Jesus sets us free from sin. Our Baptism is the platform from which a life of prayer sets off. Because we become children of God we can speak intimately to the one who gives us life in Christ.

There is also a rich treasury of prayer and spirituality to be explored; enough to keep us going at every stage of life. One useful piece of advice is ‘pray as you can, not as you can’t’. It might seem obvious but there are times when we struggle to pray using ways that have been helpful in the past but that now or for a time at least can leave us cold and dejected. When this happens there are different forms to explore although it is also important to realise that prayer does not always lead us to warm feelings of consolation. If it did it would not be true to life.