"Our Father, Who art in Heaven..."

What is Prayer?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), prayer is, "The elevation of the mind and heart to God in praise of his glory; a petition made to God for some desired good, or in thanksgiving for a good received, or in intercession for others before God. Through prayer the Christian experiences a communion with God through Christ in the Church". As Christians, we believe that God the Father created us (man) in his own image, he called us into existence. He wants us to listen to his word and talk to him about our problems, our interests, and all that we are grateful for. But, many of us forget about the second part of this communication. We need to listen to God just as he listens to us and we must listen and act upon his Word.

Prayer in the Bible
Since the dawn of creation, God has communicated with man through prayer. According to CCC 2569, God's calling of people to prayer begins with our father Abraham. In Genesis 12 ("The Call of Abram" as the chapter is titled), God tells Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." God tells Abram that if he does these things, he will make Abram's name great and bless him. And those that bless him will be blessed and those that do not bless him will be cursed. (Look it up for the full story in detail.) Abram went and did as God told him. As promised, Abram did live a very blessed life and lived 175 years.

Moses is another powerful and important figure and role model to Christians in their prayer lives. The Catechism defines him as "the most striking example of intercessory prayer". Toward the beginning of the book of Exodus (Ch. 3), God introduces himself to Moses... from a burning bush! (God works in mysterious ways.) Of course, Moses was slightly alarmed (who wouldn't be) by God's voice coming out of a bush. God had a plan for Moses which was to be his messenger and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt. A long argument (the Catechism calls it a debate) broke out between Moses and God. Moses was convinced that there would be no way the people would believe that he was doing this on behalf of the Lord. Well, as we all have either heard or read for ourselves, eventually Moses obeyed God's will and delivered God's people out of Egypt and, while doing this, grew closer to God, conversing with Him regularly, and giving the people instruction and guidance. He prayed for the people and asked God to forgive them when they were disobedient. In this way, he was interceding for them.

There are many other examples of Old Testament prayer figures. For example David was a king "after God's own heart", praying for his people. He, like Moses, was an intercessor for the people. Elijah is another intercessor as well as the Father of the prophets. The mission of the prophets was to educate people in faith and conversion of heart. And, of course, there are the psalms, which are the prayer of the assembly (CCC). The psalms are an important part of the Old Testament because, in them, the Word of God becomes a prayer. They recall the history of God's promises already fulfilled and his promises yet to come. The Church still uses them today in the Holy Mass and as a means of meditation.

In the New Testament, the Son of God comes into existence as a human being. The Catechism teaches us that Jesus learned to pray according to his human heart. (Jesus had a human nature as well as Divine.) Jesus learned to pray as the Jewish people did in his day and age. He learned from his mother, in the Jewish synagogue, and the Temple. Jesus lived a perfect example of how we, as his followers, should pray. As an intercessor, he would pray for all men, and offers them to his Father in Heaven. Jesus also would offer thanksgiving before asking for a favor from God.

By his example on earth, Jesus has taught us how to pray. He also taught to large crowds by speaking in parables. He taught us how to love our enemies. John Paul the Great reminded the world of the power of forgiveness shortly after May 13, 1981 when he was shot and almost killed. He went to the prison where the man who shot him was being held and openly forgave him. He also said that we should pray to our Father in secret. This is called filial prayer because it involves a loving adherence to the will of the Father even to the cross and an absolute confidence in being heard (CCC 2620). It is important to spend some private time with our Lord who loves us so much that he gave us life. We should talk to him regularly, visit him in the Blessed Sacrament, and receive the sacraments as often as we can. He wants us to confide in him completely, because he is our VERY BEST FRIEND and HE IS OUR BEST LISTENER. He will give us the VERY BEST ADVICE and we MUST HAVE COMPLETE FAITH in his will.

Perhaps the second most beautiful prayer figure that we can use as an example is the Virgin Mary. She accepted God's will completely when she said, "I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy will". She could have been stoned to death according to Jewish law. But she obeyed God's will, had complete faith, and became the Mother of Jesus Christ. In our prayer lives, we should ask Mary to intercede for us. Remember the second Luminous mystery which remembers Mary's intercession at the wedding feast in Cana when there was no more wine. God turned a jug of water into good wine. I remember something that a very wise priest once said during his sermon. He said something to the effect of Jesus loves his mother very much and obeys her as all children obey and love their mothers. He is willing to give her almost anything because of this. In other words, ask Mary to intercede for you.

Five Types of Prayer
As you can probably tell, prayer is very important and there are many ways to pray. There is intercessory prayer which is demonstrated a lot in the Bible, thanksgiving which is demonstrated to us by Jesus himself, and prayer of praise which we use to glorify God and which is given to us in the psalms. So far, we have covered (probably without realization) three types of prayer.

The Catechism describes two other kinds of prayer, the first being Blessing and Adoration. Remember, way back up at the top of this post, I described Abraham's mission from God. He was given instruction by God to leave all he has ever known and go to a specific place which God has picked for him. If he did this God would bless him. Well, it turns out that when God blesses, the human heart can bless the God who is the source of every blessing. Adoration is man silently acknowledging God as his creator and glorifying and adoring him for setting us free from evil. The Church offers this form of prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

The second, or fifth kind of prayer, in this case, is prayer of petition. When we petition, it means that we ask God for something. The Catechism says that this prayer is the most spontaneous because we are expressing our awareness of our relationship with God. When we petition, the first step is to ask forgiveness. This shows humility.

Our Prayer Lives
Prayer is vital in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Christianity and prayer come together and they cannot be separated. We must continually pray.

There are three different expressions of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplative prayer. Vocal prayer is important because it involves the senses. When we pray externally, we pray with our whole being. Meditation is the quest to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking (CCC 2704), which ultimately brings us closer to God. There are many different types of ways and sources that we can use to meditate: the Rosary, Scripture, icons, spiritual reading, etc. The third type of prayer is contemplative prayer. The Catechism describes contemplative prayer as follows:
1) Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we turn our hearts back to the Lord.
2) Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more.
3) Contemplative prayer is the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer.
4) Contemplative prayer is also the pre-eminently intense time of prayer.
5) Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus.
6) Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God.
7) Contemplative prayer is silence, the "symbol of the world to come" or "silent love".
8) Contemplative prayer is a union with the prayer of Christ insofar as it makes us participate in his mystery.
9) Contemplative prayer is a communion of love bearing Life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of faith.
From this list, we can gather that contemplative prayer is a silent love or a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus. In contemplative prayer, we achieve union with God and share in his mystery. Contemplative prayer is one of the most beautiful and loving expressions of prayer.

Obviously, prayer is not something learned overnight and there are many struggles that we must persevere against when living a life of prayer. For example, many times we come up with excuses and put our prayer life behind other less important things, believing that we don't have the time. I must admit and the Catechism does mention this, that distraction is a large struggle and battle that I have yet to overcome. Yet (I found this enlightening) the Catechism says that we are not to hunt down our distractions, because distraction makes us aware of what we are attached to.

We must have complete faith in God, and let go of all attachments that we love more than God. We must glorify him with our whole heart and not lot lose faith in him. He knows what is best for us (he knows the number of hairs on our heads) and only through prayer can we conform ourselves to him, become perfect, and gain eternal salvation.

Summary
We can learn how to pray through Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments and the God has provided us with many different types and expressions of prayer. Through prayer, we conform ourselves and become perfected to God the Father who we should love with our whole hearts, minds, and souls.