As oxygen is vital to our body to live, so is prayer to our spirit. The more we realise how sinful we are the greater we feel our need to pray. Saint Teresa of Avila says: “Let him never cease from prayer who has once begun it, be his life ever so wicked; for prayer is the way to amend it, and without prayer such amendment will be much more difficult.” In this regard, I choose to define prayer as staying connected with God. Christian tradition has offered us various ways of staying and keeping this contact with God as lively as it can be. I opt to explore in brief the following modes of prayer which I personally find so helpful in communicating to me God’s most holy presence: meditative prayer, scripture, liturgical worship, creativity, group prayer and everyday prayer.

Among the different kinds of meditative prayer, centring prayer is a key method of prayer since it opens us for contemplative prayer. In this prayer we let God’s presence take hold of our being and behaviour. The more we receive God’s presence the more we seek him everywhere through Christ’s Spirit, mainly by letting him silence the internal noises we all carry in our hearts so as to help us cooperate effectively with his sanctifying grace.

The Bible is also a powerful mode of prayer especially by employing a prayer technique called composition of place. Choose a passage which speaks to you and read it several times. Imagine yourself being present with Jesus in the situation you are reading. Put yourself in the disciples’ shoes. While closing your eyes let these images connect you with the Lord.

The Mass or Liturgical Worship is the principal manner of prayer. In the Liturgy of the Word we encounter God who communicates to us through his saving word. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist the spoken word becomes enfleshed into the Body and Blood of Jesus through his dying and rising, thus his complete triumph over sin and death. The Eucharistic Prayer exhorts us to die to ourselves and rise to God’s personal and collective vocation to holiness. Via liturgical services we actually pray as we sing and celebrate Christ’s presence among us, the Easter community.

Prayer gives room to creativity. When we concentrate on the longings of the Spirit and let Him express himself by means of our music, dance and art, we can authentically experience God’s presence in the here and now. Music, dance and art can be used to help us tap into the great spiritual themes of darkness/light, death/resurrection, and love in ways that we can easily comprehend.

Jesus told us that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18, 20). Going to a prayer group is really beneficial since one is more helped to have an intimate relationship with God within the set up of a body of fellow believers. Through fraternal sharing, times of fellowship and praying over one becomes more aware of the way God is working in her/his personal spiritual journey as well as in those of the other brethren who attend the group. God never saves in isolation but always within the context of a docile community who awaits his salvation.

The last but not the least important form of prayer is what we may term as everyday prayer. Hence, living intentionally is a kind of prayer that involves our entire being. In this continual prayer we turn our daily actions and thoughts into prayers. Thus our times of prayers and our daily life become integrated and weaved into a fragrant offering of praise and worship to God. Our life becomes a living and constant prayer! In praising God in every circumstance and environment we happen to be in we are in fact collaborating with God in making present among us his holy Reign!

Make a difference in today’s world by letting God make you a prayerful presence to those around you, thus bringing him back in our midst. Stay connected to God.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann