How many times have you heard people say that prayer does nothing? They often mock us for praying during times of crisis. But when disaster strikes, a person falls ill or dies, or a child is lost, sometimes the only recourse we have is prayer. After all, we cannot cure cancer, we cannot bring someone back from the dead, and we cannot undo an earthquake or a fire.
But we can talk to God and ask for His mercy and love to rain down upon His people. And we can ask for ways to help alleviate some of the pain a person is enduring. “Prayer,” said St. John Damascene, “is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God” (CCC 2590).
Prayer is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Without it, we have no relationship with God. Without it, we become lost. That is why prayer must be integral in our daily lives. And while we can pray anywhere and anytime, one of the most special places to pray is in front of the Holy Eucharist at Adoration.
April is the month dedicated to the Holy Eucharist. During this month, Catholics are encouraged to strengthen and deepen their devotion to Christ in the Eucharist, for we know that He is truly present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist. One of the greatest times to sit and talk with God is when we are in His presence at Adoration.
I truly believe that we cannot change our actions if we don’t change our hearts. Prayer is the best way to open our hearts to God. Once we do this, we can and will make a difference in our world.
So let’s look at how prayer can help us build a culture of life.
1. Prayer strengthens our resolve.
We can draw immense strength from prayer. Simply taking the time to sit and talk to God about what makes us happy and sad and thanking Him for our blessings gives us important perspectives on life and on what we are called to do for others. It’s easy to feel down when things don’t go our way, but some quiet time alone with God can help us feel refreshed, can help us see things in a different way, and can give us the strength to take action to help others.
2. Prayer gives us insight.
The time in prayer in Adoration changes our hearts because we can reflect on our lives and our behaviors and form a plan to make change. We can talk to God about what He wants for us and how He wants us to make a difference in others’ lives. Sitting quietly and talking to Him or reading through scripture gives us insight as to how He wants us to act. We can then model our lives after the saints and the good men and women in the Bible.
3. Prayer spurs us to action.
Action starts with prayer. We speak to God, and He listens. Then He speaks to us. We may not hear His actual voice, but we can feel that His will has been placed upon our hearts. We can listen to Him as He helps us make decisions for our good or the good of others. We can ask Him where He wants us, what He wants us to do, and how we can follow His command.
4. Prayer brings others closer to God.
When others see us pray, we are setting an example of how to act. And when we pray for others, we can be assured that God hears us. Remember that St. Monica prayed for her son, St. Augustine, for decades before he changed his ways. When we feel tired or distraught that our prayers have not yet been answered, we can look to her example for encouragement. Just as she never stopped praying for her son, we should never stop praying for those we know and love.
Prayer not only strengthens our relationship with God, but prayer changes us. It molds us into more faithful people who work to help others and who work to help make the world a better place—a place ruled by the tenets of our Christ-centered Faith rather than a “live and let live” mentality.
God is our Father, and He loves us more deeply than we can ever imagine. This month, let us take extra time to go sit with Him in Adoration and to build the relationship we both crave.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
I love this indeed! May our loving GOD continue to bless and inspire you, dear Susan C
Thank you. Wonderful. Please keep writing.
Prayer is repentance.
Prayer is healing.
Prayer is peace beyond all understanding.
Prayer is rest.
Prayer is illumination.
Prayer is informed by conscience.
Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:
Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. [CCC 1778]
Prayer is eternal union, including with the murdered unwanted.
Very well written. I gained insight into prayer even though I do pray believe in prayer I am also a student always learning how better to pray and communicate with God. Thank you
Important article especially in these times. Maybe a followup on just starting a day with a Morning Offering Prayer, then including the Guardian Angel and St Michael the Arch Angel Prayers to start the day. Saying the Angelus would not hurt either. What would that take 5 Minutes or so.
Sometimes I think that focus of Sunday Sermons, while it is important to address the Gospel reading, loses sight of the important what I call Catholic Basics: Morning and Evening Prayers, Going to Mass, Going to Confession and Understanding the Eucharist.
Prayer is, first of all, not about getting anything, which is greed, and nothing puts you away from God faster than greed. What kind of love looks only to what it gets out of the deal?
Love is total giving, and prayer is primarily an affair of the heart/soul where we return God’s love by giving ourselves in love to God and simply love God with all that we are until we disappear and only God is reflected in us.
We then are able to accept the sharing God offers us, which includes God’s eternal nature. United in that love we only then truly do God’s will in this always passing away world, where that world’s sufferings are also passing away and of no moment to that eternal union. Meanwhile, any request we make is that our request be in accord with God’s will.
What a straightforward, delightful and inspiring read. Thank you, Ms. Ciancio.
we’re told that god has a “perfect plan” for everyone. so what would be the point in asking for revisions to what’s already perfect (ie, prayer)? yet another contradiction.
Doesn’t have to be contradiction. God’s plan includes change-ups plus a variety of meets and entries. Sometimes, then, it could just be a whole different ballgame. You wouldn’t want to be going around spoiling everybody’s surprise would you?
No idea what you’re talking about. It is absolutely a contradiction. If a thing is perfect (for example, God’s plan, as we’re told, by you), it can’t and shouldn’t be adjusted further. Therefore, prayer is a logical contradiction. It’s also arrogant isn’t it, “hey God, I know even better than you how things ought to be, let me explain and request what I want…”
When you accept a change-up from God that is a humility not an arrogance.
But I only suggested one scenario. There would others. Like the case where the entreaty with God was for doing things all wrong NOT according to the perfect plan; and God has to bring change there or the player will be lost.
With God, while you’re on, it’s not a shut out, you might get a base hit or a run to second base; or you might just get an intentional walk. If you’re struck out He could make you sit through the next inning -or the whole season. If, in the old game, you hit an infield fly, well, you SHOULD pray, because THEN anything can happen and you don’t want to be caught standing (boo boo)!
And what about all those twisted pitches coming at you -should God leave you to face them alone you’d just be an arrogant Alice Wonder Cork.
What’s eating you anyway.
you’re not following the simple paradox I set forward.
Fr. Mike Schmitz answers this really well. Take a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abBZBt-Mjdk
Prayer is an expression of an attachment of a soul to Christ and a tool for deepening it. It is much more than “give me this or that”. As for your question, if you treat a prayer as a conversation with someone Who loves us (St Teresa of Avila’s definition) that it is natural to relate to God your frustrations, plans and so on. Ultimately each of us is supposed to sail in God’s will (like in the eye of storm). How can you do that if you are not attached to Him = do not talk to him = do not express your anger with Him etc etc etc?
Beautiful Anna.
Absolutely. Prayer is not about changing God, but changing us.
And it’s not a “plan”, it is the true reality to which we are often intentionally blind. Only in loving prayerful union with God do we begin to see reality as it truly is, and begin to see our own place in it, and what it is we must do.
Our first petition must always be that God in his infinite love grant us the desire to know him and that our strength never completely fail in that seeking. We do nothing by our own power, not even the desire for God. We do not even exist apart from God’s love.
Prayer is an exercise in the subjugation of self, even in our petitions. This includes when the answer is “no”.
Hello again Andrew. You comment often for someone who ostensibly believes in nothing. Why is that? As an atheist, don’t you have better things to do? And why dialogue with us? If you talk to God (pray), He can satisfy you. If not, you will have lost nothing, since you believe that nothing is the future anyway.
Perhaps like Sartre you are frustrated by the fact that, if God exists, we are forced to be His eternal creatures. Pascal took a brighter approach. He suggested that atheists had nothing to lose by believing, just in case one is eternally wrong. May “the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6: 24-26)
This is a lie.
Prayer is a cynical, hollow, and empty action. Nothing more, nothing less.
Returning the love of a Friend (prayer) is a lie – a cynical, hollow, and empty action?
“Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends…I cannot conceive, my Creator, why the whole world does not strive to draw near Thee in this intimate friendship.” St. Teresa of Ávila
Is having a conversation with your best friend a cynical, hollow, and empty action? We talk to God like we talk to our friends. This strengthens our relationship with them. It allows us to learn more about them. We talk to them because we love them. There is nothing hollow or cynical about having a conversation with someone you love. That includes God.
Ah, another “scientist” who exclaims that if they have not seen something, then it must not exist. Never fear, you have much company in the kingdom of the blind, and the selfish and mean spirited, and you can look forward to an eternity of the same if you just stick with it.
Micha reads as a card carrying member of the world’s fastest growing religion, Atheism, or, The Church Of No-Church. They cannot disprove the existence of God by any scientific means, and so they take it as an article of faith in things not provable, and have a new and dreadfully depressing religion to show for it, with the highest suicide rate of any religion….and they call this “progress”, evolving to extinction.
We appreciate your article’s points about prayer, and thank you, Ms. Ciancio. (I always recall St Monica’s intercession for son Augustine, too!) Much interest shown on this topic herein this reply stream. I appreciate your point 4 which reminds us to remain in contact- and in relationship with our God.
Jesus taught the Disciples to pray the “Our Father” as He did, as the Second Person in the Holy Trinity. The Third Person will act in we-the baptized Church, remaining with us.
And Jesus gifted His Blessed Mother to John the Beloved from His Crucifix. So through Our Lady we’re gifted wisdom and inspiration- and indulgences- if we pray Her Holy Rosary (and meditate upon both of their holy examples from the Gospels and Magisterial Teachings of the Church) will give us grace to be holier. St Louis de Montfort said Our Lady is the treasurer of the graces of God; the merits of Christ’s salvation; and the gifts of the Holy Ghost” (Coronation Mystery meditation).
And we who love Jesus- as John did at the foot of His Cross- are called to offer prayers of Petition in Mass, Novenas, etc., and Divine Mercy Intercession power for those suffering, as suggested in the Church’s spiritual (& corporal) Works of Mercy. We can also pray at Mass to God in Adoration and Praise, and Contrition.
PS: Thank you, Ellie, for sharing joyful priest Fr Mike Schmitz’s prayer teaching link! Tonight I’m fasting and interceding during my Rosary & Divine Mercy prayer line call- for you both, Micha and Andrew, to know Christ’s healing, love, and lasting joy- which I’ve found through God’s grace from Masses, sermons, and the Sacraments, and loving Catholic friends! Through many years of struggles & sadness, God provided for my children and me wonderfully! My happiness- despite challenges- is a testament to the power of prayer and His miraculous grace. If I tithed and prayed, though indigent, God showered me with trips to visit my college kids, a new car, dinners, weekends away, gift cards, events, and concerts for my daughter and me as friends’ guests, etc.! GOD SHOWED UP in tangible ways- with surprise gifts, apartments, and celebrations- all of which I desired! Dear people, I CAN say, “JESUS I TRUST IN THEE!”
Thank you, Ellie, for sharing joyful priest Fr Mike Schmitz’s prayer teaching link!