Prayer

A Few General Notes on Prayer

A time-tested definition describes prayer as the lifting of our mind to God. We ask God for our needs, we praise his greatness, we contemplate at his goodness. In each of these (and in the other modes of prayer) our minds are caught up to the God whom we dare to meet in the most sacred and secret places of the mind.

Prayer is this meeting place of the human and the divine. Truly what we assent to by faith, we encounter in prayer. Thus another time-honored description can note that, in prayer, we look at God and God looks at us.

As the saints bear witness to so beautifully, prayer is an essential hallmark of the Christian life. The saint longs for prayer. Yet the desire to pray is really nothing less than the desire to be with God.