The Year of Prayer
At the beginning of this year, Pope Francis declared 2024 to be a year of prayer in preparation for the year of Jubilee (2025). The Holy Father explained that the Year of Prayer is dedicated “to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer - prayer in personal life, in the life of the Church, prayer in the world.”
I love this! We as MGL love this! Friends, let’s take this invitation and delve into prayer. This is a perfect time not only to prepare for the Jubilee year but also to deepen in our relationship with God and grow in discovering or re-discovering our need for prayer. Here are my top 10 tips for delving into prayer:
1. Prayer is relationship and communication with God. It involves us talking to God and listening to what God has to say.
2. Prayer is like a muscle, the more we use it, the more it is strengthened. Just like exercising our body to build muscles, we need to exercise our spiritual life to build our prayer life – set aside time each day!
3. Prayer is a gift, in more ways than one. It’s a gift from God that we can spend time with him in prayer, it’s his gift to us. Prayer is like a gift that we need to take, unwrap and apply to our life.
4. Prayer is not a bag of spiritual techniques, the more we open ourselves up to God, the more he reveals himself to us. We need to spend quality time together - It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we spend time with God.
5. Prayer is a journey form the head to the heart, this can be the longest journey in our lives. Prayer needs to take place in the heart, the head may be a good place to start but it needs to move to our hearts.
6. Pray as you can, not as you can’t. Thomas Merton said, ‘If you want a life of prayer, the best way to get it is by praying. So how does one begin a life of prayer? Dom Chapman said it is best to pray as you can, not as you can’t’
7. In prayer, God wants us to be ourselves – God knows our voice and he likes to hear it. Theresa of Avila - Prayer in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with the One we know loves us.
8. In prayer let’s remember that we are beloved sons and daughters of God, that he loves each and every one of us and hears us and cares for our needs. He wants to be intimately involved in our life.
9. In prayer we are encouraged to be honest – God wants to know what is on our heart. We don’t need to shy away from sharing with him our deepest thoughts and feelings. He knows them anyway. Sometimes we can pray what we think God wants us to hear. He is big enough to handle anything we have to say.
10. Finally, persevere in prayer – Relationships are often held together by times of connection and contact e.g., short phone call, letter or a hello in the streets. If we put off talking to a friend until a time can be arranged, we may not get around to it. The same goes for our time with Jesus – if we put it off, it may not happen!
It’s not too late to take up the invitation of Pope Francis and delve into prayer and let Jesus transform our hearts. May God bless you and I thank you for supporting us in our call and vocation.
Therese Mills