Lesson 1: What Prayer Is and Why We Pray

Welcome. If you are here, you want to pray, or to pray better, and you are not sure how. That desire is already the beginning. Saint Augustine said that God put the longing for Him in our hearts before we ever noticed it. The fact that you want to pray means He has been working on you for a while.

Prayer is a relationship

The first thing to unlearn is the idea that prayer is a technique you perform correctly to get results. Prayer is a relationship. It is what happens when a creature turns toward its Creator and is honest with Him. The Catechism calls it the raising of the mind and heart to God. Saint Therese called it a simple look toward heaven.

This means the fundamental skill of prayer is not vocabulary or posture. It is honesty. If you can tell God the truth about where you are, you are praying.

Why we pray

We do not pray to inform God of things He does not know, or to persuade Him to be kinder than He already is. We pray because He wants us to know Him, and relationships need communication. We pray because we were made for Him and feel the lack when we do not. We pray because Jesus did, constantly, and told us to.

We also pray because prayer changes us. It is hard to stay bitter while praying for an enemy. It is hard to stay anxious while naming God's past faithfulness. Prayer forms the person who prays.

The four movements of prayer

Christian tradition identifies four basic kinds of prayer. You already know how to do each of them in ordinary life.

• Adoration is telling God who He is. It is the wonder you feel looking at the sea.
• Contrition is admitting you were wrong. It is the apology you owe a friend.
• Thanksgiving is noticing gifts. It is saying thank you and meaning it.
• Petition is asking for help, for yourself or for others.

Every prayer in the Church falls somewhere in these four. You do not need to do all of them at once. Over time they will all find their way into your life with God.

Obstacles to expect

You will feel awkward at first. That is normal; every new relationship feels awkward. You will be distracted. Everyone is. You will wonder whether anyone is listening. That doubt visits even the saints. None of these mean you are failing. They mean you are a human being learning to talk to God.

Practice exercise

Find a quiet spot and sit for three minutes. Make the Sign of the Cross. Then say, out loud or silently, one true sentence to God about how you are right now. Not how you should be, how you are. Tired, hopeful, skeptical, grateful, afraid. Then sit for the rest of the three minutes without filling the silence. End with the Sign of the Cross. That is your first prayer in this course, and it counts.