WHAT IS PRAYER? & WHY DO WE PRAY?

Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God. We 'lift our minds' to God when we truly direct our attention to HIM alone and nothing else. It is the time when we pour out our thoughts our hearts, what we feel about our God. It is a loving conversation between a soul and his Creator.

So sad that today, many have strayed away from what prayer should be. The act has been truly abused! Aside from the fact that many individuals at present view it as just a form of asking for something, say a favor, or a petition, many have recourse to it to obtain and manipulate spiritual power. And this is true among power seekers, they say that this particular prayer or orasyon or that so and so has special spiritual powers attached to it ; that you can summon celestial spirits or you can order those spirits to do some favor for you. My friend, is that how we look and view our God? Is God our servant? I am just trying to put up this question for you to realize and meditate for awhile - Why do you pray?

We pray not in order to gain some special spiritual powers as others say. We pray because as God's creature we are eternally indebted to Him, being a recipient of his bounty. We must not forget that God made us body and soul. We belong to Him one hundred percent . Every good thing that comes to us has its source in God. We depend upon him for the very air that we breathe. And becausze of this relationship, we owe God the duty of prayer. In Fr. Trese's book, The Faith Explained, he said that 'prayer is an act of justice, not merely an act of piety.' Prayer is a DEBTthat we must pay, not merely a graceful gesture that we choose to make".

Prayer likewise is not mechanical or has to be memorized so that it could be repeated over and over. Earlier as is i have stated, prayer is a loving conversation between a soul and his creator, between the lover and his beloved. If then this is so, words become inadequate, because then we are already basked in bliss where words and feelings have no meaning.Where everything is just you and God. Try to reminisce your moments with your wife, husband or loved one, sometimes there is nothing to discuss and you just merely stare and look at your beloved, now does it mean that your conversation had stopped? Of course not, it has merely transcended from words to wordlessness.