How do you know if your prayer comes from the heart?

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mikeljosh

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Hi… I’m new here. Just would like to know how do you know if your prayer really comes from the heart and not only in your mind? Sometimes I’m not really sure if I’m praying correctly or just talking to myself in prayer. Thanks
 
You’re never talking to yourself even if you are - if you catch my drift. God hears even our self-talk and the desires of our heart, so any such is also prayer to him.

And there’s nothing wrong with praying with your conscious mind either - after all, our conscious is a gift from God as well!
 
Welcome Mikeljosh,

It sounds like maybe you are desirous of praying with sincerity to touch the very heart of God. Beautiful! As for knowing when it is coming from the mind or the heart, isn’t it a good idea to engage the whole of your being; that is, both mind AND the heart?

Sometimes one or the other will dominate our prayer, but picture to yourself the image of a little one who climbs on the Father’s lap and pours out its feelings. Jesus teaches us to approach Him with this simplicity, and there is no doubt that He hears you. You may be suddenly blessed with a movement in your heart that is filled with joy, longing, desire to please God, remorse for sin, quiet peace, or any combination of these holy emotions as you speak to God.

We call this mental prayer, when the words we address to God are our own, rather than a formal prayer that another has composed which we “recite.” While not neglecting these formal (vocal) prayers, it is best to spend personal time getting to know the Lord by talking to Him as a son.
 
If your praying because you want to…Jesus will listen, he hears our heart as well as our mind.
Ask our Blessed Lady Mary to teach you how to you pray to her son and she will.
May God Bless!
 
not sure how you can separate the two. How do you pray solely with the heart or solely with the mind ???
 
Geesh, good question, Wcknight,

You may have seen books on prayer that just describe a “groaning” in prayer, referring to the intensity of emotion that has strength in the body. It can also be filled with joy and delight, or other sentiments that truly touch the heart of man, as it were.

Other times, we are able to pray only with the intellect [the mind, which includes the understanding and imagination] and there is a void, which some call “aridity” because the emotions and/or feelings are very dry and lifeless. Not to say they are of less worth, for if we persist in prayer despite not having consolation, it is still pleasing to God.

Generally a person who is new to prayer * will find honey, for God inclines them to the practice of prayer and allows them to find sweetness of heart. Later on as one advances, the Lord withdraws the consolation; it then becomes a matter of pure willing in the mind, to adore, thank, petition, and just “be” with God.

It may happen that some persons just “get their prayer in” by absently reciting formulae, and in this sense, I mentioned above using both the mind AND the heart. Real prayer attempts to involve the heart as one speaks to God.*
 
I know I’m praying from the heart, because the heart is where I go, when I pray.

I pray from the center of my being, which is actually what the heart is.

Jim
 
Wcknight,

I forgot to mention this when you asked how it could be one or the other … i.e., those times when the mind is not engaged, but only the heart. Some call it the prayer of loving attention … where the heart just goes to God and the mind is not active as in composing words, but is at rest while the heart just lifts a loving glance and rests in God for a time. Another name spiritual authors have given this would be prayer of recollection.
 
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