How do you pray?

[Reuben_J]

This is directed to all, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Just want to gauge about how prayers are done and your prayer life.

Do you pray?

Are you a prayerful person? If yes, why; and if no, why not?

How do you pray?

How long is your prayer time? Is it done regularly? Do you have a fixed time for it?

Do you have a prayer room in your house?

Besides personal prayer, do you pray corporately? Do you count church going as personal prayer?

What is prayer to you?

What type of prayers do you often do?

You can add to the list if you like.

Thanks and God bless.

Reuben

 

[MaryT777]

Great question.
I do consider myself a prayerful person. My grandmother was very prayerful and instilled that in me. I also consider Scripture particularly 1 Thess 5:17 Pray without ceasing, In all circumstances give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ.

I pray standing, kneeling, silently, outloud when I am alone, and with others, and also
with EWTN (Eternal World Television Network-a Catholic channel for anyone to view of course) when they pray certain prayers.

I pray every day at the time of the Divne Hour of Mercy which is 3PM. I pray with EWTN
the Divine Mercy Chaplet (…have mercy on us and on the whole world.) and the Rosary.
There is also a 10 minute segment on reflection of a scripture and usually a Litany.
This is my “prayer hour.”

During the day I try to pray prayers of thanksgiving for blessings received when I think of it. I could do a better job of it some days for sure, especially those days that don’t go so well. When I am able I like to read the prayer request of CAF friends and members and pray online for their intentions. One thing I do need to improve upon is praying before each meal. Often I will say a quick prayer Thank you for this food to myself when I remember but I’d like to make it a habit given all the people starving in the world.

Night at bedtime is my time for prayer for personal intentions and family members and friends. So that’s my typical routine. Days I feel not so much like praying I feel blessed to have a treasury of Catholic prayers I have memorized and can pray that way. It helps during days of less Faith. I also like to pray intercessory prayers such as St Michael the Archangel defend us in batttle…prayer and also Guardian Angel prayer.

I don’t have a prayer room in my house but I do own a rosary and have a beautiful crucifix in my home that makes it feel like a place to pray.

I do go to the Catholic Church and I there I pray corporately with others, such as the Nicene Creed to profess our Faith the Our Father. We also pray for intentions of parishioners, the Church, our leaders and the Pope. Before Church I pray private intentions for my children usually. Therefore at Church I do both.

Great question.
Peace in Christ,
Mary.

 

[Kliska]

This is directed to all, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Just want to gauge about how prayers are done and your prayer life.

I agree; great question!

Do you pray?

Yes.

Are you a prayerful person? If yes, why; and if no, why not?

Yes, I consider myself one. There is absolutely no chance for me in this life or the next without God. I truly believe that it is also a living relationship, like all the relationships in my life only on a totally different scale. I pray because I want to talk to my Father and my God. I pray to show worship, to give thanks, to beseech Him for my needs… and also selfishly for my wants every now and again.

Also I feel that it is through Him that I’m connected to all other believers, including my family both here on earth, and in Heaven.

How do you pray?

I pray out loud sometimes, silent sometimes, usually forming words, but I’ve hit points sometimes when I believe my silence is prayer… often feeling that is when the Holy Spirit is interceding for me. I pray sitting, standing, kneeling, laying down, even with my face on the floor. I don’t usually raise my hands, but sometimes clasp them. I pray extemporaneously to the Father, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in the name of the Son.

How long is your prayer time? Is it done regularly? Do you have a fixed time for it?

This is the hard one; I don’t know how long everyday I pray in total. I find myself talking to God off and on every day. Yes, regularly, though my only fixed time is before bed.

Do you have a prayer room in your house?

No, but it’s just my husband and I and he’s gone to work a lot while I’m home, so my whole house seems like a private space most times. If he’s home, I do tend to go in a room and shut the door for more “serious” prayer times, even though my husband is a believer too. lol

Besides personal prayer, do you pray corporately? Do you count church going as personal prayer?

No for the first one, unless it is the rare occasion where I’m reciting the Our Father with fellow believers.

What is prayer to you?

Communication, conversation, worship, thanksgiving, and I’m going to say (I hope everyone understands what I mean) therapy.

What type of prayers do you often do?

Extemporaneous.

Thanks and God bless.

Reuben

Grace and Peace!

 

[judynurse]

My prayer time is in the evening before bedtime. I have a Crucifix in 3 of the rooms in my house (one above my bed, one above the dining room table and a small brass one from a convent in my living room, as well as a few statues/pictures gathered over the years. I pray off and on all day. Short ones, usually, or a Hail Mary. I have had problems saying the 5 decades of the Rosary since my husband died, as we always did that together, so now I do the Rosary with EWTN either in the afternoon or evening, as well as the Divine Mercy in song once a week. I try to think of God at least every hour or two, and thank Him, ask Him for strength and help or mention a prayer intention from either CAF or from my Parish requests.

I do not have a specific prayer “room”, but usually pray in my chair in the living room, or in my bed. I also often pray when driving in my car. I don’t have a set prayer time, other than the Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, both of which I do in the living room. I try to remember to pray a short prayer each hour or sometimes each two hours. Since I am preparing for the Consecration to Jesus through Mary, I am praying more formally much more frequently and offering penances to Jesus through Mary daily.

 

[Marie5890]

It’s really NOT complicated by human ego…

“Father, I need help and strengthn in the following situations…”

Relationships, including that with the Divine, is NOT complicated…

 

[tawny]

I pray my Devine Office; that is the Litutgy of the Hours for my morning, evening and night prayers. I pray a daily rosary. I pray silently, aloud and in unison in group prayer. My church has a prayer group that prays before the Blessed Sacrament. We met on Monday evenings. We also have a Eucharistic Ministers prayer group for First Friday adoration. I also stop by my church’s adoration chapel after work each day for some prayers. I pray because God does hear our prayers and answers them. Not in my time, but in His. God bless.

 

[andrewstx]

This is directed to all, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Just want to gauge about how prayers are done and your prayer life.

Do you pray?

YES

Are you a prayerful person? If yes, why; and if no, why not?

I TRY VERY HARD, BUT HAVING HAD A STROKE MAKES IT HARD TO CONCENTRATE SOMETIMES

How do you pray?

USSUALLY THE OUR FATHER, HAIL MARY AND GLORY BE. WITH PROBLEMS CONCENTRATING EXTEMPORE PRAYER IS DIFFICULT

How long is your prayer time? Is it done regularly? Do you have a fixed time for it?

Do you have a prayer room in your house?

I DO HAVE AN ICON CORNER THAT ALSO INCLUDES STATUES

Besides personal prayer, do you pray corporately? Do you count church going as personal prayer?

What is prayer to you?

What type of prayers do you often do?

You can add to the list if you like.

Thanks and God bless.

Reuben

 

[Eduardo06sp]

Do you pray?

Yes

Are you a prayerful person? If yes, why; and if no, why not?

Not very much; I maintain this routine because I want to get rid of my bad habits and because I desire to get closer to God

How do you pray?

I either follow the prayers on YouTube from my laptop, read it from printed paper or recite it from my memory.

How long is your prayer time? Is it done regularly? Do you have a fixed time for it?

Morning: ~15 mins.
After-school: ~10 mins.
Day/Nighttime: ~30 mins.

No, I don’t have a fixed time for prayer.
I do it daily and I (try to) do my morning prayers anytime from 6-7am before I go to school.
I try doing my daytime prayers after school at 3:00pm, although I usually don’t do it at this time.
Finally, I do my night prayers at around 9pm or later.

Do you have a prayer room in your house?

No, I pray in my room sitting on a large, comfortable chair.

Besides personal prayer, do you pray corporately? Do you count church going as personal prayer?

No, I pray alone most of the time. If you go to Church on your own time, then it is personal prayer if you’re alone. Especially Eucharistic adoration, it of course counts as personal prayer, even if you’re meditating.
If you go to Church to meet your Sunday obligation or with a group, it is community prayer.

What is prayer to you?

To me, prayer is a person’s effort to get closer to God by dedicating your time to Him, even if you’re doing work, not sitting down and/or feeling spiritual dryness.

What type of prayers do you often do?

Morning: St. Michael the Archangel’s Chaplet
After-school: Divine Mercy Chaplet
Day/Nighttime: Rosary with Litany of Loreto at the end

I suggest that you visit the Catechism website regarding prayer.

Expressions of prayer:
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1c3a1.htm
Prayer in the Christian life:
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1.htm

 

[Neofight]

I’m not sure how this might sit with some of my brothers and sisters, but the shower is my prayer room. I start each day giving thanks and praise and asking that on this new day I do his will…after dressing, it down stairs to do my daily mass readings, then have my coffee and head off for my day!

 

[sousley]

Not enough!!!

Devotional prayer includes daily lauds, vespers hours at least (I alternate between LOTH and latin missal), rosary most days and Leonine prayers after mass (I don’t make it to Mass everyday, usually about 4 times a week).

Meditative prayer: Thursday night Exposition and laying in bed until I fall asleep are constant, but otherwise probably only about 15 minutes daily (little embarrassing) that is apart from personal intentions throughout the rosary. Most prayer is on my knees, except in bed. I spend probably an hour daily on average with Scriptures and practicing lectio divina.

 

[drac16]

Gread idea for a thread. I come from an Islamic backround, so my answers will not be altogether consistent with most of the other posts here. Just bear that in mind-- I’m not trying to push my views onto anyone.

Prayer is basically the exhale of the muslim. Prayer is one of the ways of worshiping the Almighty and since we were created to worship [Qur’an 51:56], it’s an integral part of any muslim’s life. Some people, especially atheists, often say that prayer is an instrument that’s used to escape reality when one feels weak. I would obviously disagree there, because, one the contrary, having an active prayer life is upholding reality. The Qur’an says, in surah 2:186: “And when My servants ask you, [O Muhammad], concerning Me - indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me [by obedience] and believe in Me that they may be [rightly] guided”

I believe that God has decreed, from eternity past, that He would create mankind to have a relationship with them and one of the ways the relationship is upheld is through prayer. I believe that prayer can accomplish marvelous things, but prayer ought not to be done solely when we’re in need of something-- it is to be done irrespective of how you’re doing or if your life is going how you want it to go. In countless texts in the Qu’ran and sunnah, of the the chief attributes that’s associated with a righteous person is that he/she establishes regular prayer.

There are different kinds of prayer in the Islamic faith. There’s salat, which is what most people associate with Islam, where the Qur’an is recited and at certain intervals, everyone bows/prostrates in unison. Salat is to be done at five different times throughout the day (before sunrise, at noon, in the afternoon, after the sun sets and at night). I’ve been struggling to do all my salats, but that is my own fault. I don’t have any excuse for missing them.

There’s dua, which can be done at any time and for anything (like “Oh, God please grant me success on my exam on Monday!” There’s also dhikr, which is rememberance of God by chanting things over and over again. A form of dhikr that’s often done is right after a salat, where a person says ‘Subhanallah’ 33 times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ 33 times and ‘Allahu akbar’ 33 times. Sometimes muslims use beads to help them count the amount of times they’ve said ‘Subhanallah’, or any other part of the dhikr.

I make dua and dhikr all the time, but, as mentioned, I don’t do all five of the obligatory salats (which is my own fault. I don’t make any excuse for my sins).

 

[Reuben_J]

Thanks to all who have responded to share your prayer life.

I like to be a prayerful person but it is always a struggle to keep up with my prayer time. It encourages me a great deal to hear how you pray and the reasons you are doing it.

I asked about prayer room in the house because it is very convenient to ‘retreat’ into it especially in a bigger family though if you have the house alone to yourself of course you can practically do anything on your won.

MaryT777 – I don’t pray the Divine Mercy but my wife does. It is a great blessing for you to keep up with the three o’clock. You mentioned about the ‘treasury of Catholic prayers’ – I agree whole heartedly. It is truly a privilege that we can always use these prayers anytime but especially when we are dry and do not feel like praying.

**Kliska **– thanks for the reply. I have Protestant friends and they are some of the most prayerful people that I have known. I can understand when you prayed ‘sitting, standing, kneeling, laying down, even with my face on the floor.’ I do that that sometimes too and the privacy of a room would be good. We have a small room adoration room in a chapel, not a church, where our priests stay, but we can go there to pray. And yes, we can prostrate on the floor. And yes, praying extemporaneously, allowing ourselves to pour our heart to God.

judynurse – I am sorry about your husband; you must have missed him very much. Perhaps the best time one can spend with each other is in prayer. I am sure you are glad to have done that and what a loving memory it must be when you are praying alone now. I am sure he is listening somewhere in the heavenly kingdom.

**Marie5890 **- yeah, relationship with the Divine is not complicated; they say God is a prayer away. How good is our God that he can be reached when we need him.

**tawny **– Oh, to have a group going before the Blessed Sacrament, what a blessed way to spend time together!

**andrewstx **– hope you are keeping well, andrewstx. It is a pleasant surprise that Orthodox do pray the Hail Mary and Glory Be too. We have a corner where we enthroned the Bible with a chair beside it and it can also acts as a prayer corner too.

Eduardo06sp – wow, for one who isn’t a ‘prayerful person’, praying three times a day of 15, 10 and 30 minutes is really amazing brother. Yes, I would count Eucharistic adoration as personal prayer, meditating before the Eucharistic Lord.

Neofight – shower as a prayer room, why not? LOL.The Lord can be found anywhere and where our heart is.

sousley – I always admire those who do devotional prayer because it is not easy to keep up with. Great prayer.

God bless.

 

[Reuben_J]

Gread idea for a thread. I come from an Islamic backround, so my answers will not be altogether consistent with most of the other posts here. Just bear that in mind-- I’m not trying to push my views onto anyone.

Prayer is basically the exhale of the muslim. Prayer is one of the ways of worshiping the Almighty and since we were created to worship [Qur’an 51:56], it’s an integral part of any muslim’s life. Some people, especially atheists, often say that prayer is an instrument that’s used to escape reality when one feels weak. I would obviously disagree there, because, one the contrary, having an active prayer life is upholding reality. The Qur’an says, in surah 2:186: “And when My servants ask you, [O Muhammad], concerning Me - indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me [by obedience] and believe in Me that they may be [rightly] guided”

I believe that God has decreed, from eternity past, that He would create mankind to have a relationship with them and one of the ways the relationship is upheld is through prayer. I believe that prayer can accomplish marvelous things, but prayer ought not to be done solely when we’re in need of something-- it is to be done irrespective of how you’re doing or if your life is going how you want it to go. In countless texts in the Qu’ran and sunnah, of the the chief attributes that’s associated with a righteous person is that he/she establishes regular prayer.

There are different kinds of prayer in the Islamic faith. There’s salat, which is what most people associate with Islam, where the Qur’an is recited and at certain intervals, everyone bows/prostrates in unison. Salat is to be done at five different times throughout the day (before sunrise, at noon, in the afternoon, after the sun sets and at night). I’ve been struggling to do all my salats, but that is my own fault. I don’t have any excuse for missing them.

There’s dua, which can be done at any time and for anything (like “Oh, God please grant me success on my exam on Monday!” There’s also dhikr, which is rememberance of God by chanting things over and over again. A form of dhikr that’s often done is right after a salat, where a person says ‘Subhanallah’ 33 times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ 33 times and ‘Allahu akbar’ 33 times. Sometimes muslims use beads to help them count the amount of times they’ve said ‘Subhanallah’, or any other part of the dhikr.

I make dua and dhikr all the time, but, as mentioned, I don’t do all five of the obligatory salats (which is my own fault. I don’t make any excuse for my sins).

Thanks. No worry, drac16. You can share the way you pray. I expect the varieties since we come from different religious background. Our late Pope, John Paul II did enter a mosque and said a simple prayer (in his own way of course).

Despite our differences, I admire the Muslims for their devotion to prayers. So you have the salat which is to be prayed five times a day, gosh, how awesome and the dua, I think this is more of a personal spontaneous prayer, right?

I don’t know whether there are any counterparts in Catholic prayers. We have the mass which is an obligation that we must attend on days of obligation and the personal prayer which we can say anytime anywhere.

 

[Reuben_J]

There’s also dhikr, which is rememberance of God by chanting things over and over again. A form of dhikr that’s often done is right after a salat, where a person says ‘Subhanallah’ 33 times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ 33 times and ‘Allahu akbar’ 33 times. Sometimes muslims use beads to help them count the amount of times they’ve said ‘Subhanallah’, or any other part of the dhikr.

Is there any significant in this (dhikir)? Is it like singing hymn?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

When you breathe in, see if it sounds like Yah, when you breathe out, see if it sounds like weh.

A minister said that every time we breathe, it is the word of God - Yahweh

 

[Joy2day]

 

[ajecphotos]

Prayer is wonderful. It can also be mixed for me. Sometimes I get a great urge to pray, others I feel that I don’t want to pray even though I do. I think that perseverance is very important in prayer life. When one is feeling down and with no inspiration then that is the time to push through and continue in prayers.

I pray morning and evening prayer (Divine Office) Morning and evening Office for the dead. Various prayers during the day said in house, car, church. I do try to say the rosary as often as possible. Several times a week.

I would love to be better at praying. To be more sincere. I hate to rattle off prayers without thinking about what is being said.

 

[drac16]

Is there any significant in this (dhikir)? Is it like singing hymn?

The word ‘dhikr’ means ‘rememberance’ (i.e. rememberance of God). It can be done in private or in a congregation. I suppose it can be compared to singing a hymn when it’s done in a congregation. There’s something muslims recite in the morning of Eid al Fitr which is sort of like a hymn. Here’s an example: youtube.com/watch?v=f-90LsJPU1A

You can just do silent dhikr if you want, though. Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him] reccomended saying [aloud or silently] ‘Subhanallah wa bi hamdihi’, which means ‘Glory to God and Praise be to Him’ 100 times a day. It’s considered meritorious to remember Allah by reciting praises to Him or just by remembering Him in one’s heart (that’s what dhikr is, basically).

 

[Kliska]

I’m not sure how this might sit with some of my brothers and sisters, but the shower is my prayer room. I start each day giving thanks and praise and asking that on this new day I do his will…after dressing, it down stairs to do my daily mass readings, then have my coffee and head off for my day!

I pray in the shower too! It may be silly, but the running water reminds me of God pouring out grace, and cleansing us.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Do you pray? Yes

**Are you a prayerful person? If yes, why; and if no, why not?**I believe so. I believe prayer is a wonderful way to speak to God as well as LISTEN.

How do you pray? With my eyes closed

How long is your prayer time? Is it done regularly? Do you have a fixed time for it? It all depends on the issues I have. I do may daily prayers and also we pray before every meal and then we pray before we go to bed.

Do you have a prayer room in your house? We gather around the coffee table for our prayers before bedtime but other than that…just depends on what room I am in as to where I say a prayer. No certain room.

Besides personal prayer, do you pray corporately? Do you count church going as personal prayer? I pray with others often.

What is prayer to you? Prayer is a way to talk and listen to God. Prayer plays a major part in my life and the lives of my wife and boys.

What type of prayers do you often do? Personal prayers between God and I and also the Lords Prayer. I do not pray to saints but I do ask for their prayers in general.