Meaningful prayer

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niklovely

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How are we meant to pray? Are we supposed to pray for what we think we need and want? Is it supposed to be introduced with a certain prayer and ended with a different prayer? What is meaningful prayer?

I recently discovered the Novena prayers and it has provided me with a good structure on my prayers. I feel as though I have been doing it wrong all along, In some sort of way treating God as a vending machine.
 
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Open your heart. Maybe write God a letter. I have a journal but perhaps you don’t want a written record of your prayer. Then shred it.
 
niklovely said:
How are we meant to pray?
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I’ll try answering this first question.

I’ve liked reading then Cardinal Ratzinger’s book Jesus of Nazareth. In chapter 5 he explains the Our Father. Here’s a brief description of part of it from a Catholic Culture .org article:
Jesus says through Matthew’s gospel that the Father, far more than human parents with their own children, will “give good things to those who ask him,” (Mt 5:44-45) and in Luke He clearly states that these “good things” are the Holy Spirit (Lk 11:13). Benedict concludes:

This means that the gift of God is God himself. The “good things” that he gives us are himself. This reveals in a surprising way what prayer is really all about: It is not about this or that, but about God’s desire to offer us the gift of himself—that is the gift of all gifts, the “one thing necessary.”
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Prayer is “lifting the mind and heart to God.” The fact that you want to communicate with God and want Him to communicate to you is a grace in and of itself. I would suggest allowing that interior movement more and varied free reign, at various parts of the day, in different moods. If you’re distracted, feel free to ask, “God, why am I so distracted?!”

Some of my most powerful moments of prayer were my least pious. But that’s when I was the most real. And it wasn’t always bad. Once it was a particularly beautiful morning, having coffee on my porch and appreciating the way the morning sun was hitting the clouds, and all I could say was, “I love it when You do that!”
 
You talk to Him in all sincerity, warts and all.
And then you listen. Quiet your heart and mind . Read the Scriptures, which is how He speaks to us.
Learn everything you can about Him in the Bible and in competent spiritual writing.
And hold fast to the sacraments.
 
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In a symbolic sense.
You practice quiet and study of the scriptures and competent spiritual books and in that way, you let God talk to you.
 
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