Mental Images in Prayer

[Zirconia]

I read in another thread that most people create mental images when they pray. I usually don’t, although this is probably because I have some fairly extensive issues with visual perception.

But it made me curious…Which ones tend to come to mind? Any special reasons why?

Zirconia

 

[Beno]

When I say the “Hail Mary”, without trying to, I get a mental image of Mary looking at me and listening. It sometimes feels like I can sense her emotional response to my prayers, but this is probably due to the the state of mind that I’m in when I pray that prayer.

I find it pretty difficult to pray without some sort of a mental image of who I’m praying to or through. Just something us sighted people have to contend with because of our ability to learn familiarity through the sense of sight. It might be curious to know what non-sighted persons experience when they pray.

On an aside, I find it VERY easy to pray to our invisible God when I am outside at night and looking up at the starry heavens. I seem to connect with Him in a particularly strong way by doing so.

 

[Beno]

Zirconia, I don’t know what your particular thoughts are about images and prayer, and the topic of Catholics praying to/through Saints, but I felt I should probably clarify a few things. Maybe I sensed a particular agenda on your part. If not, I apologize in advance. I also apologize if any of the following goes a bit off-topic to what you are asking.

Catholics have a lot of images - paintings and statues and the like. But these are not the objects of our prayers. They are mere representations for those of us who prefer a visual aid when praying. When we pray to Mary and the saints, we are honoring their roles in modeling Christian living for all of us and are asking for their intercessions to God, knowing that they have been where we are. We ask their prayerful assistance just as I would ask a fellow Christian here on earth, but with the difference being that they are spiritually face to face with Holy God (at least until they are reunited with their resurrected bodies at the end of time).

I do not fear addressing God directly, (and sometimes I may be a bit too direct) but there are times when a particular connection to a holy saint in heaven seems an aid to our own striving for holiness. And a visual or mental image of that person seems to me to help direct our prayers to the realm of heaven which is, of course, beyond our imagining. Yes, we are thankful to have the visual image of God in the body of Jesus as God the Son, but directing our prayers to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit is a more daunting task for those of us who are sighted and have learned and experienced much of what we know with the aid of physical sight.

Those who are Orthodox also have a particular point of view regarding images in the form of icons that expounds on the topic of images and prayer.

All but assists in our striving to live holy lives as God’s children. God bless you.

 

[FightingFat]

on www.sacredspace.ie you are prompted to imagine Jesus beside you and to hold a conversation with him. I like that imagery.

 

[SingtotheLord]

*When I am at Mass, oftentimes during the Consecration I visualize all the angels and saints present near the altar joining in this MOST HOLY SACRIFICE of the MASS.

When I pray the rosary I try to visualize each mystery whether it be my Lord Jesus, my Blessed Mother, the Holy Spirit, the apostles or even the soldiers scourging Jesus.
It puts a clearer perspective in my mind as I meditate.

 

[xmydreamsfadex]

When I pray the rosary I try to visualize each mystery whether it be my Lord Jesus, my Blessed Mother, the Holy Spirit, the apostles or even the soldiers scourging Jesus.
It puts a clearer perspective in my mind as I meditate.

when i am praying the rosary i also try to keep images in my head about the mystery i am praying on but at times the images go away and i find that i am trying to remember the words to the hail mary rather than focusing on the mystery itself. is this vain and repetitous prayer that the Lord condems?

 

[Zirconia]

Hi everyone,

In response to the reply posted by Beno, there is no agenda here whatsoever. I am genuinely curious about what mental images most people experience when they pray. I am sorry if this came across as anything other than that.

To clarify, I don’t mean statues or icons, and want to point out that I believe that these can be properly used to help focus the mind on spiritual realities and who you are praying to. I have no objection to praying in the presence of these and have a few icons myself. But this is not exactly relevant to what I intended to ask.

Maybe I should explain more about myself. The reason I don’t use much visualization in prayer is most likely because I have prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces, cars, etc) and other anomalies in visual perception, but other than that (and being nearsighted), I can see just fine

So my prayers never had much (if any) visual component, and I always thought this was normal. But then I came to read on a thread here that many people do visualize as part of their prayer life. Since I don’t, I started wondering whether other people did and what they visualized. That’s all.

Sorry.

And xmydreamsfadex, I do not object to repetition in prayer; some of my favorite prayers are litanies, and I use one as part of my daily devotions. If the Rosary helps you like the litanies help me, that is awesome.

Again, sorry, I had no intent to provoke such a firestorm

What happened?

Zirconia

 

[water]

Zirconia,

Normally, I don’t pay attention to visualizing images in my head; however, I prefer it comes to me naturally. I don’t want to focus too much on the images that I forget what I am praying. I spend about 1 or 2 seconds to realize if the image has anything to do with praying then I pray regarding the images that I see. If I couldn not think of anything related to the images, I don’t pay attention to it anymore.

Thinking of images in your mind when praying is good too. For instance, citing the rosary you can think of Jesus through all the mysteries is very helpful.

 

[Beno]

In response to the reply posted by Beno, there is no agenda here whatsoever.
Again, my apologies to you Zirconia. I suppose I should have allowed myself some time to settle into non-defensive mode after being on some non-Catholoic threads before replying to your question. Sorry about that.