Prayer Mechanics

[flick427]

I’m looking for some good sources of prayer (book would be nice) that talk about the mechanics of prayer (detailed). Questions like this:
-When do you say prayers out loud?
-When do you say them silently?
-When do you do the sign of the cross?
-Does The Virgin Mary hear your thoughts like God does when you pray? How about your Guardian Angel?
-When is a thought a prayer/can just a thought be a prayer or, what constitutes a prayer?
-When to pray what and what to pray for when someone ask "will you pray for me, I have this problem? (like when to pray a novena or rosary for someone or offer up suffering as opposed to just a quick prayer)
-Group Prayer vs. individual prayer
-When to thank God and when to ask His help (petition)
-Meditation (how to and when)
-Contemplation (how to and when)
I unserstand most of these are left up to personal choice and some nmay have obvious answers, but I never had this sort of instruction growing up. I am looking for some rather involved information basically on how to truely do things the “Catholic way” as far as prayer since most books I have found don’t go into too much detail. Often we are just taught prayer and not how ow why we really do what we do.
Thanks!

 

[Dismas2004]

Check out some book by Fr. Thomas Dubay.

Peter Kreeft has some good intro to prayer books as well.

But the best advice is to get a Prayer Warrior for a Spiritual Director!

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Hi,

Prayer is simply commuication with God. You can , whilst being a layman in the middle of the world, continually pray. You can be a contemplative in the middle of the world. You don’t have to be a priest or religious to be a contemplative. A great Saint who taught this in recent times was St Josemaria Escriva. A quote follows, but for more click on the following link and run a search for prayer. There are about 230 quotes on this subject.Everything can be turned into prayer and offered up to God. Even our rest. Read on. I think you will enjoy it.
Friends of God > A Life of Prayer > Number 255http://www.escrivaworks.org/images/...scrivaworks.org/images/misc/pixtrans.gifThere are countless ways of praying, as I have already told you. We children of God don’t need a method, an artificial system, to talk with our Father. Love is inventive, full of initiative. If we truly love, we will discover our own intimate paths to lead us to a continuous conversation with Our Lord.

May God grant that what we have contemplated today will not pass over our souls like a summer downpour — a few drops of rain, then once again the baking sun and the fields are as dry as before. The water of God’s grace needs to settle, to seep through to the roots and bear fruit in virtues. If we let it do this, our years on earth — made up of days of work and prayer — will be spent in the presence of Our Father. If we falter, let us turn to Holy Mary who loves us and teaches us how to pray; and to St Joseph, our Father and Lord, whom we venerate so much. In this world he was the one who was closest to the Mother of God and, after Mary, to her Divine Son. Together they will bring our weakness to Jesus, so that he may turn it into strength.

escrivaworks.org/