Thoughts on deep prayer

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How do you guys go about praying in a deep state of mind to really connect with Christ? I feel like my prayers are not making it to heaven, am i just praying wrong? :confused:
 
God hears everything, knows everything, sees everything. He knows what is in your heart. Even if you do not verbalize the prayer, He knows your needs and wants.

Trust. God hears you. He also speaks to you in various ways. Don’t let your desire for an answer blind you to the answer that IS being given.

Or better yet, try thinking of prayer as a conversation with someone who loves you. God is there all around you, inside you. Your prayer does not need to climb a ladder. If we belileve the gospel, prayer is actually the Holy Spirit groaning within us. God prays with us.
 
Your question reminded me of a quote from St. Jose Maria Escriva’s The Way. “You don’t know hoe to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’ you can be sure you’ve already begun.”

Do not go and try to force yourself into prayer by setting a time aside and saying, “Start praying now!” Instead put yourself in the presence of God and allow Him to guide you. Do some Spiritual Reading such as The Imitation of Christ and allow yourself to meditate on it. That is just a suggestion. One thing you may really want to try is to go to your priest and ask him for some guidance. God bless and I’ll say a prayer for you
 
ryan92 said:
How do you guys go about praying in a deep state of mind to really connect with Christ? I feel like my prayers are not making it to heaven, am i just praying wrong? :confused:
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You MUST read the Pope’s message from his Wednesday audience of this week. It covers this subject specifically and is very much along the lines of the quote from St. Jose Maria Escriva. You are most definitely not praying “wrong.” Every effort you make at prayer is taken by the Holy Spirit directly to the Father. This is from the Pope’s talk:

We want to pray, but God is far off, we do not have the words, the language, to speak with God, nor even the thought to do so. We can only open ourselves, place our time at God’s disposition, wait for Him to help us to enter into true dialogue. The Apostle says:** this very lack of words, this absence of words, yet this desire to enter into contact with God, is prayer that the Holy Spirit not only understands, but brings and interprets before God. This very weakness of ours becomes – through the Holy Spirit – true prayer, true contact with God. The Holy Spirit is, as it were, the interpreter who makes us, and God, understand what it is we wish to say**.

Is that beautiful or what? The Pope says that our weakness, our inability to pray is interpreted by the Holy Spirit and taken to the Father, and that weak, what we think is ineffectual prayer, becomes our strength.

The Pope says that prayer isn’t even anything that we do. Prayer "should not be seen merely as a good work that we carry out for God, an action of ours. First and foremost,** it is a gift, the fruit of the living, vivifying presence of the Father of Jesus Christ in us**.

I did a whole posting on this on my blog, but I won’t inflict that on you. Go here and read the transcript. Our Holy Father never ceases to amaze me.
 
ryan92 said:
How do you guys go about praying in a deep state of mind to really connect with Christ? I feel like my prayers are not making it to heaven, am i just praying wrong? :confused:
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Make Gospel reflection a part of your prayer. Read some words of Jesus until something really touches you. Then respond in your heart. Sit in silence with him.
 
Brooklyn your blog is very interesting, keep posting on it. ill be a frequent visitor there on my journey to finding Christ again. Very helpful. thx
 
Introduction to a Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales helped me tremendously, specifically the part about placing oneself in God’s presence. That is the first step for me.

After that, it is practice, practice, practice… It takes lots of patience and time, and practice. It took three years for me before I was even comfortable praying, let alone in a state of connection with God.

-Tim-
 
ryan92 said:
Brooklyn your blog is very interesting, keep posting on it. ill be a frequent visitor there on my journey to finding Christ again. Very helpful. thx
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Our Lord said seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened. Our whole role in salvation is saying “yes” to God, even when we don’t know what that means, just as our Blessed Mother did when she said yes to the Holy Spirit and conceived Jesus Christ. I will pray for you on your journey. And as far as prayer is concerned, as our Holy Father tells us, as long as you are in the presence of God, it doesn’t matter what you say, or if you say anything at all. The Holy Spirit will speak for you.

Thanks for your kind words. It’s a work in progress, just like me.
 
What wonderful replies to a very important question. 🙂

For my part I’d like to recommend some books on prayer by the late Fr Thomas Dubay:

Prayer Primer: Igniting the Fire Within
Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer and finally the book the others have prepared you for:
Fire Within - St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross and the Gospel on Prayer

Read them in the order given because each one leads to the next.

All the best 🙂
 
ryan92 said:
How do you guys go about praying in a deep state of mind to really connect with Christ? I feel like my prayers are not making it to heaven, am i just praying wrong? :confused:
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One way to “connect” is to spend a few moments remembering that our Father in heaven created us and in particular our soul. We were always in the thought of God our Father, even from all eternity before we were. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).

And He is always sustaining you with life as we speak. He is by his knowledge and power with every individual person, permeateing every fiber of their being. That is closer and more intimate than any man and woman have with each other.

But a christian in divine grace of God’s own life, even has a closer union, for we may address God as our Father. We are personal family to him, one of his very own, listening with attention to every word his child will utter.

Now pray.

Just a thought.
 
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