What prayer method do you use and what benefit has it been to you?

[Rocks_91]

I’ve been reading a little of the Philokalia and am wondering what prayer method people use… ‘hesychastic’ or the contemplative prayer of ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ and what benefit either has been to you.

 

[Robert_Sock]

I do engage in Contemplative Prayer (Centering Prayer) and I find it very comforting. But I also see the need for a good foundation and I regularly challenge myself to adapt to the teachings of The Imitation of Christ, which is the tough part… Contemplative Prayer is quite easy once a solid foundation is built.

 

[SilverAvenger]

I personaly enjoy the “Walking Prayer”, which in my case, means spontanious prayer during a nature walk, influencied by God’s creation

 

[Della]

Lectio Divina using the daily Mass readings. I also pray the Morning and Evening offices of the Divine Office. The DO grounds me so I’m not like a kite blown by the wind that ends stuck in a tree branch.

 

[printmaker]

I don’t use a method of prayer. From my experience, the only method of prayer that works is living the Gospel generously. My prayer is always asking Jesus to give me the grace to love Him more, the way He loves me. Our entire life should be a prayer, patterned after St. John the Baptist’s words “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Until we are empty of our self, God will not intrude. I have, for years, been impressed with The Baptist, and his call to make straight the way of the Lord. The Gospels give us the roadmap of prayer, when we look at the Apostles’ lives. They start out roughly hewn, and on the Day of Pentecost, they are transformed. I know that God has a plan to share His life with us. This is what this is all about.

The reason I say this is that there comes a time, if we are visited by grace, when prayer will stop working. We will enter into the night of faith. At that point, we should rejoice, for everything is going as it should.

So, my answer to prayer method is not method at all, but to pray for the grace that prepares one for what Jesus has planned for us from the beginning of Creation. In the final analysis, the heights of prayer are actions performed by God. All we can do is prepare for that time when we are invited into the throne room of the King.

I hope I didn’t ramble on too much.