A Life of Prayer
by Fred Schaeffer, OFS

When Secular Franciscans were still using the Rule of Saint Francis of Pope Leo XIII, Father Marion Habig, OFM (1901-1985), in 1972, published his "New Catechism of the Third Order" published by Franciscan Herald Press. This catechism has some very practical advice under the chapter title: A Life of Prayer.
 
"Prayer means speaking lovingly with God, either by word or mouth or in the silent language of the soul. It means turning our soul to God, occupying our noblest faculties with God, raising both mind and heart to God--not merely the intellect but also and especially the will. St. Bonaventure defines prayer as 'as ascent of the intellect to God.'"

St. Augustine wrote: "Faith believes, hope and charity pray; but since the latter cannot exist without the former, faith also prays." Very often when we pray, we ask God for something. "Lord, make my friend well." Good prayer, but as a prayer it is not complete. Or, rather, it could be more. There are traditionally, four elements to praying,
1. adoration,
2.  thanksgiving,

3. propitiation (contrition, atonement), and,

4. petition.

Let's look at these four elements. When spending some time before the Tabernacle, one could give equal time to these four elements.

1. Adoration: We bow down before our creator, before God, and acknowledge him to be the supreme God and Master, giving Him homage, and honor due God alone. Talk to God as if you were talking to your best friend, for example: "Dear Jesus, I love you and praise you because you are all love and goodness and you are at the right hand of the Father in heaven. You have suffered and died for us and made heaven available to us and I would love to be with you for all time."
2. Thanksgiving: Here we give thanks to God, the giver of all that is good, for example: "Dear Father (Abba), I thank you from my heart for all the graces you have given me throughout my life. Thanking Him for allowing me to bring you in the Most Blessed Sacrament to the sick, and thus for making Jesus constantly available to us in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity every day of my life. Thank you also for having been baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, and all the moments of grace I've experienced daily."
3. Propitiation: We ask God to forgive us for all our shortcomings, we express sorrow for our sins, for example: "Dear Lord, I am so sorry for all the sins I have willfully committed during my life and even now, today. Knowing you are compassion and mercy itself; I place all these problems at the foot of the Cross, and ask your forgiveness. I promise to do better and to try to sin no more."
4. Petition: Now, lastly, we ask God to "give us spiritual and temporal assistance in all the needs of soul and body, so that we may serve him well and faithfully here on earth and attain the purpose of our existence. We ask such blessings not only for ourselves but also for others." We also ask Our Blessed Mother Mary, and, the Saints and Blesseds, the friends of God, to intercede with God for us. "Prayers to saints are really prayers addressed indirectly to God himself." An example might be: "Dear Jesus, please make my friend well. Watch over me, too. I lift my friend up to you, Blessed Mother and pray you will intercede to your Son, that my friend will be healed. Saint Francis, please pray for my friend."

We should pray with attention and devotion. We've got to keep our thoughts on the prayer, not on a television or radio which happens to be on at the same time. Definitely not to your cell phone! We do not give in to distractions of any kind. And, of course, we must mean what we say to God. Prayer must never be rattled off without thought. When in church, praying (outside of Holy Mass) we should kneel if we can. For those with ongoing arthritis or other disabilities, of course, they could be seated. We pray with humility. We are unworthy people because all of us are sinners in one way or another. So our prayer should be said as a child petitions his or her father.

Persevere! We should pray frequently, every day. We pray even if we don't feel like it, but when we pray, we pray because we love God and not out of sentimentality or because it feels good. We acknowledge that we periodically experience periods of dryness but we keep plugging away. Persevere in prayer! There are various forms of prayer. For many people it is prayer out of a book. For others, it is mental prayer or meditation. Many people use conversational prayer, something like the examples given above. All prayer is a gift and comes from the Grace God gives us when we love Him.

Fred Schaeffer, OFS

Orig. Published in the Canticle of March 2004
Republished 2/21/2023

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