On Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.
This is embarrassing, but how do I pray? What do I say?
For someone returning to the Church, the concept of prayer can be overwhelming—and mind-blowing, because there are no rules. Catholics pray as often as they are moved to do so; there’s no requirement that we pray once a day, twice a day, twenty times a day. But you’re likely to find the more comfortable you become conversing with God, the more you want to do it.
There is no one right way to talk with God, any more than there is one right way to talk with a friend. Our situations change. Our relationship with God deepens and grows. A conversation means that speaks to us today may not be as satisfying next week, next month, or next year. A prayer style we find rote or unstructured today may be perfect for us in the future.
What do we pray for? Many consider the Lord’s Prayer a perfect prayer, and one not meant to be rushed through. It provides a framework for our more informal conversations with God. In the Lord’s Prayer, we adore God and acknowledge his power. We offer contrition, noting our flaws and the things we do, say, and think that keep us from a closer relationship with him, and ask for forgiveness and guidance. We thank him his goodness, the tangible and intangible gifts with which he presents us all day, every day. Finally, we ask for his assistance in our lives, in the lives of others, and in the world at large.
How do we pray? There’s really no wrong way. We offer up spontaneous prayers. We pray prayers known to Catholics around the world—the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, O My Jesus, Hail Holy Queen. We pray the rosary. We pray in the manner known as lectio divina—reading a scriptural passage out loud, then meditating on a particular word or phrase, then taking ourselves to God with what we learned about ourselves during the meditation, then opening ourselves to God’s presence. We use the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office) and its prayers for eight canonical times of the day. The possibilities are infinite, just like God.
