Different Forms of Prayer

 Prayer is communication with God, who is a real, divine Person. 

I know that some people believe God is not real, and I believe it's because they haven't met Him and don't know Him. For those of us who do know Him and have felt His presence and love, nobody can convince us He's imaginary, any more than they could convince us that any other person we know that they haven't met is imaginary. People who have encountered God's love are willing to give up their lives rather than deny Him. And that peace and love we feel in His Presence is why we want to share Him with others.

Catholics believe that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to praying. 

We have five main forms of prayer, or communication with our Loved One.

1. Blessing or Adoration is when we acknowledge God as our Creator and give Him all glory and honor.

2. Petition is where we ask Him for our needs and desires.

3. Intercession is where we ask God for things on behalf of others. When we "pray to saints", including Mary, we are actually asking them to intercede for us the same as we would ask our loved ones on earth to intercede for us. (I will post again later explaining more about why we ask saints in heaven to pray for us.)

4. Thanksgiving is when we acknowledge that everything we have comes from God, and we thank Him for it.

5. Praise is when we laud God for who He is, not just what He does for us.

We express our prayers to God in different ways, too. 

We have three main expressions of prayer.

Vocal prayer uses spoken or unspoken words. 

Meditation engages our thoughts and imagination, in a desire to understand God's will for our lives. 

Contemplative prayer is a silent, receptive gaze upon God, resting in His presence.

We can pray by ourselves or we can pray with others.

Personal prayer is what we do when we are alone. We can converse with God from our hearts, like we converse with any other loved one.

Corporate prayer is where we pray together as a group. All of our memorized prayers are corporate prayers; we are joining our voices and hearts with the Body of Christ around the world. At any given moment in time we say this prayer, someone else is saying it, too. "For where two or three are gathered in my name,  there am I in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20

Since I make rosary beads, for example, the rosary is a meditative prayer and a corporate prayer, which is why it is structured the way it is. We believe it is a powerful weapon against the forces of darkness, and that's why we encourage picking it up and using it! But we also believe that it is one way among many ways to pray. It is an option, not a requirement. 

But one thing is certain...if you want to have a good relationship with God, to know Him intimately, you have to spend time with Him and communicate with Him.