Transcript

Spiritual writers in the Catholic Church traditionally distinguished between vocal prayer and mental prayer.

Vocal prayer is based on written texts or personal petitions.

It makes use of psalms, hymns, and other prayers of the church to direct the mind toward God while in liturgical settings or while reading.

You might say that mental prayer is the doorway into the interior life.

Mental prayer is best practiced in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, since we find in the Eucharist the silent substantial presence of our Lord.

So it can be helpful there in a church setting, in the presence of the tabernacle, to read the Word of God and practice what is traditionally called Lectio Divina, a Latin term which means sacred reading.

This is a form of reading, typically the scripture, in which we dwell on the words of Christ in the Gospels and the teachings of the Apostles in their epistles so that we seek to encounter Christ personally through His word and to, you might say, touch the face of God and to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us inwardly, spirit to spirit.

By grace, the Holy Trinity dwells in our souls, and so we're able to discover this inward hidden presence of God, especially in mental prayer, especially by listening to the voice of Christ in Holy Scripture and hearing Him speak inwardly to us.

The practical way to develop this habit of mental prayer is to set a time aside for it daily in a regular and committed way.

Usually, a good rule of thumb is at least 20 to 30 minutes.

That may seem like a lot, but if you think about some of the things you spend time doing, surfing the internet or watching something on television or just vegging out, 20 to 30 minutes a day for God is actually not that unreasonable.

And if you can build this into your lifestyle, it can be something that really deeply nourishes your growth in spiritual life.

So during this time, whether in a church or some other quiet place, when you have less clutter in your mind, it's helpful to read Scripture prayerfully and to make repeated personal acts of faith, hope, and charity directed to the Father, to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit.

What am I talking about?

Well, some examples of specific mental prayer could include saying in the depths of one's heart such things as, Lord Jesus Christ, I believe in you.

I have faith in you.

I want to believe in you.

I believe you are the Son of God.

Enlighten me, reveal yourself to me.

Help me to grow in faith, to confess my sins, to convert my life.

Bring me into accord with your grace and your charity.

Or say to the Lord, Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your Sacred Heart.

Please conform my poor limited heart to yours through the working of the Holy Spirit.

Father, have mercy on me.

Reveal to me your Son, Jesus Christ.

So while you're talking to the persons of the Holy Trinity, read some of Scripture and let it nourish your soul, and hear the voice of Christ speaking to you, and then speak back.

But not so as to just elaborate words, but so as to try to gain insight into the mystery of God, to see into the mystery of the person of Christ, His presence, and to invite Him to transform you.

And He will, if you open yourself to Him, to let His light shine upon your frailties and expose them to you, but also to allow His light and His grace to transform you and to give you hope for transformation by the power of His grace.

Now, mental prayer can in fact be practiced at all times and places.

And Saint Paul tells us we should pray without ceasing.

We can seek union with God on the bus, in the midst of a busy city, or while walking quietly in the forest, or even during the course of daily conversation with others.

Some of the great saints try to make it a practice to think of God and to say a short prayer at least every 20 minutes in their day.

Sometimes it helps to lift our hearts up to God by what we might call brief javelin prayers of the mind thrown upward to heaven in the midst of our busy day in which we confess the truth of Christ and pledge ourselves to the service of His kingdom.

Lord Jesus Christ, I believe in you.

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Help me to live in accord with your will.

Grant me your grace.

We should ask for His help and ask the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and move our hearts and minds from within.

If we develop stable habits of mental prayer, we can grow deeply in faith, hope, and love, even in the midst of the great trials of life.

During times of great doubt, we can say, Lord, I believe.

Help my unbelief.

The Christian who prays daily in profound ways can become progressively rooted in Christ, grounded, stable in his love for God so that his union with God affects the whole of his life.

This is a grace God wants to give every baptized Christian who's willing to cooperate with Him by regular recourse to the sacraments and by daily mental prayer.

Mental prayer also disposes us to a deeper participation in the Mass, a less- less exterior, repetition-based, more interior, deep participation in the mystery of the sacrifice of the Mass and the other sacraments.

So mental prayer is best coupled with, when possible, daily Mass attendance and weekly or bi-weekly confession.If you ally your prayer life with daily mass and regular confession, it will grow exponentially.

Those who wish to find God in a deeper way, do well to receive these two sacraments regularly, since each of them in a distinctive way opens the mind and heart to contemplative union with God.

It's not magic.

God has given us the sacraments.

If we receive them faithfully, we will grow deeply in our spiritual life.

We just have to be willing to receive and to take the measures necessary to receive from Christ the grace to deepen our spiritual life.

A regular confession of sins allows the conscience of the Christian to become more refined and it dedicates us exclusively to the truth of Christ and his revelation.

Your, your heart and your mind sharpen, your conscience becomes more acute if you go to confession regularly, and it allows you to become more sensitive to how Jesus sees you, what He wants from you, and His desire to indwell in you and live in you.

Confession teaches us to see even our sins in the consoling light of God's mercy.

Actually, it becomes consoling.

You take regular communion also in the body, uh, blood of Christ in the Mass, that daily can strengthen your union with Christ and charity and bind us more directly to the mystery of Christ's love.

The Mass can expand our narrow, restricted hearts, because it unites us to the great fire of the heart of Christ so it can conform us gradually over time to the measure of the love of the sacred heart of Jesus.

And we should be praying for that, to have the Catholic love of Christ expand our hearts.

Mental prayer helps us live in this world without any separation from God and it prepares us in peace and hope to encounter God in the life of the world to come.

It's our great victory in the midst of everything else, to live in faith, hope, and love in a stable way in the depths of our mind and heart, and the real way we grow in that stability, that strength, is through mental prayer.

In our next session, we'll talk about the practice of regular confession, why it nourishes our spiritual life, and is one of the greatest sources of consolation for every Christian.