Prayer

[auntiemable]

After my spiritual awakening, I too, began praying again. As an ex-Catholic, I still retain and use some of the prayers I learned in my youth although, occasionally, I change the words so that the prayer better resonates with me. The prayer that I use most is the Lord's Prayer although it is a slightly different version from the one I was required to memorize years ago.

For the most part, I pray at night before bed which, like you, I never thought I'd do on a regular basis. But, now, I can't even go to sleep unless I pray because it feels like something is missing. I also say the Lord's Prayer before I meditate each night.

Your question of 'to whom or to what do you pray' was the subject of a discussion recently. A friend is trying to sell his house and purchased a St. Joseph statue to bury in the ground as it is said that it will help the house sell quicker. However, neither he nor I are practicing Catholics, and he was in a quandary about the prayer you're are supposed to say after you bury the statue. He asked me how I resolved saying the prayer because "the Christian God is not your God". That statement really got to me for some reason. For what it's worth, to me, there is only one God as I was raised to call Him although now I tend to refer to him as the One Infinite Creator or Source. "My" God is the same as "your" God or the "Christian" God or the "Muslim" God, etc. Just because humans on the earthly plane worship Him differently under the guise of different religions, does not change Him into something or someone else if that makes any sense.

I think with prayer it depends on how much emphasis you place on it in your life. You said "I did my best to imbue them with true intention and meaning" and I think that makes a difference on how it effects your life. For me, mine has fallen into rote and the intention and meaning has fallen to the wayside. I know I need to put that intention back into my prayer, so thanks for the reminder.

I was wondering about prayer myself, Austin. I heard somewhere that the main reason for prayer is to remind yourself of the concept presented in the prayer, i.e. "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". So, I'm not even sure it matters to whom or to what we pray. Maybe the most important thing is the words in the prayer that we choose to recite. What do you think?