Purpose Of Prayer

[homeschoolmom]

When I was a Protestant, I often wonder what was the purpose of praying to a God who already knows what we want/need and already has our best interest in mind. If he already knows our prayer requests, what was the point? Other than the Bible tells us to pray. So, I never really got a satisfactory answer...

... so, now I see prayer differently, but I am not sure that I can clarify in my mind still why we pray and what exactly happens when we pray. Thanks.

[theculturewarrior]

In the Catholic sense, prayer is a way of life. When you are having a good time, you can offer it to God. You are praying, if you are not sinning in this. When you do a good deed, and you offer it to God, you are praying. When you have to make a sacrifice, and do something you don't want to do, if you offer it to God, you are praying. You can offer your day and your work, your sufferings and joys, your whole life to God, for the redemption of the world, and especially for your loved ones, even the most sinful. You can offer your day for the Church, that God purify her, and guide her. You can offer your day for the intentions of the Holy Father, for your parish priest (regardless of how you may feel about him.) You can offer your day for the grace of keeping your faith, of sweetest hope in the midst of the bitterness of life, of burning charity, and the precious gift of final perserverance, in thanksgiving for God's favors, and in reparations for your sins, and as an act of atonement for your loved ones.

Why do we do this, when God knows what we need? I'm not sure. That's a good question. I think of God as a loving, but stern Father. He loves us, and because of that, He wants us to talk to Him. But I think sometimes he gets tired of calling us (most of us don't listen to well anyway). I think He likes us to call on Him sometimes. God created us in His image, and the way we love one another, ideally would be the way God loves us and the way we love God. If you praise God, and tell him you love him, it's just like telling your earthly father. And what does your earthly father say? "I love you too."

These are just my thoughts. If I am in error in anything, I submit to the Church.

[Quietfire]

Or this may help.

As a kid, you come home from school all excited and you cant wait to tell mom or dad about it. Or you had a bad day and need to unload your troubles on your best friend. God is your parent, your best friend.

You're talking to him. (we just call it prayers)
He wants to know about you so you can know about Him.
I mean, read Cmom's signature, it says it all.
Imagine going about your day to day stuff and NEVER talking to anyone. Work, shopping, chores, whatever. Then you run into your friend and "oh, what a day/week/month its been.....yack,yack,yack!"
It just makes sense...it's a great thing.

He's so awesome!


Peace.

Edited June 17, 2004 by Quietfire

[homeschoolmom]

heehee... perhaps I should be more clear... I understand the idea of and ongoing prayer... What I wonder more about is a prayer request. Why ask God for what He knows we need? And what if we pray for something that isn't His will for us...? Okay... done...

[Brother Adam]

You're child knows that you know he/she loves you, but don't you still want to hear it?

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Jun 17 2004, 01:36 PM'] You're child knows that you know he/she loves you, but don't you still want to hear it? [/quote]
haha! Very true... but this is not the part of prayer I am asking about. I'm not talking about praise or thanksgiving or repentance... I am asking more specifically about petitioning. I make my kids a healthy supper (usually ) and I do other things for them. I bestow upon them kindnesses without them asking-- just as God does. My point (if I have one, I'm beginning to wonder why I cannot make myself clearer... ) is this... well, maybe if I use an example...

Let's say I have an unbelieving friend... a radical atheist... And every day, I pray for him. Now, my question is this: does God only effect the heart of my friend because I've prayed for him? Why wouldn't/doesn't God speak to my friend even without my prayers? How are my prayers effecting him? I guess to sum up, how does my praying effect others?

What if I am praying for someone to be made healthy? And it is not God's will for them to recover, but for them to, in fact, die. Are my prayers said in vain? (I don't usually pray quite so boldly... just an example)...

[theculturewarrior]

No prayer is wasted. Although God might use your prayer in a different way.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='theculturewarrior' date='Jun 17 2004, 02:57 PM'] No prayer is wasted. Although God might use your prayer in a different way. [/quote]
Yes... I am still waiting to hear about that "different way." This, I believe distiguishes Catholic and Protestant thought on prayer...

[theculturewarrior]

Well...I don't know the mind of God, but I think, say you pray for God to heal a loved one, or for the conversion of a loved one. I often pray for both for the same person. Maybe God will heal their soul by allowing them to suffer, and even die. Or maybe God will convert them, but only on their deathbed, and you won't know until the beatific vision..

But I don't know what the Church teaches, and I submit to that.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='theculturewarrior' date='Jun 17 2004, 03:16 PM'] But I don't know what the Church teaches, and I submit to that. [/quote]
yeah, me too....

[Sojourner]

HSMom, I'm not sure there is such a distinction as you are trying to make here (or perhaps I'm just not Catholic enough yet to know there's a distinction).

C.S. Lewis (a Protestant) writes on prayer quite eloquently, and for me answered the question of "why pray", and I've heard/read nothing from a Catholic perspective that would challenge his take on it. Anyone more knowledgeable, please correct me.

First on the topic of "the duty to pray", Lewis in "Letters to Malcolm" says prayer should eventually become something that flows from us effortlessly. He says:

[quote]If we were perfected, prayer would not be a duty, it would be delight. Some day, please God, it will be. The same is true of many other behaviours which now appear as duties. If I loved my neighbour as myself, most of the actions which are now my moral duty would flow out from me as spontaneously as song from a lark or fragrance from a flower. Why is this not so yet? . . . The very activities for which we were created are, while we live on earth, variously impeded: by evil in ourselves or in others. To practise them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the whole specifically moral realm. . .
I must say my prayers to-day whether I feel devout or not; but that is only as I must learn my grammar if I am ever to read the poets.[/quote]

Then, on the topic of "do our prayers change the will of God", from "The World's Last Night":
[quote]There are, no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed. . .
Invariable 'success' in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all. It would prove something much more like magic—a power in certain human beings to control, or compel, the course of nature.[/quote]

He continues:
[quote]Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His Will. 'God,' said Pascal, 'instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.'. . .
He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures.[/quote]

In my own experience, prayer changes me, and forms the framework for my relationship with God, just as my relationships with people in my life are framed around our conversations. And, I would say I am changed through my praying.

[Mickey's_Girl]

Well, I have a partial answer (I think) but I'm away from the Catechism, so I can't give you specifics.

I read something yesterday about the communion of saints, and how all of our prayers/good deeds/etc. are (somehow, mysteriously) accessible to each other (somehow I have the metaphor of a big treasury), since we all are One Body. Meaning that, if we have an "asking for something" prayer, sure, God already knows what we want. But it builds up the body nonetheless...which is why "praying for" someone is good.

I'm not sure if that was clear at all! I will try to find the source and clarify later.

MG

[the lumberjack]

God wants us to vocailize what we THINK we want...so that when He gives us what we NEED, our heart and soul might realize that the Lord knows what is best...thats part of it.

I'll post more later...

now, I'm only a dumb prot, so don't take my words for too much more than the ranting of a self proclaimed man of God...

God bless.

Christ first.

[Crusader_4]

Communication...between God and us. He is our father and has displayed himself as such to us so we petition like sons and daughters even though he knows whats best for us its a matter of communication deepeing our relationship with God and making ourselves open to his will through our supplications. It helps us in so many ways simple its for our good its an avenue god uses to communicate and help us.

[Crusader_4]

I am not sure if that makes any sense but its something i feel in my heart and its very intimate between me and God it is something that i have learned from my experiecnce "Knock and the door shall be opened" i have always wondered how much could of been done and we will see that when we go to heaven if we had only prayed more.

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote]In my own experience, prayer changes me, and forms the framework for my relationship with God, just as my relationships with people in my life are framed around our conversations. And, I would say I am changed through my praying. [/quote]

[Mary's Knight, La]

the thing God wants most is us prayer is a pre-death way of giving ourselves to Him through our day we can offer our actions which in a sense is giving Him our energy and our bodies through vocal prayer we add to that our desires, our intellects, our wills those things which it would be impossible to offer through *actions* we can offer through our words look at the Mass it is a synthesis of action and word for a brief period we engage every faculty we have practiced (motor skills, verbalizing, etc) to the glory of God.

by offering ourselves to God through prayer we allow Him to return to us those parts which are compatible with His will impurity cannot exist in the presence of God so by continuously offering our whole selves to God we are continuously being purified in the fires of His love

[the lumberjack]

you guys are giving good reasons and effects of prayer...but this is not the prayer that Homeschoolmom is talking about...

God bless.

[yiannii]

Sure God knows everything; He knows what we are going to say before we say it. If we are about to ask Him something, He knew before we even thought of asking Him. But if we didn't have to ask Him would we appreciate and recognise our total and utter dependence on Him? In asking God for help in one way or another, we learn humility amongst other things like, as I said before, our dependence on Him. Just a thought.

[Fides_et_Ratio]

I don't have the book with me (I'm house/pet sitting), but after work (at a real job) I will grab the book and look up something I think might help answer your question.

I've actually been reading about prayer a lot these past two weeks, and one of the books I've been reading (alongside the Catechism) is Bishop Wuerl's (I think that's how you spell his name!) "The Teaching of Christ", which is like a commentary on the Catechism. I think in the section on prayer he discusses how "petition" prayers are a further expression of God's glory... in that, in our petitioning God, we are consciously/sub-consciously placing trust and faith in God in a way that only further expresses his glory... We petition God because we trust God, we trust God because He is Everything. ... Something like that, I think he words it better. (I might have my books confused though, so I'll try and check some of the other things I've been reading as well!).

But the Catechism is a great source for thinking/learning about prayer.