{"id":1927,"date":"2016-10-11T20:43:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T00:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2016-10-11T20:43:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T00:43:33","slug":"what-is-the-point-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/what-is-the-point-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Point of Prayer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t think many people would argue with the statement that prayer is important. \u00a0Well, actually they might without meaning to. \u00a0By this I simply acknowledge the fact that not everybody prays. \u00a0Maybe they mean to but it isn’t the\u00a0most important<\/em> thing to them and so they let all their time be taken up by other things.<\/p>\n

I’ve entitled this post “What is the Point of Prayer?” but I do not intend to present an argument for the importance of prayer. \u00a0I don’t intend to teach you about different forms of prayer. \u00a0If that is what you are looking for you might start by reading “Prayer and Devotions”<\/a> on my website. \u00a0Or you might choose to read my previous blog posts on prayer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today I want to write about what my goal in praying is. \u00a0To put it simply,\u00a0I pray to know God<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I hope you noticed that I didn’t say pray to know God’s will. \u00a0I didn’t say I pray to God to ask for strength. \u00a0I want to be honest so I have to say that at times I pray hoping God will tell me what\u00a0to do. \u00a0At times, when I don’t think I can accomplish what I am supposed to, I pray that God will give me the strength I need. \u00a0I might pray at times that God give me the courage to do what I am supposed to. \u00a0In this I can ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are\u00a0knowledge, wisdom, understanding,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0courage. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I view all of these as pieces of the puzzle. \u00a0They are all important. \u00a0It can be \u00a0<\/del>It is a<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0struggle to know God’s will. \u00a0There are times when it can be a struggle to do God’s will. \u00a0We can turn to scripture to hear stories of how God has revealed his saving power (see my homily from last Sunday<\/a>). \u00a0In reading the scriptures we see that God is there for his people. \u00a0This is the beginning of knowing God.<\/p>\n

We pray in various ways. \u00a0We go to Mass. \u00a0We can pray the Rosary. \u00a0We can read the Bible. \u00a0Sometimes I find the most important thing for me to do in prayer is to\u00a0stop<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>what I am doing and simply be quiet so that I can become aware of God’s presence. \u00a0This is the goal of contemplative prayer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We can pray looking for answers. \u00a0Sometimes we are not capable of understanding the answers. \u00a0Sometimes we pray looking for a way out of our suffering when what we really need to pray for is to know God is with us through<\/em> our suffering. \u00a0This is what I was referring to earlier when I said, “I pray to know God<\/em><\/strong>.” \u00a0My greatest aid is when I simply know God is with me. \u00a0This is the core goal of my prayer.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t think many people would argue with the statement that prayer is important. \u00a0Well, actually they might without meaning to. \u00a0By this I simply acknowledge the fact that not everybody prays. \u00a0Maybe they mean to but it isn’t the\u00a0most important thing to them and so they let all their time be taken up by …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘What is the Point of Prayer?’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[126,199,200],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-v5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1932,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions\/1932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}