Ray shared a wonderful story in the comment section of yesterday`s post on intercessory prayer. The story includes this line,
“What do you say, then, when you pray?”
This is a great question! When you offer a prayer for someone, what do you say or do? How do you pray for another? How do you pray for your own needs?
Do you use memorized prayers? (We were taught by the nuns in high school to stop and pray the Catholic troika of an Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory Be each time we heard an emergency siren. Since the school was a stone`s throw from a hospital, we had many prayer breaks during class.)
Do you pray the rosary, or novenas?
Do you compose your own petitions?
Do you ask God for a specific response? (I like to give God suggestions on the best way to answer my prayers 😉 )
Do you think of the person, and in the silence lift them to God in mind and heart?
I would love to hear from you, and learn from your wisdom…
“What do you say, then, when you pray?”
catholic dialogue 
“How Praying to the Saints Can Change Things, A Story about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers”
“…the financial problems faced once by a Catholic Worker House in New York. There was desperate need for more funds for them to continue their work with the poor,
and the tradition was to pray to St. Joseph for such assistance. They did so for several days with no response, whereupon Dorothy Day and her colleagues marched to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. There they picketed the statue of St. Joseph. After a short time, Cardinal Spellman came out and gave them the money.”
So it was that the prayers of Dorothy Day and her followers that changed things!
There is an African proverb that says, “When you pray be sure to use your feet.” Were Dorthy Day and the catholic workers also praying with their feet?
My prayers are usually casual conversations with God and maybe in a stessful situation I fall back on a memorized prayer. I ask God to be with the person I am praying for in a special way. To soften their heart that they may know that the Lord is with them. That I and all I pray for will know that God is with them in all they go through every day. We may lose sight of God but God does not lose sight of us. I pray that God will open my heart to the Word and Love so that I can do the right thing and not my own will and that I will know it when I see it!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Kathy. We have so much to learn from each other with regards to prayer. It’s both informative and inspiring!
Like you, my prayer is usually a combination of casual conversation with memorized prayers as a faithful back-up. They provide the words when words aren’t there. Sometimes I just sit and let my mind wander…and in the wandering and pondering comes the inspiration. God really does speak to us in so many diverse and wonderful ways.