Psychological Healing
in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition

Learning to Pray

español

 
Introduction | Praying Constantly | Vocal Prayer and Mental Prayer | Feelings in Prayer | When You Don’t Receive Answers to Your Prayers | Beginning Prayer | Intermediate Prayer (The Angelus, The Rosary, The Chaplet of The Divine Mercy, 3 O’Clock Prayer) | The Liturgy of the Hours

UR time in prayer is the only time, in this life, when we can live in holiness. How sad that so many of Christ’s own anointed treat Him so carelessly as to neglect prayer. For I assure you that such indifference to His Sacred Heart greatly wounds Him as much today as His Passion wounded Him. And it wounds His Church.

And it wounds us individually.

But if you truly open your heart to Christ in prayer, you will be immune to feelings of loneliness, of abandonment, of anxiety, of depression, and of all other problems with psychological causes. Yes, you will have to endure the heavy weight of living in the midst of the world’s sacrilege—but even that is anguish, not depression. If, however, you neglect self-restraint through prayer, you will be afflicted with all the untreated wounds of your own psychological emptiness.

For some persons—especially those wounded by childhood abuse or neglect—the greatest obstacle to prayer is the irrational (that is, unconscious) belief that they are such despicable and evil persons that God has totally abandoned them and refuses to hear any pleas for help. Although this belief is refuted by the Bible itself (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:4), such a belief derives psychologically from a confusion of God with the “Other” (i.e., the social world around us). In truth, the social world, at its best, is completely indifferent to our welfare, and, at its worst, it “sees” us only as objects to be manipulated for its own satisfaction. In other words, it is not God’s rejection of you but sin itself—the rejection of God by the “Other”— that has abused you.

So the first step to prayer must be a turning back to your baptismal promises to renounce the world and Satan and to trust completely in God’s guidance and providence; all genuine prayer, at its core, requires a sincere willingness to die to the world through Christ in order to be resurrected into everlasting life.

Prayer should be a continuing act of purification, not dry intellectual superstition and pride. Trying to pray without first detaching yourself from the world is like trying to drive a car with four flat tires. So, in order to make your prayer more than just superficial, follow the Spiritual Counsels explained on this website.

Accordingly, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (2626-2643), prayer has several different aspects: praise (recognition of God not so much because of what He does for us but simply because He is), thanksgiving (simple gratitude for Christ’s work of redemption and its personal effects on us), adoration (acknowledging our helplessness and humility in the presence of God’s glory), intercession (pleading for the welfare of others), and petition (pleading for our needs as an expression of our hope and desire in all things that “Thy Kingdom come”).

Read an instruction about prayer by Saint John Mary Vianney)

 
Asking for Guidance

The surest approach to learning to pray properly is to instill in your heart a deep sorrow for sin (both yours and that of others) while asking to be freed from illusion. And then confirm this desire by fasting; that is, by making sacrifices of time, food, and other personal pleasures.

You might want to use this prayer to the Holy Spirit; this is my own version, based on a traditional prayer.

O HOLY SPIRIT,
take me as Your disciple.
Guide me; illuminate me; sanctify me.
Show me what is holy,
and I will pursue it.
Show me what is unholy,
and I will turn from it.
Command me, and with Your grace
I will obey.
Lead me, then, into the fullness
of Your Truth and Wisdom.
Amen.

 
Praying Constantly

We should all learn to pray constantly—as our Lord Jesus Christ advised us (Luke 18:1). This involves vocal prayer, which is the recitation of the Church’s “standard” prayers, and it involves mental prayer, which has two components: a quiet, internal meditation (i.e., a deliberate thinking about divine things) and contemplation (i.e., a surrendering to the experience of divine love).

Therefore, in praying constantly, we bring our minds into our hearts, such that our thoughts are constantly attuned to the presence of God, and our hearts are constantly inflamed with love for God and concern for the salvation of our neighbors.

	Are we then ceaselessly to bend our knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands? Is this what He meant in saying: Pray without ceasing? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.      Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart. Whatever else you may be doing, if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, your prayer will be ceaseless. Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, do not cease to desire.      The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer. And that voice of your prayer will be silent only when your love ceases. For who are silent? Those of whom it is said: Because evil has abounded, the love of many will grow cold.      The chilling of love means that the heart is silent; while burning love is the outcry of the heart.
	—From a discourse on the psalms by Saint Augustine, bishop (Office of Readings, Friday: Third Week of Advent)

 
Vocal Prayer and Mental Prayer

Saint Teresa of Avila spoke constantly about the difference between vocal prayer and mental prayer. She also spoke very carefully about this difference. Because of the many abuses resulting from the illuminists—or alumbrados—of Teresa’s time, many theologians looked on mental prayer with suspicion, fearing that it would result in a contempt for vocal prayer, along with a contempt for the liturgy, ceremonies, and rituals of the Church.

But, psychologically speaking, Saint Teresa got it right. All prayer, she said, begins with vocal prayer—such as the Our Father and the Hail Mary—and then, by meditating on the meaning of what is being said, even as it is being said, the soul will effectively be led to mental prayer. And not just that, but in the quiet moments between periods of vocal prayer—even while performing our daily work—the soul should be filled with contemplative mental prayer of pure, timeless love.

So, in regard to vocal prayer and mental prayer, it’s not a matter of either-or. When the soul struggles through darkness, it needs the beauty of mental prayer to cheer its heart and help it along. But it also needs the discipline of vocal prayer to keep it on the true path, lest it decide to chase off after fairy lights in the distance and be lost forever.

 
Feelings in Prayer: Natural and Spiritual

Beginners often become discouraged because they don’t feel anything when they pray. Some beginners even take this as an indication that they aren’t “worthy.” And some persons seek out charismatic groups in an effort to create their own ecstatic feelings.

Natural Feelings

Prayer, however, is not a psychological process, and genuine Catholic mystics have consistently told us that we aren’t supposed to feel anything in prayer; that is, we aren’t supposed to feel natural feelings such as feeling special or feeling good about ourselves. God works His graces silently in the soul—unseen, unfelt, and unheard by the natural bodily senses.

Spiritual Feelings

In contrast to natural feelings, which more often than not lead us into the deadly sins of pride and sensual pleasure, spiritual feelings such as compunction, loving gratitude and joy, and spiritual warmth and light do have a very profound place in prayer. These spiritual feelings emerge from the depths of one’s heart (or being) when prayer produces the fruit of God’s grace.

 
When You Don’t Receive Answers to Your Prayers

Some persons, especially beginners, often complain that God does not answer their prayers. Actually, God always answers our prayers, and yet the answer may not be what we would like or what we are expecting. In this regard, from my clinical work I have seen four characteristic mistakes that beginners make.

1.	Not listening. In every moment God is telling you through inner inspiration how to do His will, but because you don’t like what He is saying—or because you’re afraid to hear it—you don’t listen.
2.	Not paying attention. God often answers prayers through external circumstances, rather than through inner inspiration. When you find yourself in an difficult situation, therefore, it can be an opportunity to gain a grace by acting as a true witness to your faith. But if you’re not paying attention, you will just complain about how miserably you are being treated.
3.	Pride. Some persons have a deep need to feel “special,” and they will pray for things knowing that, if they were given what they want, it would either prove to the world how exceptional they are, or it would give themselves some special reassurance that God likes them. In either case, this is a request that serves the illusions of the “self,” not God’s will.
4.	Testing God. Some persons will pray for God to do something for them, such as “Make me stop smoking.” Such a request, however, is just a way to put God to the test in a no-win situation.      On the one hand, if God really were to interfere with their free will and make them suddenly stop smoking, then they would never have to come to terms with the underlying anger toward their parents that makes them continue smoking in the first place. Thus, if God gave them what they wanted, He would be denying them what they really need: spiritual purification from their anger and from their lack of forgiveness.      On the other hand, if God does not give them what they want, then they can blame God for “hating” them. This will allow them to believe that there is something “wrong” with themselves, thus allowing them to continue to believe that they themselves were at fault for their parents abusing them—and this self-blame allows them to hide from themselves their anger at their parents: “I’m at fault, not my parents, so I have no right to feel angry with them.” Moreover, all the while they can hate God for “hating” them. After all, hating God is a way to get punished, right? It goes to show how someone will send himself to hell in order to protect his parents from their own faults and from his own unconscious hatred of them.

 
AS YOU become more proficient at prayer, you will begin to recognize the voice of divine inspiration. You might even receive some personal revelations in the form of apparitions (visual perceptions), or locutions (auditory perceptions).

Mind you, I’m not speaking here of distractions or dreams. (For more information about various mystic phenomena, see Kevin Orlin Johnson’s book, Apparitions, on the Readings page.)

Therefore, you need a strong warning. Through my familiarity with Catholic psychology, I can guarantee that you will often perceive things in prayer that are nothing but your own unconscious thought process.

•	For the most part, these perceptions will be your own thoughts.
•	Sometimes, these perceptions will be your own thoughts informed by the natural wisdom of what you already know to be true and wise, or have unconsciously perceived from your environment.
•	Only rarely will these perceptions will be your own thoughts informed by the supernatural wisdom of what you have no other way of knowing.
•	If these perceptions cause distress, or if you begin to believe that these perceptions are a telepathic communication with another person—i.e., mental telepathy—then you are on a collision course with a psychiatric delusional disorder.

Therefore, you have only one protection against spiritual destruction:

Seek always to be humble, not special, and reject anything that contradicts Scripture or Tradition or the Magisterium (teaching) of the Church.

 

Download a free PDF file to make a booklet with nine Necessary Christian Prayers in English and Latin

 
Beginning Prayer

Saint Augustine, in one of his letters (Letter 130 to Proba 8, 15.17–9, 18), raised the question, “Why do we pray if God already knows what we need?”—and then he answered it: we pray to stretch our desire for God.

That’s a good answer, and a deepening of it, I think, comes if you read about the apparitions at Fátima. “Pray, and make sacrifices,” Mary told the children, making it clear to them that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them. Imagine that. Pray, she warned, not just for ourselves, not just to stretch our desire to see God, not just to inflame our love of God, but pray also for the souls of others who might be lost without our prayers and sufferings on their behalf. Thus it becomes clear that praying for others—both the living and the poor souls in Purgatory—is a fundamental aspect of our desire for God.

So heed Our Lady’s warning and begin to pray properly.

 
The Sign of the Cross. The Sign of the Cross is a prayer in itself which should begin and end any other prayer in private devotion. It also has a place in liturgical celebration. If you watch people in church, however, you will often see them making the Sign of the Cross so hastily that they seem to be brushing flies away from their faces. Make the sign deliberately and with reverence, for, when you do make the Sign of the Cross, you make an implicit agreement to take up your own cross by accepting—without protest or resentment—all suffering for the sake of the conversion of sinners. Whether you keep that agreement, well, only God knows. That thought should give you pause.

English		Latin
_______________________		_____________
IN the Name of the Father	(Forehead)	IN nómine Patris
and of the Son	(Mid-chest)	et Fílii
and of the Holy	(Left Shoulder)	et Spíritus
Spirit.	(Right Shoulder)	Sancti.
Amen.		Amen.

 
Improvised Prayer. The best way to begin anything is with honesty, so those just beginning to pray might want to say something such as, “OK. Here I am, God. I don’t know what to say, and I’m scared. Teach me. Show me what to do. Guide me and protect me.”

Remembering that Christ told us to pray constantly (Luke 18:1), so that the lovely garden of the Spirit He planted in you at baptism receives careful cultivation and does not go to weeds, do not be afraid to repeat your improvised prayers constantly.

You might also want to add such supplications as

•	Purify my heart.
•	Give me faith, if only that of a mustard seed.
•	Let it be done to me according to Your word.
•	Lift me up into Your presence that I might perceive Your great glory.
•	Let Your grace and glory reflect through me into the lives of all those around me.
•	Into Your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
•	Protect me, Lord, from this evil and perverted world and from all those who would devour me.
•	Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.   This is the Jesus Prayer, with which you can learn how to begin a process of constant prayer. You can also continue with it into advanced contemplation of love for the Holy Name of Jesus; for more information, see the Philokalia, a compilation of writings of the Eastern desert Fathers who describe in detail the process of praying constantly.

 
Before Eating. Say a short prayer before meals, so as to remind yourself about your total dependence on God:

BLESS us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. And, as you learn to eat a more austere diet, you may add the following to the above before eating or drinking anything, even water: Thank You for such humble and simple food; may it fulfill all our physical needs, for without even Your most lowly of gifts we would perish.   Amen.

 
Formal Prayers. Then, while you’re at it, along with the Our Father and the Hail Mary, begin to memorize some simple, formal prayers. 

	Our Father
	By the way, be careful not to slur together the seven petitions of the Our Father (Matthew 6:9–13) like the “elemeno P” of the grammar school alphabet. Say this prayer slowly, carefully, and distinctly.

Read an excerpt from a letter by Saint Augustine about the Lord’s Prayer)

 
The prayers that follow are traditional prayers (also see the Additional Resources, below), but I have altered some of the texts to make the language and ideas more psychologically clear and direct. Say these prayers as a unit, several times a day, for the underlying idea is to purge yourself of your own desires and to learn to listen to divine guidance. You learn to pray, after all, by praying. 

(Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi) LORD, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, let me sow pardon; Where there is doubt, let me sow faith; Where there is despair, let me sow hope; Where there is darkness, let me sow light; Where there is sadness, let me sow joy.   O Divine Master, grant that I may seek Not so much to be consoled as to console; not so much to be understood as to understand; not so much to be loved as to love; not so much to be seen as to see You in all things. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born to everlasting life. Amen.      (Prayer to the Holy Spirit: This is my own version, based on a traditional prayer; I used this prayer to guide me during my conversion.) O HOLY SPIRIT, take me as Your disciple. Guide me; illuminate me; sanctify me. Show me what is holy, and I will pursue it. Show me what is unholy, and I will turn from it. Command me, and with Your grace I will obey. Lead me, then, into the fullness of Your Truth and Wisdom. Amen.      (Memorare) REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother. To you I come; before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but graciously hear and answer me. Amen.      (Anima Christi) SOUL of Christ, sanctify    me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate    me. Water from the side of Christ, wash    me. Passion of Christ, strengthen    me. O good Jesus, hear me. Within Thy wounds    hide me. Suffer me not to be separated    from Thee. From the malignant enemy defend    me. In the hour of my death call    me. And bid me come to Thee, That with Thy saints I may praise    Thee For ever and ever. Amen.    ANIMA Christi, sanctífica    me. Corpus Christi, salva me. Sanguis Christi, inébria    me. Aqua láteris Christi, lava    me. Pássio Christi, confórta    me. O bone Iesu, exáudi me. Intra tua vúlnera    abscónde me. Ne permíttas me separári    a te. Ab hoste malígno defénde    me. In hora mortis meæ voca    me. Et iube me veníre ad te, Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem    te In saécula sæculórum. Amen.

And here’s one prayer of my own.

LET me taste the sweetness of Your splendor In a world of bitter strife; Let me hear the quiet song of Heaven In a world of clamor and din; Let me smell the odor of sanctity In a world of foul decay; Let me see the glory of Your visage In a world of empty show; Let me feel the ardor of Your presence In a world grown cold with sin. Amen.

GUSTEM dulcédinem splendóris tui In mundo contentiónis amáræ; Audiam susúrrum carmínis cæléstis In mundo clamóris strepitúsque; Olfáciam odórem sanctitátis In mundo tabis foedæ; Vídeam glóriam vultus tui In mundo formæ vanæ; Séntiam ardórem præséntiæ tuæ In mundo peccáto frigescénte. Amen.

— Latin translation by Stefanie Bewell

 
Intermediate Prayer

Once you have memorized the beginning prayers and are saying them regularly—in the morning, in the evening, when you walk, when you ride the bus, when you drive a car, whenever you take a rest break, etc.—you will be ready for adding more prayer.

 
The Angelus.  In the Angelus, we are reminded how Mary became a model for us in totally surrendering her will to God’s will. With her simple and humble Fiat (Latin for “let it be done”), she offered herself to God in unquestioning obedience.

So, pray the Angelus (or the Regina Caeli during the Paschal Season—that is, from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday)—every day (except Sunday) at noon, if not also at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Set the alarm on your watch for 11:59 AM to remind you to stop whatever you are doing. It may seem like a nuisance to stop work to pray, so just remember that if it weren’t for God, you wouldn’t have any work in the first place.

Step-by-step instructions for praying The Angelus (and Regina Caeli)

 
 
The Rosary. Pray the Rosary—at least five decades (that is, one group of Mysteries)—each day. The Blessed Virgin herself told the children at Fátima to pray the Rosary every day for peace in the world and for the conversion of sinners. How can we, then, in our troubled times, fail to pray as ardently today?

An ideal time for this prayer is in the evening after dinner, just when most persons waste their time watching TV. If you have children, pray the rosary with them; a young child can sit in your lap for bonding time, and older children can pray along with you.

The Rosary requires meditation on some central Christian mysteries, so you will first have to learn the nature of these mysteries. I recommend the following book:

Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads (Dallas: Pangæus Press, 1996) by Kevin Orlin Johnson.

 
Step-by-step instructions for praying
The Rosary

 
 
The Chaplet of The Divine Mercy.  The Chaplet of The Divine Mercy was given to Saint Faustina (see her Diary) as a pledge that any soul that sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, and finds itself therefore immersed in misery, should not despair, but should, with child-like trust, throw itself into the arms of Christ’s mercy. And it offers grace and hope to even the most hardened of sinners (cf. Diary, 1541).

Petitioners who pray the Chaplet request mercy on the whole world and, in the process, perform a work of mercy themselves.

Saint Faustina was also told that if the Chaplet were said by the bedside of a dying person, “unfathomable mercy envelops the soul” and “the very depths” of God’s “tender mercy are moved” for the sake of Christ’s sorrowful Passion (Diary, 811; 1541).

The Chaplet is such a concise and compact prayer that you should learn to recite it as often as you can, in all moments of “spare” time: while you’re driving (or stuck in traffic), riding the bus, walking from one place to another, and so on. And, if you get a small Rosary ring, you can pray just one decade of the Chaplet throughout the day, as a way to take mini breaks from work (forget the cigarettes and coffee).

Step-by-step instructions for praying The Chaplet of The Divine Mercy

 
 
3 O’Clock Prayer.  Jesus told Saint Faustina, “I remind you, My daughter, that as often as you hear the clock strike the third hour, immerse yourself completely in My mercy, adoring and glorifying it; invoke its omnipotence for the whole world, and particularly for poor sinners; for at that moment mercy was opened wide for every soul. . . . try your best to make the Stations of the Cross in this hour” (Diary, 1572).

Step-by-step instructions for praying The 3’O Clock Prayer

 
The Liturgy of the Hours

The Liturgy of the Hours (or Divine Office) is an ancient form of prayer that combines psalms, readings, and other prayers and intercessions. It can be obligatory according to the rule of many religious orders, but it is just as well an important voluntary form of prayer for the laity.

The modern version of the Liturgy of the Hours is found in either a one-volume edition or a four-volume edition and consists of the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Daily Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer.

The one-volume edition, called Christian Prayer, has

•	an abbreviated Office of Readings;
•	an abbreviated Daily Prayer.

Learning to use the Liturgy of the Hours can be a daunting task because the daily texts change according to various holy days and seasons.

Just follow very carefully the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (found in Volume 1 of the four-volume set) and the instructions in the section called the Ordinary (found in each volume).

And use the Saint Joseph Guide for the Liturgy of the Hours (a small booklet that serves the entire year, available in any good Catholic bookstore, or directly from the publisher) as a valuable help for locating the correct sections to use each day.

Step-by-step instructions for praying
The Liturgy of the Hours