Introduction

      Did you ever attend a Catholic devotion — the Stations of the Cross, for example, or the Angelus — and find you were the only person who had no idea what to do next?

      Do you ever meet people who seem to pray as if it’s second nature, and wish you could have what they have?

      Do you often wish you had words or gestures to tell God what you really think and feel?

      Do you feel something is missing in your life and suspect it might be prayer?

      If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, congratulations! You’re normal.

      You see, it’s normal for us to want to pray. God built us that way, just as He built us to hunger for the food that sustains us. But sad to say, our world isn’t all it should be, and so it’s normal for us to be clueless about how to go about this business of prayer. Maybe no one ever bothered to teach us. Maybe we didn’t feel like listening when people tried to teach us. Maybe our wouldbe teachers turned us off from prayer, for one reason or another.

      Whatever the reason, we find ourselves, today, longing for something that seems just beyond our reach, yet something that is essential for our lives. The situation can be frustrating. If we were as ill-equipped for eating as we are for prayer, we’d all have starved long ago.

      We need to pray. Yet how should we pray? The simple answer is: We should pray as Jesus taught us to pray. For in Jesus, God became man. He had a body, a soul, a job, a family, a religion, and friends. As both God and man, He held a unique authority on human prayer: He could raise prayers as we do; He could listen as God does.

      His friends detected His expertise, and they asked Him what we would ask Him today: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1; Mt 6:9). He responded by teaching them the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father.

      But He taught them in other ways as well. He taught them by His example. Jesus’ own prayer life was rich and varied. Sometimes He offered formal prayers. We know, for example, that He prayed the Morning Offering of all pious Jews: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk 12:29-30). At other times, Jesus prayed more spontaneously, raising heartfelt prayers of thanks (Jn 11:41-42). He often took time to pray alone in silence (Lk 3:21-22, 5:16, 6:12, 11:1). Yet He also prayed together with His friends (Lk 9:18). Jesus fasted too (Mt 4:2). He read the Scriptures (Lk 4:16-20) and prayed the Psalms (Mk 15:34). He marked holy days, made pilgrimages, and attended liturgy (Jn 7:10-14).

      The first Christians followed their Lord in these practices, as have all the subsequent generations of believers. As the Gospel spread beyond Jesus’ homeland, Christians adapted the Lord’s habits of prayer to their own cultures and needs. Over time, therefore, the details have sometimes changed, but the forms of prayer have remained essentially the same and just as effective as ever in their power to heal, bring peace, and draw us closer to God.

      Today we call these ways of prayer our devotions, and this book is all about Catholic devotions as they’ve developed in the great Tradition. From a wide variety of sources — saints, popes, and ordinary believers like you and me — we have gathered practical advice on how to pray in the many ways that Catholics pray. In each chapter, you’ll find this good advice arranged to guide you, step-by-step, through a particular traditional practice.

      This is not to say that prayer is merely a technique. No, prayer is a loving conversation. But sometimes conversation proceeds more smoothly with the help of set phrases and even formal declarations. Consider, for example, all the ways in which a husband and wife communicate: formal marriage vows, casual chat, winks across a crowded room, affectionate caresses, and a number of phrases they never tire of repeating.

      Our communication with God encompasses a similar range of expressions, set phrases, quiet conversation, gestures such as the Sign of the Cross, and the intimate embrace of the sacraments. Just as a man and woman truly grow in love by repeating, “I love you,” so we Christians grow in love by repeating the prayers of the Church’s great Tradition.

      In the pages of this book, you’ll find many forms of prayer, and all of them are good. But not all of them will serve the needs of every Christian. It’s unlikely that anyone could fruitfully incorporate all of these devotions into a normal, everyday life. You need to find balance. You need to find the forms of prayer that suit you and help you to grow. These will vary depending on your temperament, personality, maturity, and season in life.

      The ways of prayer are as varied as the ways of family life or professional life; and, like home life and work routines, our ways of prayer may change many times over the course of our lives. There will be seasons when we are especially grateful to God, and seasons when we feel especially sorry for our sins; there will be seasons when we feel God especially near, and times when we can’t seem to find Him. There will be times when we need a mother’s love, and then we will deepen our Marian devotion.

      The important thing is to cultivate a life of prayer, for prayer is something living. It is no more a collection of techniques than you are a pile of bones and cells. Prayer is a heart that beats constantly within your soul. Prayer is a voice that raises itself instinctively to God. Prayer is a pair of eyes that see God in every person and every circumstance.

      You’ve read this far because you want to pray. Perhaps you don’t feel the desire as intensely as you would like. But at least you want to want to pray, and that is enough for God to make a beginning.

      Let’s begin, then, at the beginning. And let’s keep going ever afterward. We have the Lord’s assurance that, if we persevere in the ways of prayer, we will live a life that is nothing less than divine.

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