Some practical points to help with prayer

• The Lord wants to talk to us. At every moment of our lives, the Lord is saying to us: “Listen! … “
• The pace of life can either help or hinder prayer.
• Too many activities without order make us restless and worried.
• Believe that God is always present and He loves us.

• It is the Lord who is acting.

And the Lord often acts without our knowing it, and even without our cooperation.And we know that above all that it is not we who do the work. We are there to calm down, to listen quietly, but not to get stressed! So we don’t get stressed and then we fall asleep … In general this is the best moment when He takes charge of us, because then, we leave Him in peace, and He can do what He wants in us.

Pierre reassured in advance the pilgrims at Paray, whom he had just invited to Adoration.

When you come out (of Adoration) after an hour, you will say: “I was so bored, I got so distracted!” And other people will say: “But it’s curious, you’re radiant!” You won’t feel it but others will feel it. And you will be living by love!

• The Holy Spirit teaches us to pray.

But how could we really pray without the Holy Spirit? He dwells in us through baptism, He who is the manifestation of the Love between the Heart of the Father and the Heart of the Son, the overflowing of their love. “The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words.”

We say to the Lord: “Come, set my heart on fire, pierce it, transform it” and then we say: “But nothing is happening!” Well, in the first place, we have to have hope and to know that the prayer to the Holy Spirit is the one prayer that is always certain to be answered. The Lord said this, it is absolutely definite. So if we ask constantly, begging the Lord, well, one day when the Lord desires it, our hearts will be transformed …

But you really do have to have hope, saying: “Lord, I am knocking, I know that You will open, I am quite unworthy, and I am relying absolutely, not on my own merits, but on Your Love.” That’s the essential thing.

• The Holy Spirit helps us to accept the particular form of God’s gift of love for us.

It is important, while realizing how essential the Trinity is, for us to see with which particular Person the Lord is putting us in a personal relationship. Indeed, this is extremely important. We may be in relationship with all Three, but there is often one Person in particular with whom we feel we are more deeply in union. This may in any case change over time.

Each of us really does have a grace of love and that’s why we must ask the Lord for this grace and not for other people’s, but the one that is for us. And, then, the Lord transforms our hearts, and gradually it comes.

We are really not the measure of our prayer.

We are there, and we say, “Lord we are losing half an hour to be with You (all together) because we believe that You are the God of glory, the God of love. And we want to pay You this homage, while the world does not pray to You, and the world is completely in the darkness. So, we are praying.” Well, this is immensely powerful.

You know that Silouan said that the monk is someone who prays for the whole world. People wonder what purpose a monk serves! Obviously if the monk prays like a lightning conductor for the whole world, we understand that he serves a purpose. Well, we can do the same, but together, and with the Holy Spirit.

That is the fundamental attitude of prayer – a trusting faith by which we open ourselves to the Lord and to the action of the Holy Spirit who achieves so much more than we are able to imagine or conceive.