This week, I want to further deepen our discussion on prayer by bringing to us some of the thoughts of Josemaria Escriva on prayer in his book The Way. I hope that it blesses you and gives you more insights into how to improve your prayer life as much as it does to me, especially during this Holy season of Lent.

86. Your prayer should be liturgical. How would I like to see you using the psalms and prayers from the missal, rather than private prayers of your own choice. Here, we see other forms of prayer besides using our own personal words, which is not bad in itself.

90. You say that you don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and once you have said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’, rest assured that you begun to do so. The key takeaway is that there is no excuse not to pray. Take it to God; your need to know how to pray, and you are already praying

91. You write: ‘To pray is to talk to God. But about what?’ About Him, about yourself: joys, sorrows, success and failures, noble ambitions, daily worries, weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions: and Love and reparation. In a word: to get to know him and to get to know yourself: ‘to get acquainted!’ This excerpt is loaded! It is also very practical, with granular details of what prayer does and the range of ideas we can talk to God about in prayer. Will you practicalize it? God is interested in every detail of our lives. Talk to Him like a trusted friend today.

97. You don’t know what to say to our Lord in your prayer. You can’t think of anything, and yet you would like to consult him on many things. Look: Make some notes during the day of whatever you want to consider in the presence of God. And then take these notes with you to pray. This is yet another practical way to pray. However, you can turn each moment thoughts of what to pray for cross your mind into prayer that very moment.

101. Persevere in prayer. Persevere, even when your efforts seem barren. Prayer is always fruitful. Do not give up on prayer when your requests seem unanswered. Persist. Keep knocking. Keep pushing. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

281. Silence is the doorkeeper of the interior life. Prayer, being a conversation between us and God, requires that we cultivate the habit of silence as a form of prayer and a means of hearing and listening to God.

May the thoughts of our hearts and the words of our hearts be acceptable to God. Amen