"This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer." CCC 2558

We come to know God, we celebrated what we know, we are living it, and behold now we are to become it. Now we must "pray" and enter ever more deeply into a relationship with Him Who First loved us, "while we were still sinners". The gift of self in this relationship is fundamental, since He has loved us giving it all up for just us, we are called to do likewise. Let love given match the love received.  Prayer is first an exchange between strangers, then friends, and then spouses. It begins first restrained by ourselves to words, then a change of life, and then ultimately a gift of persons. Receiving Christ's love and returning that love, when it is easy and blissful, and when it is difficult and filled with suffering.

Why should I pray?

•  The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer

•  Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life in the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions insist that prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart "We must remember God more often than we draw breath." But we cannot pray "at all times" if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration. 

• The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours. Sundays, centered on the Eucharist, are kept holy primarily by prayer. the cycle of the liturgical year and its great feasts are also basic rhythms of the Christian's life of prayer. 

• The Lord leads all persons by paths and in ways pleasing to him, and each believer responds according to his heart's resolve and the personal expressions of his prayer. However, Christian Tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative. They have one basic trait in common: composure of heart. This vigilance in keeping the Word and dwelling in the presence of God makes these three expressions intense times in the life of prayer.

• "Man has a noble task: That of prayer and love. To pray and love, that is the happiness of man on earth." - St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney

• "Prayer is the place of refuge for every worry, a foundation for cheerfulness, a source of constant happiness, a protection against sadness." - St. John Chrysostom

• "Without prayer we have neither light nor strength to advance in the way which leads to God." St. Alphonsus Liguori

• "Prayer is the only channel through which God's great graces and favors may flow into the soul; and if this be once closed, I know no other way He can communicate them." St. Teresa of Jesus

• "To the servant of God, every place is the right place, and every time the right time

• Acts 2:42 - "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

• 1 John 5:14-17 - And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.

• Ephesians 6:18 - Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.

• Jeremiah 29:12 - Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.

• Mark 11:24 - Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.