Types of Prayer

          A couple of days ago, I talked about living a life of prayer and concluded with Jesus giving us the types of prayer and how to pray. Today, I would like to talk about the types of prayer. We learn about the types of prayer through the Church's Tradition through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There are four main types of prayer that we learn from the Church. They are petition, adoration, contrition, and thanksgiving. In petition, we ask God to heal us and to send down his Holy Spirit so that we may be filled with courage, strength, and vitality so that we may be more virtuous and be able to accomplish our goals or help another with his/her goals. In adoration, we praise God for loving us eternally and being perfect in every attribute and for being kind enough to create us only so that we may be able to live and love him (in other words, God created us solely for our own sake). In contrition, we ask God forgiveness for what we have done wrong and desire the communion with God to be strengthened and one day fully restored to resemble the glory of the communion between God the Father, God the Son, an God the Holy Spirit. Lastly, in thanksgiving, we thank God for creating us and being with us at all times, guiding us in all that we do. We also thank him for sustaining us and sending down his only Son Jesus Christ so that he may die on the Cross for the Redemption of our own sins.
          There are also three main expression of prayer. These are vocal prayer, contemplative prayer, and meditation. Vocal prayer is praying out loud, using the body and the heart. This may be done more often when reciting commonly known prayers with other people or in large groups such as the Our Father or Hail Mary. Contemplative prayer is the expression of the mystery of a prayer. It achieves a greater union with Christ and allows us to share in his mystery. Finally, meditation revolves around trying to understand Christ greater through prayer.