Personal Prayer can Best Express the Circumstances for which It is Offered

PRAYING HANDS.
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This may be related to the last one, though the focus of it was more about communal gatherings and occasions. Here we can mention other circumstances which may be more personal. For example, someone who visits a sick friend or a offers a prayer for a loved one who is celebrating an important occasion like a birthday, anniversary, graduation, to which the one offering may not be capable of attending. 

As we have mentioned in that article, we could probably find a lot of ready-made prayers which we can use in order to offer personal prayers for these circumstances. But we also repeat, we have to make these prayers truly personal also, that is, as if it was us who made them and who are truly praying them for the first time. Using them just because we cannot think of anything to say, or just because they seem great prayers, etc would not be that good to hear for God. For as the Apostle Paul wrote, when we cannot say what we really need to say, the Spirit helps us pray with inexpressible groanings [Romans 8:26]. Of course there are prayers which the Vatican has designated as sources of grace by just praying them but still there must be the intention, the heart and sincerity, not merely uttering the words for the sake of uttering and complying.

So personal prayers truly and expresses best the circumstance for which we offer the prayer. What better prayer can substitute the joy that we feel in thanking God for passing a difficult entrance exam to a a very prestigious school, or for having been accepted to a high paying job out of hundreds of applicants, or for being grateful that our beloved grandparent has reached his or her hundredth birthday with the strength and skill of someone in his or her forties? There are surely a lot of things we can pray for personally to which we cannot find exact ready-made prayers for these circumstances are by themselves unique not only because of the occasion but also of the relationships and the feelings and emotions attached to the celebration or circumstance.

Even the Lord Jesus Christ did not exactly direct us to pray the Our Father verbatim or word for word but merely said, when you pray, pray LIKE THIS [see Matthew 6:9]. It is true we Catholics use the Our Father as a common prayer for various reasons and purposes but, once more we emphasize, we should recite the prayer in a personal way, not as an answering machine which repeats only what it has been programmed to recite.

Prayer as we said before is our way of communicating with the Father. The more personal our communication, the better, especially with God. And by the way, with God we need not say a lot of words when we pray to Him from our hearts and personally, we only have to be sincere and persistent.

More blessings through your prayers, dear friends.