Prayer is More Than Just "Speech with God"

At the Sunday Night Thing last night Rev. Grant Odhner pointed out an important detail of Arcana Coelestia 2535 that broadened my understanding of the essential elements of prayer. You may be familiar with the idea from this passage that prayer is speech with God, but take a look at what the passage says.

Prayer, regarded in itself, is speech with God, AND some internal view at the time of the matters of the prayer, to which there answers something like an influx into the perception or thought of the mind, so that there is a certain opening of the man's interiors toward God; but this with a difference according to the man's state, and according to the essence of the subject of the prayer.

So prayer isn't just speech with God: it's speech with God and an internal view of what you're praying about. Grant explained that we have an internal and external part of us and when we pray we should try to pay attention to the internal view of the things happening in our external lives that the Lord gives us. Isn't that cool?

For more posts on prayer search for pray in the upper left-hand corner (or, if you're lazy, you can just click that link.)