There are three different expressions of the prayer: vocal, meditation and contemplation. Let’s see each of them.
1. VOCAL PRAYER
It refers to talking to God with our own words, it is the prayer that involves the verbal language, it means that our words can be heard by others, or we use words in the silence of our heart, though most of the times we pray in this way so that we can hear the prayer. Jesus Himself taught us this type of prayer when he taught his disciples the Our Father. (CCC 2704). There are different forms of this kind of prayer like the following:
• PRAISE: It is the way of praying that recognizes in the most direct way that God is God. It sings to Him, it glorifies Him not for what He does but for what He is. Praise integrates the other kinds of praying and takes them to God, Who is its beginning and end (CCC 2639). Praise allows that God’s will take place in our hearts. (Psalm 103,1).
• BLESSING: It is the answer from mankind to God’s gifts: because God blesses, man’s heart can in turn bless Him, Who is the source of all blessings (CCC 2626). Thus the blessing is blessing God for all the blessings we receive from Him, it is an act that demands humility and a grateful and attentive heart that pays attention to the things that God does for it.
• WORSHIP: In the old times when someone was an emperor, king or something, he obliged his subjects to kneel or even prostrate themselves before him, this act of prostrating is worship. It is the first attitude from a man/woman that recognizes him/herself as a creature before his/her Creator. It praises the greatness of the Lord, Who has created us and the omnipotence of Jesus Christ Who delivers us from evil. It is the action of humiliating the spirit before the King of Glory and the silent respect in the presence of God. The worship of God, three times saint and tremendously kind fills us with humility and gives security to our supplications. (CCC 2628). God is the only One worthy of worship in the whole universe, not even the Virgin nor the saints. Within the Church we do not call worship to the cult given to Virgin Mary it is called hyperdulia and we do not either worship the saints we venerate them. (Psalm 29, 1-2).
• THANKS GIVING: God likes us to be grateful and we must be grateful with God for everything (1 Th. 5, 18); good and bad, in the book of Job, he said: “We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?" Job 2, 10).
• DEVOTION: “Your will be done, on earth as in heaven…” (Mt. 6,10). Something important is that when we pray before God, He is going to ask us to put our life in His hands, so, what we have to do while we pray is to hand all our good things and bad things over to God. That is renewing the lordship of Jesus in our life every time we pray (Ph. 3, 8-12).
• SPIRITUAL BATTLE OR SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE: Great prayers before Christ, God’s mother and the saints teach that prayer is a combat. Against ourselves and against the enticer to evil which does everything possible to separate man/woman from prayer and from the union with God. (Ephesians 6, 12).
• SUPPLICATION: This is the most common way of praying among Christians. It is about telling God what our heart wishes with the condition that “we ask for something according to His Will, He is going to hear us”. (1 John 5, 14). We must remember what Paul says: “Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. (Ephesians 3, 20-21).
• INTERCESSION: It is very much like the supplication prayer, the difference is that here, we ask for others and not for ourselves. (1 Tm. 2, 1).
• HEALING: James says in his letter: pray for the sick. Church has a special sacrament for this, but when we are dealing with other kind of sickness where this sacrament does not apply, praying for the healing of the sick is important, for example emotional, spiritual and even physical sickness. (James 5, 16).
All this can go together with chants, Jewish have a saying: He/she who sings, prays twice…” this means that when I sing, my body and my spirit praise the Lord, and for those who want to pray more the saying goes on: “ and he/she who dances, prays three times”.
2.- MEDITATION
It is mostly a search. It is where the spirit of the individual tries to understand the why and how of Christian life to stick to it and give response to God’s demands. It is almost always done with the help of a book, the Holy Scriptures or any other spiritual book. We read and we go deeper step by step in the text until it becomes part of us.
Meditation involves thinking, imagination, emotion and wish. This is necessary to go deeper into faith convictions, to encourage heart conversion and strengthen the will to follow Christ.
Christian prayer has always wanted us to meditate specially on “Christ mysteries”. The way it is done in the Lectio Divina or the Rosary. This kind of praying reflection is very useful, but Christian praying must go farther: towards the knowledge of the love of Jesus Christ and the union with Him.
3. – CONTEMPLATION
What does this prayer mean? St. Therese says: “It is nothing but a mental prayer”. It is the deepest communion between man and God, thus it is a gift from God, which everybody is called to participate in, we only have to be willing to be with Him. In contemplation, there are no more words, it is to see God and let God see us.
