Sister praying in chapel holding rosary

Why Do We Pray?

St. Therese said, “Prayer is a surge of the heart…a cry of recognition and of love.” Here she is referring to our hearts, our cries. But I think she would readily agree we could look at prayer from a different angle.

What if prayer was a surge of God’s Heart? A cry of His love?

Not long ago I heard a priest say, “God desires you. He has a (insert your name here) shaped hole in His Heart.” God has an empty place only you can fill. For many of us this is a new and strange concept. Let’s look at a paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to get a better understanding.

“ ‘If you knew the gift of God!’ The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.” (CCC 2560)

We do not pray because God wants something from us. We pray because God wants us, our very selves. Prayer is directly connected to our baptism when we entered into a covenant with God. The surge of our hearts meets the endless surge of the Heart of God in an intimate exchange of persons.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. I highly recommend that you take time to read more from the Catechism. Slowly. Prayerfully. Open your heart to the desires of the Heart of God.

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