What is prayer according to Sister Anne Lecu?
Prayer is not about knowledge, Sister Anne Lécu confided to Radio Notre Dame in 2024. Jesus’ response in the Gospel is: “When you pray, say Our Father .” Think about each word spoken, repeat it twice, three times, and call on your feelings. The biblical tradition gives us the words through the support of a book of Psalms, when we don’t have the words; let’s choose those that have the color of our mood. The bets are raised to rise.
What are the steps of a good prayer?
The prayer of the rosary dear to the Dominicans allows, through repetition, to meditate on the Gospel like an open book. The meaning of prayer is to stand, in trial or praise, before God in silence, to concentrate on this silence, and to be present to him. As a priest or a spiritual father would do, we must put the Lord at our side in a lively relationship, and abandon ourselves to the Father, all the senses alert. With heart, it makes us meditate on our breath by ruminating on a piece of the word of God in the book of the Bible, by entering into an invocation to Christ while working
on breathing. Prayer is tamed with others; this initiation is learned. Nothing supernatural. Let us then reread our time of prayer as people in search of meaning. Choosing a time for God, our creator, entrusting some of our thoughts to God, weighing what separates us from the Lord, and ending with an Our Father, is enough. Feeling concerned by the word of the Gospel, needing it is enough for grace to be done and to happen. This advice includes seeking for oneself, as if it were nothing, help for life; prayer reaches the heart.
Prayer, a time of grace
Prayer calls to the depths of our soul, it is a call for help, a desire thrown to heaven, a cry in silence, an answer to the question of forgiveness. You will agree, that faith is lived in an environment in which each prayer of praise resonates as an adoration, of the joy of the Lord. It is up to us to put the means at our disposal in these circumstances of life, those provided by the articles of our editorial staff and by this retreat from which you will emerge filled with gratitude.
Prayer will become an indispensable something in your life, whether you experience it in personal prayer, as a couple, as a family, or in the community. There are probably as many forms of prayer as there are forms of people and souls: during a novena, a psalm, an oration, a rosary, a Eucharistic adoration, an Our Father, Jesus, God or Mary will be at the center of your spiritual momentum. This is the material to banish a mechanical prayer in favor of an internalized faith and incarnate prayers.
Concretely, by registering for the retreat in the form of a novena (click on “join” below) you will receive every morning for 9 days, upon waking, an email from Marie, journalist at FC (Paris) and producer of the podcasts “Maman Prie”, with:
=> A common objection to prayer, followed by a meditation text to answer it and discover that there is no problem… only solutions!
=> A text or a testimony to learn how to create a true heart-to-heart with God, our Father.
=> A short time of prayer to start your day in the best possible way.
=> A concrete resolution to keep during the day.
Even when we are armed with the best intentions, we all struggle to find a few minutes in an already busy day to be with Jesus, to settle down under the gaze of the Lord, and when we do manage to do so, we recite a few scraps of catechism.
Yet it is not for lack of examples of great men and women of prayer: Saint Padre Pio, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, or Saint Charles de Foucauld, to name but a few.
Is praying reserved for contemplatives? No, praying is within everyone’s reach.
Why should you pray?
Jesus invites us to pray, as he did, at every pivotal moment in our lives for effective discernment. A master of prayer, he whispers to us, “Pray without ceasing .” A bit like Muslims and their five daily prayers? We still need to understand the purpose of prayer, that Christ integrates us into his life, that he makes us enter into his total and free love. It is to a prayer of thanksgiving that he invites us. If prayer is difficult, it is undoubtedly because we seek a suitable space for it, however, no matter the place, praying in the desert can be as beneficial to us as praying in the subway. A few words, a psalm, are enough: praising God, telling him of our trust, to enter, it is permitted, into a prayer of request.
Experience something strong with God
To get there, sign up for our “9 days to learn to pray” course and experience a thread of faith to install prayer in your life, join a community, find your rhythm, and have a festive heart.
