Vocal Prayer and Meditation
One
What is prayer?
St. Teresa of Avila, the great master and teacher of prayer defines prayer this way, “Mental prayer…is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; its means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” CCC 2709
Prayer is friendship with God. So what does friendship take? It takes time, talking, listening (which means knowing, understanding, and loving God), and then just being together.
This corresponds to the three major expressions of prayer defined by the Catechism (2699): vocal prayer, which means speaking to God, meditation which means listening to God, and contemplation which is just being with the One who we know loves us.
Two
The friendship of prayer begins with vocal prayer
The Catechism (2700) says, “Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal we speak to God.”
Vocal prayer just means speaking to God silently or out loud. Examples of vocal prayer are: The Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, the prayers of the Mass, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, novenas, and other formal or written prayers. The most important vocal prayer is just speaking to God straight from the honesty of your own heart, as one friend to another.
The most important thing we need to tell people is this: anyone can speak to God and He will listen and answer. It does not matter how good or bad their lives have been. It does not matter what their religion is, it doesn’t even matter whether they are a believer or an atheist. Any person can have immediate contact with God by speaking with him. He hears every person. He answers every prayer. God wants to speak to every person!
Three
If we want to listen to God then we need daily meditation
People often say to me, “God never speaks to me.” So I ask, “Do you shut up so you can listen?”
Meditation is like having coffee with a friend. Set a specific time and place conducive to a leisurely intimate conversation. Talk and share. Listen and understand. Just enjoy the time together.
Teresa of Avila gives us three simple steps to listen to God through mental prayer or meditation.
First, read or listen to something from the Word of God. The Word of God is comprised of Scripture, Tradition (the writings of the saints), and the Magisterium (the teaching of the Church). As soon as something strikes you, stop reading.
Second, reflect or think about what struck you. Try to understand it. Love God for this truth. Apply it to your life by asking: Am I living this or not? If not, what is preventing me? Pride, vanity, envy, sloth, anger, greed, gluttony, lust, etc. Practically, what am I going to do about it? This leads us to form a resolution, a gameplan for the day
Finally, a resolution. Choose something practical and concrete to do that day based on your meditation.
Four
The Power of the Resolution
The resolution is the key to mental prayer. If we practice a resolution flowing from our meditation every day we will change and become a better person. If we don’t practice a resolution, then we will get worse because unchecked vice makes a person worse, not better.
St. Francis of De Sales writes, “The most important thing of all is that you cling firmly to the resolutions you have taken in meditation so as to practice them carefully. That is the great fruit of meditation, without which it is often not only useless but harmful. Why so? Because the virtues upon which we have meditated but not practiced sometimes puff us up so much in mind and heart that we think we are already what we are resolved to be which no doubt is the case if our resolutions are solid and ardent. But when, on the contrary, they are not practiced, they are useless and dangerous.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, II Chap 8)
Examples of a resolution: Today I will listen more than I speak. I will not gossip today. I complain too much, today I will practice thanking God ahead of time for working everything for good. I am anxious, today I will replace that feeling of anxiety with an act of trust in God.
Five
The Rosary and Meditation
The Catechism (2708) suggests two forms of meditation: Lectio Divina and the Rosary.
The Rosary is supposed to be a meditation on the Word of God, not just a rote saying of words while our mind wanders. Teresa of Avila says this is not prayer.
Teresa gives us three simple steps for mental prayer: read, reflect, and a resolution – which must be applied to the Rosary.
What should we think about during the Rosary? The Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God. All that He did and revealed comes to us through scripture, the Old and New Testament, through Tradition such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and the Magisterium, which is the Official Teaching of the Church. The best synthesis is found in the Catechism.
Our Lady wants us to meditate on all her Son did and taught. The traditional mysteries of the Rosary were meant to serve as an outline for the life and teachings of Jesus. They were never meant to limit us to those scenes. Imagine reading the table of contents of a book over and over and never reading the book. Sooner or later, you will lose interest in the table of contents because you want to know more, you desire to go deeper.
This is why St. John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries and then he said, “Obviously these mysteries neither replace the Gospel nor exhaust its content. The Rosary, therefore, is no substitute for lectio divina; on the contrary, it presupposes and promotes it. Yet, even though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even with the addition of the mysteria lucis, do no more than outline the fundamental elements of the life of Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on the rest of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting of prolonged recollection.’ Rosarium 29