{"id":548,"date":"2014-10-26T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=548"},"modified":"2014-10-26T05:00:12","modified_gmt":"2014-10-26T05:00:12","slug":"prayer-experiences-of-inner-room-and-upper-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/prayer-experiences-of-inner-room-and-upper-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer: Experiences of Inner Room and Upper Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cThe fire of the Holy Spirit was sent down upon the Apostles at Pentecost in answer to their fervent prayer; ardent prayer in the Spirit must always be the soul of new evangelization and the heart of our lives as Christians.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Pope Francis (General Audience, May 22, 2013<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"elgreco<\/a>Prayer<\/a>. Sometimes we make it so difficult. I am not sure why. Maybe we think it needs to be very formal or formulaic? I know that I thought that for a very long time. There is certainly a place for formal prayer, be it communal, such as during the Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours or even private, such when use a formal written prayer. In fact, we Catholics have a love affair with our prayer cards, books, and other sacramentals<\/a>, including candles, statutes, and icons. This is an excellent thing because \u201cthey prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it\u201d (Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em>, n. 1670<\/a>). They are, though, simply means, not ends in themselves. Means to a conversation with God or maybe more precisely, a dialogue. We might not consider it a dialogue. Fervent prayer, ardent prayer, in the way that Pope Francis is calling for is an on-going dialogue with God throughout our day, an awareness of the action and activity of the Holy Spirit permeating our lives. It is a seeking for God and finding God in all things, in every moment and in every place. St. Teresa of Avila<\/a> encourages us to be seekers of God and St. Ignatius of Loyola<\/a> calls us to \u201cfind God in all things.\u201d St. Vincent Pallotti<\/a> puts the two aspects together, as was often his way, and challenges us to:<\/p>\n

\u201cSeek God and you will find God.
\n<\/em>Seek God in all things and you will find God in all things.
\n<\/em>Seek God always and you will always find God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0We certainly need to take time to be in communal prayer like those in the Cenacle or Upper Room at Pentecost<\/a>. We also need to be in private prayer, setting aside time to go to our \u201cinner room, close the door, and pray to [our] Father in secret\u201d (Matthew 6:6<\/a>). The Holy Spirit, though, is active and alive everywhere, if we but open our eyes to see and our ears to hear<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fr. Frank Donio, S.A.C.<\/strong>, is Director of the\u00a0Catholic Apostolate Center<\/a>\u00a0and teaches for Saint Joseph\u2019s College Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cThe fire of the Holy Spirit was sent down upon the Apostles at Pentecost in answer to their fervent prayer; ardent prayer in the Spirit must always be the soul of new evangelization and the heart of our lives as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24,1],"tags":[223],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality","category-the-pope","category-uncategorized","tag-prayer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}