A Sincere Form of Prayer

**sheilabest10** · 08-06-2009, 12:26 PM

When we meditate, we are entering into a form of prayer that the early Christians call pure prayer; pure because it purifies the heart of images and desires and fears and all the complexity associated with those things. What is pure is simple; we talk, don’t we, about something being “pure and simple”. So, when we meditate, we are not speaking to God; we are not thinking about God in a complicated way; we are not bringing our problems to God’s door and pinning them up on God’s notice board and dramatising our relationship with God asking for these problems to be solved for us. There are other forms of prayer in which we may do these things and they are also valid and useful forms of prayer. All forms of prayer if they are sincere, are fruitful and effective. Meditation doesn’t replace other forms of prayer.

Calm Mind

**amanda34** · 09-30-2010, 09:51 PM

Hello
What I think he means by sincerity is prayer from the heart and this way of meditation has often been called the “prayer of the heart”. Very often when we come to pray and many of us were taught to do it this way, we pray with the intention of changing the world, or changing other people or changing the circumstances of our lives. That’s our intention; we bring this intention when we pray to God to change the world into a better world, and “my” life into a better form of life. There’s something not quite sincere about that. Because our first priority, the first principle of prayer, is that we are not trying to change the world. That’s God’s business. We are sincere when we come to pray if we are open to be changed as we pray. It is first of all the person who prays who must be changed. That’s what makes sincerity in prayer. I am first of all prepared to be changed by my prayer, by the act of prayer. I am willing to be changed.But a sincere form of prayer is what we need to understand. What does a sincere form of prayer mean? In Chapter 6 of St Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives his great teaching on prayer. He says, “Go into your inner room and pray to your Father within that secret place.” “Don’t stand in the street corners and look for other people’s approval”. Be simple, he says, when you pray. Don’t use many words.Then, of course, the world will change. I am part of the world. If I am different, the world is different. In the practice of meditation, therefore we are not bringing our petitions or our intentions into the prayer. God knows our needs even before we ask. But we are paying attention. Not making intentions, but giving attention. This is the pure “see-ing” of meditation or contemplative prayer.
Thanks
Christian Missions

**haru19** · 10-13-2010, 10:45 PM

"The dimensions of Christian meditation develop from God's having completed his self-revelation in two directions: Speaking out of his own, and speaking as a man, through his Son, disclosing the depths of man.... And this meditation can take place only where the revealing man, God's Son, Jesus Christ, reveals God as his Father: in the Holy Spirit of God, so we may join in probing God's depths, which only God's Spirit probes."[13]