Apostleship of Prayer

The Plan of a  prayer period

1.  PREPARATION. Read the passage through and wait for about thirty seconds.
                                    Do not think about the passage.
                                   Read again, doing the same thing.
                                   You may have to do this four or five times until the mind is saturated by  the passage.

2. Now find a blessing that you would like to receive from the passage.

2.  BEGIN with a preparatory prayer to situate yourself in the presence of God,
eg, “O My God, I firmly believe that you are truly present; I love you, I adore you”.

3. Now we begin:
Go to a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.
Still your mind by, perhaps, reading the passage again.
Call the passage to the imagination; make it as vivid and real as possible: see what they are doing,

 Picture yourself in the scene.
Situate yourself in the passage;
glide into the people to experience their experience,
thereby their experiences become your experience;
at another time converse with the people in the scene.

Hear Jesus talking to the crowd or to the disciples.
Picture Jesus speaking to you.
Let his words enter into your heart.
Hear him talking to you as one of the disciples or as a member of the crowd.
Tell Jesus how you are feeling about what he has just said to you, about the other thoughts that have arisen in your heart.
Talk to him as you would to any other person.
You may think that you have exhausted the passage but go back to the beginning of the passage again in the imagination and construct the scene.

What is happening here is that you are being asked to setup a drama, or a play, or a movie in your mind. Call to the imagination a Movie that you have seen recently. If it had been attractive for you would have been drawn into the Movie to become one of the actors. In other words the Movie is no longer on the screen but is now in you and you are in it. This is what we are attempting to do when we pray this way. We are trying to assist the Passage to come alive as it would have come alive to the people listening in the time of Jesus. In other words we are attempting to  bring the Gospel to the present, helping it to come alive for you.

 For a time towards the end of the prayer time you may wish to make a conversation with the Lord, as the lover speaks to the beloved, perhaps sharing with him about how you feel about what he is saying or doing.

This sharing can often happen spontaneously during the prayer period itself. These are never distractions.
Never end any prayer period without some form of a personal conversation with Jesus, remaining in the Gospel context and talking to Jesus about your reactions.
 
Finally, end the prayer period itself with some form of vocal prayer, eg., The Our Father, The Hail Mary, or The Gloria be to the Father etc..

 Home Page

For more information contact The National Secretary