Prayer: Fixing One’s Mind on God

[Prayer consists in] directing all one’s thoughts, words and actions on God. (OOCC, II, p. 63)

For St. Vincent, prayer consists of a person fixing his thoughts, words and actions on God. When a person centers himself totally on God in prayer, he becomes aware of God’s presence and accepts God as he is in himself, i.e., in His Person. Thus, in prayer, a person’s faith-awareness of God leads him to a faith-encounter with God. When a person fixes his whole attention on God, he experiences a faith-encounter with God based on his faith-awareness of God. A person’s faith-encounter with God, in turn, makes him aware of his personal presence. This awareness of his personal presence, in God’s presence, makes a person experience an encounter with his own self. Thus, in prayer, though a person fixes his mind on God, it not only opens him to a God-discovery, but it opens him also to a self- discovery. Hence, in prayer, though a person’s attention is focused on knowing God’s personality as the God of infinite love and mercy, he also experiences himself as a sinful creature, unworthy of God’s love and mercy. This twofold encounter of God and self in prayer makes a person respond to God’s infinite love and mercy, though he is unworthy. God, in turn, blesses the human person with his forgiving love and makes him a partaker in his kingdom. Thus, there comes about a genuine inter-personal dialogue between God and the human person in prayer.

Does my prayer lead me to an awareness of God and an encounter with him? Do I discover myself as I encounter God in prayer? Do I experience God’s reaching out to me with his merciful love in prayer? Is my prayer a true dialogue with God?

Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way. (Eph. 4: 23 – 24)