The three stages of prayer

Prayer has three stages.
The first is: meet God.
The second is: listen to God.
The third is: respond to God.

If you go through these three stages, you have come to deep prayer.
It may happen that you have not even reached the first stage, that of meeting God.

1. Meeting God as a child
A renewed discovery of the great means of prayer is needed.
In the document "Novo Millennio Ineunte", Pope John Paul II raised strong alarms, saying that "it is necessary to learn to pray". Why did you say that?
Since we pray little, we pray badly, many do not pray.
I was shocked, a few days ago, by a holy parish priest, who said to me: “I see that my people say prayers, but they cannot speak to the Lord; he says prayers, but he cannot communicate with the Lord ... ".
I said the Rosary this morning.
At the third mystery I woke up and said to myself: “You are already at the third mystery, but have you spoken to Our Lady? You have already said 25 Ave Maria and you have not yet said that you love her, you have not yet spoken to her! "
We say prayers, but we don't know how to speak to the Lord. This is tragic!
In the Novo Millennio Ineunte the Pope says:
"... Our Christian communities must become authentic schools of prayer.
Education in prayer must become, in some way, a qualifying point of every Pastoral program ... ".
What is the first step in learning to pray?
The first step is this: to really want to pray, to understand clearly what the essence of prayer is, to struggle to get there and to take on new, constant and deep habits of authentic prayer.
So the very first thing to do is unlearn the wrong things.
One of the habits that we have since childhood is the habit of speaking speech, the habit of distracted vocal prayer.
Being distracted from time to time is normal.
But being habitually distracted is not normal.
Think of certain Rosaries, of some absentminded chanting!
St. Augustine wrote: "God prefers the barking of dogs to absentminded chanting!"
We don't have enough concentration training.
Don Divo Barsotti, a great mystic and prayer teacher of our day, wrote: "We are used to being invaded and dominated by all thoughts, while we are not used to dominating them".
This is the great evil of spiritual life: we are not used to silence.
It is silence that creates the atmosphere of depth of prayer.
It is silence that helps to make contact with ourselves.
It is silence that opens to listening.
Silence is not silent.
Silence is for listening.
We must love silence for love of the Word.
Silence creates order, clarity, transparency.
I say to the young people: “If you do not reach the prayer of silence, you will never arrive at the true prayer, because you will not descend into your conscience. You must come to estimate silence, to love silence, to train in silence ... "
We don't train in concentration.
If we do not train in concentration, we will have a prayer that does not go deep into the heart.
I must find inner contact with God and continually reestablish this contact.
Prayer constantly threatens to slip into pure monologue.
Instead, it must become an interview, it must become a dialogue.
From recollection everything depends.
No effort is wasted for this purpose and even if all the time of prayer passes only in seeking recollection, it would already be rich prayer, because to collect means to be awake.
And man, in prayer, must be awake, must be present.
It is urgent to plant the fundamental ideas of prayer in the head and in the heart.
Prayer is not one of the many occupations of the day.
It is the soul of the whole day, because the relationship with God is the soul of the whole day and of all actions.
Prayer is not a duty, but a need, a need, a gift, a joy, a rest.
If I don't get here, I didn't come to prayer, I didn't understand it.
When Jesus taught prayer, he said something of extraordinary importance: "... When you pray, say: Father ...".
Jesus explained that praying is entering into an affectionate relationship with God, is becoming children.
If one does not enter into a relationship with God, one does not pray.

The first step in prayer is to meet God, to enter into a loving and filial relationship.
This is a point on which we must fight with all our strength, because this is where prayer is played.
To pray is to meet God with a warm heart, it is to meet God as children.

"... When you pray, say: Father ...".