Jul 10 Wed - How can I have a conversation with God?

Jul 10 Wed
How can I have a conversation with God?
The spiritual formation we receive fosters our personal friendship with Jesus Christ. We must truly be souls of prayer. "Prayer is the basis for all supernatural work. With prayer, we are all-powerful. And if we tried to do without it, we would get nowhere at all." Any mental or vocal prayer, done with love, puts us in direct contact with our God and helps us know Him better and love Him more.
Vocal prayer is one way to connect with God. When we speak to God aloud, using words, we show Him our respect and offer ourselves to Him completely-both our soul and body, spirit and matter. The true meaning of vocal prayer is realized within the context of our personal, one-on-one relationship with God. Our vocal prayer is an outward expression of adoration, an overflow of love.
When we pray aloud, our minds and senses come together. Words and phrases proclaim the glory of our God. Words of praise and supplication ascend to the throne of the Most High. As St. John Chrysostom preached, "you become a member of the angelic choir, a companion to the archangels, singing together with the seraphim... It is not men you are praying to, but God."
We should cherish the set prayers used by the Church. What better prayers could we offer to God than the ones He taught us?
Furthermore, in the unity of Christ's Mystical Body, liturgical prayer becomes the inner prayer of a soul in love. "Your prayer should be liturgical-I would like to see you grow fond of reciting the psalms and prayers from the missal, rather than private or special prayers."
We must pay attention to our vocal prayers. "Slowly. Consider what you are saying, who is saying it, and to whom. For hurried talk, without time for reflection, is just noise, the clatter of tin cans."
Attention is the most crucial aspect of our effort to pray our vocal prayers well.
Let us, therefore, close the doors of our hearts to the enemy and open them only to God. The adversary often slips in using subtle images and distracts our prayers away from God. Then, we have one thing in our heart and another on our lips. It is an insult to allow ourselves to be distracted by profane thoughts when we are praying to God, so that what we are thinking differs from what we are telling God! How can we dare to ask God to hear our prayer if we ourselves are not attentive to what we are saying?
Attentive prayer means keeping our minds focused on the person we are talking to. Then our prayer can be confident, intimate, and filled with the Spirit of sonship, as we cry out, "Abba! Father!"