Prayer

Prayer In The Christian Life

2558 - "Great is the mystery of the faith!" The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three).
This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.

WHAT IS PRAYER?
For me, prayer is a surge of the heart;
it is a simple look turned toward heaven, 
it is a cry of recognition and of love, 
embracing both trial and joy.¹

Prayer as God's gift

2559 - "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."² But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart?³ He who humbles himself will be exalted;⁴ humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought,"⁵ are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."⁶

2560 - "If you knew the gift of God!"⁷ The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us.
Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.⁸

2561 - "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."⁹ Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!"¹⁰ Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.¹¹

Prayer as covenant

2562 - Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2563 - The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

2564 - Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

Prayer as communion

2565 - In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. 
The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit."¹² Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ.¹³ Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love.¹⁴

Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2558-2565

Article 3 - In The Age Of The Church

2623 - On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Promise was poured out on the disciples, gathered "together in one place."⁹² While awaiting the Spirit, "all these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer."⁹³ The Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls for her everything that Jesus said⁹⁴ was also to form her in the life of prayer.

2624 - In the first community of Jerusalem, believers "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers."⁹⁵ This sequence is characteristic of the Church's prayer: founded on the apostolic faith; authenticated by charity; nourished in the Eucharist.

2625 - In the first place these are prayers that the faithful hear and read in the Scriptures, but also that they make their own - especially those of the Psalms, in view of their fulfillment in Christ.⁹⁶ The Holy Spirit, who thus keeps the memory of Christ alive in his Church at prayer, also leads her toward the fullness of truth and inspires new formulations expressing the unfathomable mystery of Christ at work in his Church's life, sacraments, and mission. These formulations are developed in the great liturgical and spiritual traditions. the forms of prayer revealed in the apostolic and canonical Scriptures remain normative for Christian prayer.

Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2623-2625