Prayer

Goran Kardum

Importance of prayer

  • Prayer is the very soul of religion. Auguste Sabatier (1897, p. 109) (Spilka & Ladd, 2013)

  • “The most intimate essence of religion is revealed by the most simple religious act: prayer.” (Feuerbach, L., 19th century German philosopher)

Introduction

  • The General Social Survey’s analysis of national data from 1972 to 2006 suggests that as many as 97% of Americans pray, and some 57% indicate that they pray one or more times each day (General Social Survey, 2008).

  • Laird (1991) reported on a Princeton University survey that found “74% of men and 86% of women rely on prayer when faced with a problem”

Why is so important?

  • a wide-ranging perspective.

  • relevant to both personal and social psychology

  • it is complex behavior of fundamental importance to the lives of most people

  • encompassing a broad spectrum of attitudes, beliefs, experiences, and knowledge.

  • Faith is expressed in many ways, and prayer is part of a larger framework of beliefs, experiences, and observances

Life-span perspectives

  • praying begins early (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age)

  • Integral to coping with the problems of living!

  • prayer reflects the perceptions, cognitions, and motivations of those who pray

  • include whole person: psychological system, brain activities, body changes

  • helping people cope with the problems encountered in social living. For example, prayer is significant in marriage and family life, especially when confro

  • every aspect of clinical, social, and experimental psychology has a place in our efforts to comprehend this most basic of human activities. Prayer is truly critical to the way most people conduct their lives (Spilka & Ladd, 2013).

Definition and metaphysical dimension

  • central metaphysical assumptions underlying prayer: Does God hear and answer prayers?
  • prayer were largely ignored or rejected by mainstream psychologists
  • We can define prayer as an appeal to a higher power
  • Prayer is communication
  • Contemporary definitions generally emphasize that prayer is an act of communication, often employing such terms as “address” or “request,” with “need” constituting the most frequent motivation for initiating prayer
  • Prayer as the name we give to the experience of being in communication with God

Public and Private

  • Worship vs. prayer
  • The term “worship” has been applied to virtually all religious activities.
  • Concept of worship: collective religious activity in which large numbers of people participate in orderly structured public services, usually within an institutional (i.e., church) setting (Clark, 1958) according to (Spilka & Ladd, 2013)

Public and Private

  • Prayer is commonly submerged within the complex concept we label as personal faith.
  • In recent years, the increasingly popular term used to describe personal faith is “spirituality,” which overlaps with religion. Distinctions between “religion” and “spirituality” are controversial (Spilka & Ladd, 2013).
  • The dominant position among psychology researchers treats spirituality as the personalization of religion.

Types of prayer

  • It is difficult to conceive of them in terms of rigid classifications.

  • They are enumerated here more on the basis of psychology than on history. (Hamman, n.d.)

Types of prayer

  • Petition
  • Confession
  • Intercession
  • Praise and thanksgiving
  • Adoration
  • Mystical union or ecstasy
  • Contemplative

Types of prayer

Prayer Types According to Foster (1992)

Empirical dimensions of prayer (factor analysis)

Factor analysis of prayer

Iconography

  • Form of prayer
  • Reflection processes
  • Be in silence
  • Practicing patience
  • Analysis mistakes and corrections
  • Projective technique

Petition

  • Pargament et al. (2000) consider its key facets to be: (1) the search for meaning; (2) the search for control; (3) comfort/spirituality; (4) intimacy/spirituality; and (5) life transformation. Petitionary prayer is primarily a coping strategy.

  • Return to health, the healing of the sick, long life, material goods, prosperity, take a spiritual virtues

  • Christianity has never condemned material requests but rather has integrated them into a single providential order while at the same time subordinating them to spiritual values.

Confession

  • at the same time an affirmation of faith and a recognition of the state of sin.
  • in ancient Christianity, the confession of faith accompanies the renunciation of demons.
  • The Confessions of St. Augustine also illustrate this dual theme.
  • The most personal level, sin places a human being directly before God, who alone is able to grant pardon and salvation
  • The Miserere (“Lord, have mercy,” Psalm 51) of the ancient Israelite king David expresses repentance for sin with an intensity and depth that has a universal value.

Intercession

  • solidarity is often expressed in intercessory prayer, in which the needs of others are expressed.

  • Intercessory prayers are also significant in Eastern and ancient religions.

  • Christianity: mediation of saints ensures that the prayer will be efficacious.

  • Intercession is spiritualized in view of a consciousness of the messianic (salvatory) mission.

  • Interesting research findings in empirical studies

Adoration

  • prostration of the whole being before God.
  • Adoration takes on its fullest meaning in the presence of the transcendental God who reveals himself to human beings in the religions of revelation (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).
  • Silence and mystic
  • Mystic writings, from the East to the West

Jesus Prayer

  • also called Prayer of the Heart
  • Eastern Christianity - heart of hesychasm, monastic tradition of East christianity in Mount Athos, contemporary documentary film at: https://youtu.be/4UYXxa0nKL8
  • mental invocation of the name of Jesus Christ
  • repeated continuously

Jesus Prayer

  • most accepted form: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me
  • prayer of the mind
  • recommended by the ancient monks of the Egyptian desert (Evagrius Ponticus, Johanes Cassian)
  • Hesychasm - monastic system to achieve divine quitness

Lectio Divina

  • The Christian form of Lectio Divina was first introduced by St. Gregory of Nyssa (c 330- 395), and also encouraged by St. Benedict of Nursia (c 480-547), the founder of the Benedictine order
  • Lectio Divina is a more personal way of experiencing the word through contemplation and reflection.
  • Lectio Divina is not a critical analysis of sacred text.
  • Lectio Divina has 4 parts: Lectio (read), Meditatio (meditate), Oratio (pray) and Contemplatio (contemplate).

Lectio Divina

Guided Meditation & Lectio Divina: John 20:19-31

Guided Lectio Divina

  • Guided Meditation & Lectio Divina: John 20:19-31 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVRsFho-THs)

  • Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina with Thomas Keating, Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7igrkA8OCw&list=PLBE6fmRmYU8gUqT9XVpc5pbfmmDfBuWRk)

  • Lectio Divina ~ Fr Cassian Folsom, OSB (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAgetB4P4pI)

References

Hamman, A. G. (n.d.). Types of prayer. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/prayer/Types-of-prayer
Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 519–543. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(200004)56:4<519::AID-JCLP6>3.0.CO;2-1
Spilka, B., & Ladd, K. L. (2013). The Psychology of Prayer: A Scientific Approach. The Guilford Press.