What prayer is

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of a lamb sitting on pale brushstrokes of ground, both front paws lifted and open toward a golden beam of light slanting down from above

Which of these best describes what prayer is?
1. Reciting a set prayer right through from memory without a single mistake
2. Emptying the mind until not one thought is left in it
3. Raising the heart to God and asking him for what is good
4. Persuading God to come round and act the way I want
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Answer ③ Raising the heart to God and asking him for what is good
Prayer is the raising of the heart toward God, and asking is part of that, not something outside it. The first shrinks prayer to the reciting of a formula, the second to an exercise in emptying the mind, and the fourth to a technique for talking God round.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2558-2559
In prayer, who moves first?
1. We do — prayer only gets going once something is missing and we need help
2. We do — God turns his attention to us only after we have asked
3. Neither, really — prayer is an inner skill a person develops for themselves
4. God does — he calls first, and the person answers that call
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Answer ④ God does — he calls first, and the person answers that call
Prayer is not a conversation we open; it is the answer to a call. At the well it was Jesus who asked for a drink first, and the thirst is always God's before it is ours. The first three take prayer to be something that starts in a human need or a human knack.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2560, 2567
Humility is the foundation of prayer.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. We stand before God as people who do not even know how to pray as we ought, so whoever prays is always someone asking. Let that humility go and prayer quietly turns into a counting up of one's own merits for God to see.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2559
When Scripture calls the heart the place of prayer, what does it mean by “the heart”?
1. The warm feeling that rises in us while we are praying
2. The deepest center of a person — the place where we decide and stake ourselves on the decision
3. The region of feeling, as distinct from the thinking done with the head
4. The good nature a person is born with
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Answer ② The deepest center of a person — the place where we decide and stake ourselves on the decision
The heart Scripture speaks of is not a room where feelings are kept; it is the deepest place, where the whole person is gathered, and God alone knows it fully. Read the heart as emotion and you will write off as a failure every prayer made on a day when you felt nothing.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2562-2564
Prayer is something only people born with a gift for it can do.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
No. God calls every person to meet him, so prayer stands open to anyone. When prayer feels hard, that is not because you were never given the talent; prayer is by its nature something we go on learning our whole life long.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2566-2567
What do the Gospels tell us by recording that Jesus prayed as well?
1. That the Son of God became man and, standing where we stand, truly prayed to the Father
2. That Jesus was not true God but the highest of creatures
3. That he was only showing the disciples how it is done, since he had no real need to pray
4. That the evangelist put those scenes in to make Jesus look more human
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Answer ① That the Son of God became man and, standing where we stand, truly prayed to the Father
Jesus' prayer was not an imitation of prayer but real prayer offered to the Father as a true man. The second leans into Arianism, the third comes close to Docetism, which treats his humanity as mere appearance, and the fourth crosses out the witness of the Gospels themselves.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2599-2602
You have asked long and earnestly, and no answer seems to come. How is that best understood?
1. Faith was too weak and the answer was blocked, so you have to press harder
2. Prayer was only ever a way of settling your own mind, so an answer was never something to expect
3. God always hears, and he may answer in a shape other than the one we had drawn beforehand
4. The words or the manner of asking were wrong, so you should change to a more exact form of prayer
Show the answer
Answer ③ God always hears, and he may answer in a shape other than the one we had drawn beforehand
Feeling that no answer has come is not evidence that the prayer failed. The first and the fourth turn the answer into wages paid out for our effort or our correctness, while the second wipes God out of prayer and leaves nothing but the managing of one's own feelings.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2735, 2739-2741
What does the apostle's call to “pray without ceasing” look like when it is actually lived?
1. Cutting into your sleep so that the prayers never stop coming out of your mouth
2. Completing the set number of prayer times each day without ever missing one
3. Keeping work and prayer apart, and lengthening only the time given to prayer
4. Keeping the times set aside for prayer and, along with them, living the whole day's work and encounters in God's presence
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Answer ④ Keeping the times set aside for prayer and, along with them, living the whole day's work and encounters in God's presence
Praying without ceasing is not a quantity of words; it is a heart that stays with God without a break. The first three make prayer something measured in hours and tallies, and in the end they cut life and prayer into two.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2742-2745