The 5 P's of Prayer



Dear Theophilus, 

Like most people, I like having routine in my life. In fact, the older I get, the more I cling to routine to get through the day. As a Catholic school teacher, I see on a daily basis how necessary routine is for children to get through theirs. That’s why a short while ago I wrote about how we all need to have a prayer plan in place if we want our prayer life to be fruitful. If we don’t have a plan for our prayer life, a prayer routine, the wheels quickly fall off and we begin to see prayer as useless. 

In an attempt to deepen my contemplative prayer life, I came across one of my favourite prayer routines last summer reading Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s How to Listen When God is Speaking. Since reading Fr. Pacwa’s book and trying to incorporate many of his ideas into my own prayer life, I’ve done some research into the Ignatian Spirituality concept of the 5 P’sof Prayer. Although you will find a few variations that differ slightly, in a nutshell the 5 P’s are: 

Ø  Prepare

Ø  Place

Ø  Posture

Ø  Passage

Ø  Presence 

We need to prepare to pray. Although some prayer happens spontaneously; deep, spiritual contemplative prayer requires effort and preparation. This can seem daunting at first, but once you get into a prayer habit, preparing to pray will come as naturally as your spontaneous prayers. Begin by having a prayer purpose: thanksgiving for the simply things in your life, a special petition, for someone you love, in worship of God’s greatness … the list is infinite. Think of a passage in scripture that speaks to your purpose: a moment in Christ’s life (think of the Rosary Mysteries), a parable, something from the prophets; find that specific moment in scripture (our memory isn’t always true to the Word of God). Finally, have a time and place planned out for your prayer. Contemplative prayer is very different from spontaneous prayer, and where and when you prayer will have a direct effect on the fruitfulness of your prayer. 

Your place of prayer can be just as important as your prayer itself. God speaks to us in the silence, and if you find you are distracted from your prayer by your surroundings, then your entire contemplative prayer effort will be in vain. I’ve written before about finding the ideal place for prayer, but I think these ideas could bear repeating. Pick a quiet place, away from worldly distractions (television, computer, smartphone). Find a place that will elevate your thoughts towards God – in RediscoverCatholicism, Matthew Kelly writes about how church is the most ideal place to pray; they were designed and built for prayer. If you can’t make it to your church, however, I’m sure most of us can find a corner in our home or garden that is conducive to prayer. 

Although the Catholic Church teaches that there is no one ideal posture for prayer, it is important to find the proper position for your prayer. Most people relate kneeling with prayer, and although kneeling can help focus your mind on your prayer, it may not be the most suitable for longer periods of contemplative prayer. You want your posture (kneeling, sitting or prostrate) to be comfortable; yet not so comfortable that you begin to dose off (another distraction that can lead us away from prayer). I find that my posture needs to suit my prayer purpose to allow my prayers to be most effective: kneeling when in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, sitting comfortably when contemplating God’s will for my life and prostrate in those rare moments of extreme humility before the greatness of the Lord. 

Reading and meditation on a passage of scripture will help you to understand God’s will for you at this particular moment of your prayer life. If you are seeking specific guidance on a particular issue, find a verse from the Bible that speaks to that issue – use the Catechism to find the Church’s teaching on this issue, along with related Scripture verses, or simply google your prayer purpose and Bible verse. If you want to meditate more deeply on God’s will, I would suggest the daily Gospel reading – there is a reason why God has called the Universal Church to meditate on that particular reading today, leading you to unexpected and joyful revelations about His will in your life.

Finally, put yourself fully and completely into the presence of God. Prayer is the means by which we develop our personal relationship with Him. If we cannot be fully and completely present to God in prayer, when can we? Listen to what God is saying to you – it won’t be with a shout, but rather in a whisper of silence. Once you listen to what God is saying to you, you will wonder how you didn’t hear Him in the first place. This fifth P of presence flows naturally out of the other four, but is essential to bringing fruit to our prayer life.

How to Listen When God is Speaking



Dear Theophilus,

Earlier this summer I read How to Listen When God is Speaking: a Guide for Modern-Day Catholics by Fr. Mitch Pacwa S.J. I was greatly moved by what I read, not only by the content but also by the accessibility of Fr. Pacwa’s language for the average lay Catholic. This was a refreshing change to the many books on prayer that are written at a level that puts them almost out of the grasp of comprehension. As a Guide for Modern-Day Catholics, Fr. Pacwa’s book reaches out to Catholics who want to deepen their spiritual life in today’s modern world with striking clarity.

Fr. Pacwa begins by acknowledging how difficult it is to be a prayerful Catholic in today’s modern world. Although modern technologies (television, internet, smartphones) offer us multiple ways to get in touch with our Catholic spirituality, Fr. Pacwa rightfully points out that these same technologies offer far more temptations to turn away from our faith than to turn towards it. What this does, on the other hand, is create a far greater number of Catholics who thirst and hunger spiritually, seeking to be nourished by their prayer life.

To help guide us towards a more fruitful prayer life, Fr. Pacwa starts at the very foundation of our faith: that God exists, that we can communicate with Him and that He wants us to communicate with Him through prayer. Once we understand this, Fr. Pacwa urges us forward to make the commitment of making time for prayer. This commitment made, Fr. Pacwa reminds us that we need to meet God on His terms, not ours, opening our hearts and our minds to His message of love and discipline as it pertains to His plan for Creation.

Having made the commitment to enter more deeply into communicating with God, Fr. Pacwa teaches us how to prepare ourselves to get the most out of our prayer life. First, Fr. Pacwa guides us through St. Ignatius of Loyola’s 8 Rules for the Discernment of Spirits as a means of uncluttering our hearts and minds. Our hearts and minds ready, we are then encouraged to detach ourselves, even if momentarily, from this world and to trust totally in the Lord. Fr. Pacwa remains realistic throughout this process, and reminds us not to expect transfiguring enlightenment, neither from the outset nor throughout our prayer life, as he explains, “High points of prayer cannot be sustained through every moment of every day.”

To help nourish our prayer life and to deepen our prayer experience, Fr. Pacwa encourages us to follow the 5 P’s of Prayer: Place, Posture, Passage, Peace and Passage (once again). These will come naturally to those who already have an active prayer life, but those looking to begin or enrich their prayer life need to be more cognoscente of their effect on prayer. Place is an integral part of prayer - to quiet our soul we need to quieten our surroundings; we will be unable to pray properly if we are constantly distracted by our surroundings. Equally important to place in our prayer is Posture. We need to be comfortable to concentrate on our prayers, yet not so comfortable as to drift out of our prayerful frame of mind. Passage refers to the scripture readings we use to help focus our prayer. We need to select passages relevant to our prayer intentions to properly listen to God’s answer – if we are struggling to understand how scripture relates to our prayers, we will soon forget the intentions of our original prayers. Once we make Peace with what God is saying to us through prayer about His plan for us in creation, we can then return to our chosen scripture Passage to uncover its deeper meanings regarding our lives today.

Fr. Pacwa ends How to Listen When God is Speaking by guiding modern-day Catholics through the nuances of a heightened prayer life. That to pray effectively we need to strike a balance between our emotions, intellect and will – once again returning to the ideas of detachment and meeting God on His terms and not our own. By striking this balance and accepting God’s plan for Creation and our role in it, we can then learn to trust in God to lead us through the difficult times we’re confronted with living in today’s modern society.

When we find ourselves living through a difficult moment (and this is usually when we’ll turn to God in prayer) we need to recall the burdensome yoke placed by God on our shoulders. Fr. Pacwa reminds us that, like the yoke of oxen, our yoke is made for two – one side for ourselves and the other for Christ. Christ’s side of the yoke is larger than ours since it is Christ who will take the lead for us when our burdens seem unbearable.