Host: What are the attitudes of prayer?

Rev. Joseph McCloskey: Well, when you ask the question, what are the attitudes of prayer what you are really giving me the chance to talk about is how can I most completely give myself to Christ or to God or to the Father or to the Holy Spirit? As I talked about another mnemonic, I would be talking about ACTS. Adoration is the A, contriteness is the C, thankfulness is the T and the S is supplication. I don't know what am I asking from this God of mine and the richness of everyone of these attitudes is the fullness of how much of yourself is in the prayer time. You know I have been with people and I am seeing this old -- distracted by a picture on the wall and Mary is holding her child. Now that distraction could become my prayer and I could totally lose the people that are around me, but no, God is always going to be with the person that you are talking to or that you are with, that you will always be in the person names that we are reaching out to or I can only be a fullness of Christ to you if I really need you to believe in me and love is the attitude of prayer that I can love by adoration, I can love by being sorry that I offended you, I can love by virtue of being thankful that you are here and I can love by virtue of needing your help. The Indians used to say that the person who gives the greatest gift is the one who receives it because a gift can never be complete until someone accepts it. But every act of my soul if that's a prayer is really embodied in an attitude. So adoration is really the discovering that God really is God or coming alive to God really is God. My thankfulness for being allowed to be so close should be the common prayer of the Christian forever. That's what Paul tells us. You read his letters and he is always saying, I give thanks that the Lord is with you, that you have been to faithful to the voice of his words in my and that you are echoing everything that I ever told you, but prayer is really the reality of this God contact that's calling out of each and everyone of us a total gift themselves.

1