Strand: Prayer, Liturgy and Sacraments (PLSPCE1)
Post Compulsory
Different styles of prayer are part of the rich heritage of the Church. Prayer is both reflective and active in accord with varied circumstances and dimensions of a person’s/community’s relationship with God.
Explore different forms of Christian prayer articulating ways in which these prayer forms could nourish and deepen a Christian’s and/or another’s way of being in the world, either personally or in community.
Elaborations
Prayer is central to the Christian way of life. Through the many different forms of prayer, life and creation are celebrated. There are many forms of prayer: when people pray alone, it is personal prayer, when prayer is prayed with others it is communal. It involves a choice to take time to develop a reflective relationship with God.
Prayer is about: listening for God’s presence; responding to that presence; encountering God in new ways; developing a relationship of trust with God that brings greater meaning to life. Different prayer forms include visual images, meditation, appropriate music, settings and environments.
The human person is by nature reflective and longs to find meaning and purpose. Spirituality embraces the ways in which people look for and perceive meaning, purpose and values. It also embraces other personal aspects like beauty, appreciation of nature, fulfilment, happiness and community. It includes abiding dispositions toward life and patterns of behaviour that are influenced by spiritual beliefs. Spirituality may, but not always, involve belief in God in the context of religious practice. For some people, spirituality is primarily the reflective and active expression of their religious beliefs giving form to their prayer life both personal and communal. It should not be limited to a necessary association with organised religion however and often times a person’s spirituality will draw them into participation with community by means of ritual rather than belief.
There are a rich variety of styles of spirituality within Christianity.