How do I know if God is calling me? One simple answer is prayer. Prayer opens the heart to God. Open your heart to God in prayer and you will not only find that God loves you, but that God is interested in you and wants to be involved in your life. Experiencing God’s love, we can respond in love.
St. Alphonsus Liguori often shared a simple method of “mental prayer” with priests, religious, seminarians, and the laity. He claimed, and rightly so, that opening the mind and heart to God is the beginning of vocational discernment and can lead to a life lived in friendship with God.
The Method of Mental Prayer according to St. Alphonsus
Preparation
- Make brief acts of faith in God, humility, and contrition, and a petition for light.
The Meditation
- Reflect on a particular article of Faith for a few minutes. This can include inspirational or Gospel passages.
- Follow your reflection with prayers of love and affection for God.
- Make earnest petitions for the graces you want.
- Make one practical resolution that you intend to keep during the day. This could be the practice of a particular virtue.
Conclusion
- Thank God for the time of prayer and for graces received.
- Ask for the strength to make good on your resolution.
- Ask God for an increase in Faith, Hope, and Love.
Remember that the benefit of mental prayer is found not so much in meditation, but in its fruits, that is, the making of affections, petitions, and resolutions. As St. Teresa of Avila said: “The progress of a soul does not consist in thinking much about God, but in loving Him ardently, and this love is acquired by resolving to do a great deal for Him” (The Interior Castle, I-7).
November 9 is the 293rd Anniversary of the Founding of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer -The Redemptorists - by St. Alphonsus Liguori in Scala, Italy.
