How to do Mental Prayer Better

Mental prayer is superior to vocal prayer – it brings us closer to God than vocal prayer does.  Mental prayer is simply thinking about God, using our intellect and intelligence to ponder God.  Many people struggle with mental prayer, it is hard to contemplate divinity.  Thankfully, there are several different ways to practice mental prayer, and different people find different forms of mental prayer easier. 

There are four chief modes of mental prayer, of meditating on God, which are related to four influential saints: Augustinian prayer, Ignatian prayer, Thomistic prayer, and Franciscan prayer.  Each form is easier for people of different temperaments (see Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey, Prayer and Temperament: Different Prayer Forms for Different Personality Types). 

Augustinian prayer focuses on some sacred text, on some teaching found in scripture.  It focuses on taking the teaching from God and applying it to one’s personal life.  It considers the text as if it had been written directly to oneself, it considers scripture as a letter from God to yourself.  In doing an Augustinian form of mental prayer, you would read a passage of scripture several times and then think about how it applies to you today. 

Ignatian prayer focuses on an event in salvation history.  It meditates on some key event or act in the scriptures and uses the imagination to picture the event.  In it, one uses the imagination to think about oneself seeing and hearing the event oneself, one can also imagine oneself as a participant in the event – as one of the characters.  You would take time to work through all the aspects of the event and draw some inspiration or insight from your imaginative exercise of putting yourself into the event. 

Thomistic prayer uses reason to try to understand some revealed truth.  It takes some datum of revelation, such as the Incarnation, and ponders what it means and includes, and what it would imply about other things.  It is a logical reflection about something in revelation, some aspect of divinity or how something is related to God. 

Franciscan prayer uses some created thing, such as a tree or a sunset, to praise God.  It involves an openness to the Holy Spirit and spontaneous praise of God prompted by any good thing.  It is often done outside of a Church and is less organized than other forms of prayer.  Franciscan prayer would look very different from the other forms of mental prayer, it would take some good thing as its starting point and begin to pray (to think about God) via this good thing.  It could ponder God’s goodness in making this thing and ask what this thing reveals about God. 

Mental Prayer is an essential part of the spiritual life.  You should regularly do whichever form you find the easiest, but every form has its benefits.