Our video of the week is a talk given by Fr. Mathias Thelen to his parishioners at St. Patrick’s in Brighton, Michigan. He has incredible practical insights that will allow you to grow in confidence in your prayer life. How do you hear the voice of God in prayer? Take a listen to find out!
How To Hear God’s Voice
The Pirate Prayer Process: ARRR
“This kind of process of prayer is really just four essential habits to opening one’s heart to God, receiving from Him, and maintaining intimacy. It is the acronym A-R-R-R — the pirate prayer. It’s a very simple acronym that outlines the habit of the heart — four different habits to help foster a relationship with the Lord and receive from Him. The words are: acknowledge, relate, receive, and respond...
Acknowledge what’s stirring in your heart. Notice whatever thought, feeling, or desire is strongest in your heart, or strongest in a particular memory that you’re praying through. Don’t judge your thoughts, feelings, and desires. Don’t analyze them. Acknowledge them and name them.
Relate in faith that God is present and loves you. We’re relating to the Lord our thoughts, feelings, and desires. We’re relating them to Him, speaking from our heart to Him about those things. It really is telling Him about what’s going on in your heart. Some of you might say, ‘Well, God already knows — why do I need to tell Him?’ He already knows, but it’s not until you start telling Him that your heart begins to open to receive what He has for you in it.
Receive, believing that the Lord is loving us — He’s pouring Himself out for us in the present moment. The fruitfulness of our prayer is often dependent on whether or not we receive from Him in the very place that we just shared with Him. It is a turning off the doing and just resting and receiving.
Respond. Now that you’ve tasted the Lord’s love, now that you’ve experienced His response, there’s now an invitation for you to respond in return — to respond to His response. This is how all relationships work: to respond to the one who responds to you. That means allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire a response from your heart to Him.”
-Fr. Mathias Thelen
