Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

There's no good thing you can do without God's help. In fact, whenever you do something good, God is actually

the one who first takes the initiative by providing the grace for you to have a good idea, make a good resolution, and have the

willpower to carry it out.

But it usually feels like we're the ones taking the initiative and doing all the work.

And that's definitely true of prayer, especially at the early stages of the spiritual life. I want to help you take the next right step in prayer this

Lent. So what are the main kinds of prayer we need to work on.

The first kind of prayer is called vocal prayer.

Vocal prayer is speaking to God silently or out loud. You're familiar with examples of vocal prayer, the Our Father,

Hail Mary, prayers at the Mass, the liturgy of ours, otherwise known as the divine office.

And most importantly, just speaking to God from the heart.

And the catechism reminds us that vocal prayer is an essential element of the Christian life

because talking, communicating is always essential to a relationship.

But what might be the danger of this type of prayer?

Well, it can become mechanical, just saying the words without thinking of the person we're speaking to.

In fact, Teresa of Avalon insists that vocal prayer doesn't count as prayer if you are not trying to pay attention to God with whom you're speaking.

And a relationship always involves both talking and listening.

But people often say,

God never speaks to me.

But the question is,

do we ever stop talking and just listen?

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