Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an

apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization using media both old and

new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate and encounter with

Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring

the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite

you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the

warmth and light of Christ with each one of us.

Peace be with you. Friends, I want to talk to you today about one of my favorite

subjects, namely prayer. I think it's fair to say that the Bible and the great

tradition are massively interested in prayer. It may say especially in the

prayer of petition asking God for things. Now I understand there are many types of

prayer. There's meditation, contemplation, adoration, lexio, divina, etc.

But the most basic and most practiced form of prayer is the prayer of

petition. If you could put a great net over the whole earth to catch all the

prayers of petitions that go up to God, think how many millions upon millions we'd

catch. You know, studies have shown that everybody prays. Even

profess non-believers pray in some way and it doesn't strike me as too

surprising because I think everyone is naturally wired for God. So even when

you claim, I'm a non-believer, I think you give yourself away by your prayers.

Prayer seems to be born of a very profound instinct in the human heart.

Asking God, begging, imploring, desiring, longing. I always appreciate

something that St. John Paul II said toward the end of his life. He said,

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