What are the Principle Forms of Prayer?
First then the main forms or kinds of prayer. The Church s tradition distinguishes not just four but five principle forms of prayer. The adoration of submission, the prayer of adoration of love, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of petition and the prayer of expiation. I found in teaching the theology of prayer it helps immediately and immensely to be clear about what we mean whatever words we use. Behind this classification is the unspoken assumption that all prayer is essential adoration as we ve been saying. Yet we can address God in five different ways depending on the five different ways we can and should approach God. Prayer of submissive adoration. Thus, there s only one God. But we can approach Him, first, as our creator and Lord. And then our prayer is submissive adoration. Submissive adoration of, or shall I say to, the divine majesty. It is the humble adoration of acceptance of, and resignation to the divine will. And that is why the heart of prayer is in the will. We n
