Oratio, or spoken prayer, is likely the most familiar to Christians among the various forms of prayer.  The Latin term literally means “speech, oration, eloquence, prayer”.  As it is the most commonly perceived way of praying, it risks falling into the world of the mundane if not properly focused and, consequently, is often misunderstood as to its true purpose.  Oratio is in actuality part of a deeper progression of prayer, whose intention is to reach the final goal of contemplatio (Latin, con|templum).  Contemplation is true ecstasy (Greek ek|stasis, implying a “standing outside of oneself”) involving persons who dwell one within the other’s temple of the heart, or who con-templum together.  Oratio is that articulation of man’s desire, his sentimental thrust towards God as an Other different than himself, to dwell in complete union with Him.

     Contemplatio is mentioned here only in order to understand oratio as a journey; in order to know how to travel properly, we must know where we seek to go and why. A proper understanding of contemplatio thusbecomes the key for unlocking the secret of oratio and all prayer.  To realize ecstatic contemplation, a praying person must move beyond himself totally in love of God as Other, intentionally and selflessly desiring to be present within His Sacred Heart.  Such movement requires communication in the form of dialogue (Greek, dia|logos, “through the word”) that moves the person to focus beyond himself on God.  Such dialogue is the real work of oratio and of the work of God that is Opus Dei.

     What oratio is not is a mere spraying of words at God, any more than communicating with another person involves talking at him.   All too often is our oratio reduced to selfishness, leading to inauthentic relation as we merely say what we want and do not care to listen for a response, to which we then might respond in truth.  If my “conversation” becomes monologue (Greek mono|logos, “only word”), I merely reflect narcissistically upon myself  and either ignore the other’s presence or use the other’s presence for my own self-focused aims, both of which refuse the other’s authentic entry into my heart.  In true oratio, I articulate adoration or praise, thanksgiving, petition or supplication on behalf of  myself  or  another person, or confession, always with the intention  of God’s quenching my thirst for Him as I listen for His responding voice.  The Sacraments(especially Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation); the Word of God; dialogue with others in spiritual direction, family, friendship, work, and even the streets; and the unfolding of events in my life may help clarify what I hear when listening for God’s responding voice in oratio.  Oratio as dialogue always involves the discernment of spirits (1 Jn 4:1-3) to ensure that the response I hear is truly from God, and as such it requires real sacrifice of time, for which reason God calls the Christian to “pray constantly” (1 Thes. 5:17).  As Jesus’ Bride, the Church provides significant   spiritual  clarification to  prayer through the hierarchy of Revelation that is Holy Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and Magisterium, such that genuine discernment in oratio always will prove consonant with these three levels of Revelation.

     Understanding oratio as dialogue helps us to see the power and real eloquence of spoken prayer in its goal of reaching contemplation, where two lovers who know each other perfectly dwell together in peace, living ecstatically in the secure happiness of their pure love as they truly know each other through the loving dialogue that founds their friendship.  Such con|templating one with the other is genuine love, leading our oratio to become a selfless act of love that articulates our desire to love perfectly by a gift of ourselves to the Other in contemplatio. In light of this end, how then are we to orate?  The disciples, in fact, asked Jesus much the same question when they asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray”(Lk 11:1-4).  Even the first words here lead a praying person’s soul to ecstasy in his calling out to God, focusing on the Father. The first half of the Lord’s Prayer, in fact, is not an articulation about me but rather about Him . . . praying for His name always to be holy and for God’s Kingdom and will to be brought to fulfillment.  Focusing our prayer first and foremost on God as Other is so crucial that God places it at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer. The second half of the Lord’s Prayer and it’s petitions of personal need ultimately are not selfish, for they must be answered in order for the praying person truly to be able to enter into communion with God . . . Man needs nourishment of body and soul from His daily Bread, pardon [Latin per|donum, the perfection, fullness, completion, excellence of the donum, or gift (i.e., a total self-gift of perfect love)], and protection from God’s adversary and the enemy’s evil ways.  It is thus that praying this perfect, complete, and excellent prayer of the Lord’s is ultimately selfless, pointing my soul to God and nourishing me with a contemplative happiness that is only possible when I dwell in God’s own temple of the Sacred Heart and concurrently allow Him to dwell in mine.

     We see oratio’s dynamic at work in other moments of Jesus’ intensive prayer.  He denies Himself completely in 40 days of fasting and prayer in the desert, praying perfectly so that His humanity and divinity are both in complete focus upon the final end of life, communion with God.  Oratio is at work in His Prayer of Gethsemane, where Jesus certainly articulates His own needs but always and only with the ultimate purpose of realizing deeper communion with His Father: “Yet not my will, but Yours be done” (Lk 22:42).   The eloquence of Jesus’ oratio, however, arguably stands out in the “Jesus Prayer” of John 17, where Jesus manifests His desire for perfect communion with God, and communion of neighbor with God and other.  During his recent homily at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI spoke to that effect: “Unity with God and with others is built first of all through a life of prayer, in the constant search for ‘the will of God in Christ Jesus for us’ (cf. 1 Thes 5:18).”  In the first section of Jesus’ prayer in John (vv. 1-5), Jesus prays for Himself but as He relates to His Father; any Self-focus ultimately reflects His pure desire to dwell completely within the Other.  In the second section (vv. 6-26), Jesus prays for His neighbors among the disciples and world beyond, with that same goal of desiring their total happiness through lives of complete communion with God and each other. 

     It is through such examples that we discover oratio’strue power as eloquent dialogue with God on behalf of self and other, so that we then might realize perfect happiness in genuine communion with neighbor and ultimately with God, Who Is perfect Communion of Persons. 

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