Prayer & Adoration
Personal Prayer
The Newman Center Chapel is open for personal prayer all day long, from 7am-10pm.
Eucharistic Adoration
Sept-May:
Tuesday-Thursday: 9:00-10:00am
Wednesday: 8-12pm, 6-10pm
Thursday: 7:00-8:00pm (main church)
HOW TO PRAY
What is prayer?
Prayer is very simple; it is simply a conversation with God. Just like any relationship, our relationship with God needs to be built up and developed, it is easier to talk to someone once you know them a bit better, and it is easier be in peaceful, companionable silence with someone once you know them very well. The same is true in our relationship with God. If we don’t know God very well, it can feel hard to get started and sometimes we can feel we don’t know what to say.
Friendship with God
Friendships may begin spontaneously, but to grow and develop and become long lasting they need to be nurtured and worked at. We need to spend time with the other person, to get to know them, to find out about their interests, hopes, dreams and desires. To develop our friendship with God, to forge a lasting relationship with Him, we need to spend time with God, to get to know God, to find out the dreams and desires God has for us an the whole human family.
Getting to know God
We get to know our friends through sharing a range of experiences with them, and talking to them about different things at different times. We can get to know God by becoming aware of his presence in our daily lives, talking to Him in different ways through different types of prayer, sometimes more formally through the liturgy, sometimes more informally in private prayer, sometimes more vocally through the singing of psalms and sacred songs, sometimes more quietly in the silence of our hearts.
How to talk to God
You can talk to God however you like. There are no set rules or formulas, God made you as a unique individual; God has a special relationship with you that He does not have with anyone else. You can talk to God in a personal way.
Listening to God
Our relationship with God has to be two ways! We must speak to God, but we must also listen to God! God speaks to us in many different ways, through the sacred scriptures, through other people, through nature, through graces and inspirations that spontaneously pop in to our minds. Make time for silence in your day, so that you can listen to the gentle still voice of God that whispers in your heart.