
Is prayer an essential part of your life?
I have learned over the years that prayer is as essential to life as breathing. Trust me, I have learned this through experience. I believe that prayer and listening go hand in hand. The world in which we live most often expects that we are constantly on the go. An inner voice incessantly repeats that life is full and requires my constant attention lest I miss something. Prayer is my truest act of paying attention to what is most important. It is in the quiet listening that I most authentically communicate with God. St Dominic practiced what he came to understand through his life of prayer.
In the Dominican tradition, prayer is one of the pillars of our religious life. St. Dominic practiced these nine ways of prayer:
- St. Dominic bowed humbly before the crucified Christ;
- St. Dominic threw himself down flat with his face on the ground saying: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
- St. Dominic would take the discipline with an iron chain saying, “Your discipline has set me straight towards my goals.”
- St. Dominic would fix his gaze on the crucifix, looking intently at Christ on the cross, and become more and more assured of the mercy of God for himself … especially for the protection of the novices whom he sent to preach.
- St. Dominic would stand upright before the altar, sometimes holding his hands out as if pondering the Word of God in the presence of God.
- St. Dominic would pray with his hands stretched out as far as possible in the form of a cross inspired by God that some miracle was going to occur.
- St. Dominic stretched his whole body up toward heaven like an arrow to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the Order he founded.
- St. Dominic sat down to read or pray in the presence of God saying, “I will hear what the Lord is saying to me.”
- St. Dominic prayed when traveling from country to country untiringly striding and singing the joy of the Lord.
How might St Dominic be an inspiration for prayer in your life?

Grateful that Dominic such variety of expression.
Thank you, Connie! Right on!
Dear Connie,
Thank you for sharing about St. Dominic’s Nine Ways. I do appreciate being able to move around as I pray – and as an itinerant, I find myself often praying in the 9th way.
Blessings,
June
Thank you, Connie for your witness to St. Dominic’s ways of prayer especially using the body. More people need to know that they pray or already do pray with their body and it is confirmed as prayer when one is lifting ones body to God in many different ways and acknowledge it as Prayer. We often forget God gave us a body to pray even when walking, playing an instrument, washing dishes, or dying dishes, cleaning,
Writing, etc. etc.
I think we can be very creative as children are when they play or pray.
Peace of the flowing creativity when we pray with our body,
Brigid