Mother of Good Counsel Seminary

Pre-College Department
Unisite subdivision, Del Pilar, City of San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines

Antawn Nathaniel D. Tayag

Introduction
I realized that the first layer of prayer is something we already know, but
now it holds a deeper, more concise meaning. I learned that prayer is our personal
conversation with God, an encounter through which He wants to meet us. What
we once saw as just a routine part of life, prayer has shown me that it’s a gift that
helps us discover our true human value. I also realized that prayer isn’t just about
empty words, but about offering our purest and most sincere intentions to God,
expressing our real needs, and speaking to Him from the heart. This part taught
me that we must seek God in everything because He is always speaking to us. It’s
not just about having ears to listen, but about opening our hearts to hear Him.
This chapter helped me understand that prayer is more than just a ritual—it
shapes us as Christians and humble humans, as children of God who dwell in
prayer.
Chapter 1
I also discovered that prayer isn’t just about asking for what we need.
Sometimes, it's about listening. Listening can be difficult because we often have so
much we want to say to God, and we can easily forget to listen to Him. We tend to
speak too much, but we need to remember that prayer is also about hearing
God’s voice. Our ears may be closed, but we must open them to listen attentively.
God will speak to us first, and we can only hear Him if we create space for His
voice. Prayer is a dialogue where God’s voice fills the gaps in our lives, guiding us
and filling us with grace. It’s a conversation where we listen with an open heart,
an attentive ear, and a clear mind, so that our faith can be strengthened and we
can live fully in prayer.
 Mother of Good Counsel Seminary
Pre-College Department
Unisite subdivision, Del Pilar, City of San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines

Chapter 2
From the first chapter, I learned that prayer is not just about talking to God,
but also about listening for His voice. However, prayer shouldn’t be something we
only turn to when we need something. It’s not just for times of crisis or when we
want something from God. Prayer must be a constant part of our daily lives,
always relevant and timely. It should become a habitual practice. And when we
pray, it’s not about dictating what we want God to do. Rather, it helps us gain
clarity on what we need to do. Too often, we treat God like a problem-solver,
expecting Him to answer with a quick fix. But God is love, and His love is not
something we can manipulate. The key is to open our hearts, listen to Him, and
follow His guidance. God’s love is infinite and beyond our understanding, and as
humans, we must always remain in His love.
Chapter 3
In prayer, what we hear is called discernment. Discernment is an art, and it’s
something we can’t do alone—it requires others, because God uses people and
situations to help us truly discern His will. The first fundamental of discernment is
Scripture. God chose prophets to teach us how to listen and recognize His voice in
our lives. When we engage with Scripture, we can appreciate how God works in
mysterious ways and how it can transform our lives, just as it transformed the
lives of the prophets. The second essential in discernment is following God’s call.
Discernment is about hearing God through others, and the key is to follow Him
with patience. God works slowly, but His slow work leads us to holiness, and it
requires patience to fully understand His plans. As we discern and follow Him, we
can find the love for which we long. Lastly, knowing what God wants for us can be
difficult, but if we focus on these two steps—listening and following—we can
discover the path God wants us to take in life.
Chapter 4
The chapter I loved the most. It is known that there are no any techniques
of prayer, but this book elaborated and gave importance and significance to our
techniques of prayer. How being quiet a important techniques of prayer? Or
 Mother of Good Counsel Seminary
Pre-College Department
Unisite subdivision, Del Pilar, City of San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines

simply just being there at prayer. Prayer should be perfect in time, whereas we
could find ourselves in home or comfort during prayer, it is like our comfort zone
whenever we are praying. Prayer also requires humility and reverence, we bow
down before the Lord, sincerely and whole-heartedly for our prayer, and it is so
important that us Humans always in all ways, we need God and we cannot rely on
ourselves only, rather, the Lord is our primary source of all things we need, but in
praying it does not end in sitting and sign of the cross but it ends in doing our part
after the prayer, that we should rely on prayer but we should work on our prayer.
It is in our part how we will work for our prayer and God will answer our prayer.
Chapter 5
In prayer, we should also need to see ourselves. Our Brokenness, our short-
coming and all the sins we have committed. It is normal for us to do sin, but what
not normal is we see ourselves doing sin over and over again. We love God but
true love doesn’t have to always say sorry. It is very important to seek God’s grace
in times that we are not graceful. We come before the Lord with humility to see
our brokenness and fix ourselves, but it is hard to fix ourselves because we are
scared of truth that we always commit sin. Truth is necessary to examine our
short-comings, as truth will se us free, truth will find ourselves in a discomfort but
it will end in a God’s prefect love. As prayer do requires penance of the things we
have done so that we can truly Love God and understand that He is God of Love
and we can always dwell in Him. God will fix us, it is in our part how we wanted to
be fixed and how can we be fixed. We must learn to accept our sinfulness for us
the have a gracefulness, because the more we became close to God, the more we
can see our mistakes and so we can amend our life and change for the good of,
not just for yourself but also to God and His People.
Chapter 6
The chapter gave us a the 2 ways of praying as beginner: Contemplation and
Meditation. Contemplation is very important as we immerse ourselves to God. We
must understand and feel how He is speaking to us. To understand fully his plan
for us the way we wanted to become and the way we want to take. In
contemplation we find ourselves, feeling the feelings of God, sitting in a bench,
 Mother of Good Counsel Seminary
Pre-College Department
Unisite subdivision, Del Pilar, City of San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines

talking to us, sincerely and deeply and we must feel it and recognize that He is
God. On the other hand, Meditation is delving ourselves to Life of God, Meditation
is to seek God’s revelation to us, using scriptures or any prayer material that can
help us to seek God’s face. These two are much more important as beginner for us
to master how prayer really works in us, but as these two requires laborious
effort, it is also very powerful when the times comes that if we already master the
prayer when these two is no longer a part of our prayer but when we speak to
God, same as our friend, dealing with him even at not the best moments in our
lives and speaking to Him with much reverence and sacredness. If prayer is longer
for our desires but more than that. If prayer is no longer asking Jesus, but also
hearing Jesus. If prayer is chapel is no longer required, but wherever we are. We
can say that we master prayer if we are already in a sense of prayer is a habit in
our life.
Epilogue
At the end, it is not to become holy is our goal in prayer but to Love God in
prayer. We always need God and in that we can see God in prayer. We can assess
that our prayer is genuine if we are on our way to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. If
those fruits are working to us. The Father and baby analogy is very important to
understand as this analogy tells us that prayer is us who always need and always
seek God and when times are tough, when times that we can’t walk there is God
who will help us stand and walk again and we can see Him in prayer.

Finally, what I love in this book is that He gave us so many analogies for us
to understand clearly. He will help you to more understand not just what prayer is
but how prayer is important and how prayer works in our lives. This book has so
much to reveal in prayer that we did not know and this book will help you to see
God in prayer.