Prayer is the raising of our hearts and minds to God. We are able to speak to and listen to God because he teaches us to pray. The Catechism tells us that the Holy Spirit reminds the Church of all that Jesus said, and it teaches us about the life of prayer. In doing so, it inspires new expressions of the same basic forms of prayer: blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise. Blessing A blessing is a prayer that invokes God's power and asks for his care for a person, place, thing, or special activity. The Bible is filled with examples of blessings—blessings on offerings to God, on individuals, on groups of people, and on ordinary actions throughout the day. Blessings help make us aware of God's presence at every moment and in all things. They help us see the goodness available all around us and to remain close to God from whom all blessings flow. They express our own desires for God's closeness and protection as well as God's strength and healing. Blessings call upon God's love for creation. They are reminders of the goodness and holiness of what God created. We use words, symbols, and gestures to express what's deep in our hearts. Any person or object can be blessed. We bless our children, families, sick people, objects of prayer and worship, special occasions, people, relationships, food, buildings, work, animals, and many other situations and things. A common daily blessing is the grace before meals, in which we ask God's blessing on our gathering, our eating, and our going forth, nourished, to do God's will. Because we are blessed, we too can bless God and one another in thanks for God's generous gifts to us and to the world.
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