Prayer (redirected from praying)

prayer

Silent or spoken petition made to God or a god. Prayer has been practiced in all religions throughout history. Its characteristic postures (bowing the head, kneeling, prostration) and position of the hands (raised, outstretched, clasped) signify an attitude of submission and devotion. Prayer may involve confessions of sin, requests, thanks, praise, offerings of sacrifice, or promises of future acts of devotion. In addition to spontaneous private prayer, most religions have fixed formulas of prayer (e.g., the Lord's Prayer), often recited in group worship. The four prophetic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism) prescribe a daily set form of individual prayer, such as the Shema, to be recited twice a day by every male Jew, and the Islamic salat, performed five times a day.

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prayer

1. 

a. a personal communication or petition addressed to a deity, esp in the form of supplication, adoration, praise, contrition, or thanksgiving

b. any other form of spiritual communion with a deity

2. a similar personal communication that does not involve adoration, addressed to beings venerated as being closely associated with a deity, such as angels or saints

3. a form of devotion, either public or private, spent mainly or wholly praying

4. a form of words used in praying

5. Law a request contained in a petition to a court for the relief sought by the petitioner

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Prayer 

the appeal to a divinity; one of the basic elements in any religious cult, creating an illusory feeling of contact with the supernatural in the believer and psychological communality in the religious group. Arising from the magic of the word (incantation), prayer takes the form of petition and subsequently also of thanksgiving and praise. Prayer forms provided the model for religious poetry (psalms, for example) and later for certain genres of folklore (such as the Russian spiritual verses) and lyric poetry.

In antiquity, prayer formed part of a public ritual that sometimes had immediate social and political significance. Christianity introduced inward (”mental”) prayer, which acquired particular importance in mysticism. Christian theology strives to make a distinction between “true” prayer, asking god for mercy, and “pagan” incantations, oriented toward obtaining certain benefits, warding off misfortunes, and so forth. In the religious life of Christian communities importance has been ascribed to both interpretations of prayer; an opposition has been constantly maintained between public liturgical prayer and individual prayer, between outward and inward prayer, between the formal-ritualistic and the emotional. In the history of religion the struggle for a certain form of prayer has often been related to a rivalry between social currents within the church.

A. P. KAZHDAN