Oct. 25, 2025

Most people who pursue a spiritual life acknowledge that prayer is an essential part of that quest. Prayer may be offered in many forms: ritual blessing of meals, extemporaneous intercessions, corporate prayers, repetition of formula prayers (the Lord’s Prayer for example), and deep protracted silence. Despite being a desired pursuit of spiritual life and the many options to practice it, for most of us prayer is alien territory. We feel like we don’t know how to pray; when we try, we often feel our prayers are not effective. Jesus’ parable about the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector teaches us about prayer. It makes clear that there are some prayers that God always hears and others which God will not hear. Which kind are yours?