It is difficult to describe the benefits of prayer. “My Lord, teach me what you want me to tell you,” cried St. Margaret Mary. It is a great grace to be able to see God first of all in prayer. This is how the saints pray. As for us, we think of ourselves too often. The saints began with adoration of God. To conceive of prayer as a petition alone is not the whole truth about prayer, but only a small part of it.
Prayer, as understood by the Church and her Most Holy Sons, is not only a humble supplication to God to hear our requests, it is not only the recitation of oral formulas. Prayer is stopping and communing with God.
Prayer, then, is a confidential conversation with God, similar to a conversation between a servant and a master, a disciple and a master, a child and his parents.