To adequately treat all forms of prayer from the time of the Founder to the present in this brief article would be too vast an undertaking. Therefore, I limit my presentation to a single usage of the term - to "the prolonged silent prayer we make each day" (CC and RR, 1982, C 33). That is, I focus on the hour of "mental prayer" - or, as the French text puts it: l'oraison - to which we devote ourselves daily.

Prayer/oraison in the Bible and in the history of spirituality up to the time of Saint Eugene de Mazenod

The Hebrews did not have a single generic term for what we call prayer. They rather used a multitude of expressions to convey the many ways that a person addresses God - for example: thanksgiving, lamenting, singing, dancing, praising, bowing down, lifting up, listening.

The New Testament authors also use a variety of words, but they tend to return to proseuché when referring to prayer in general. That is, for example, Luke's term to describe the scene in the Upper Room after the ascension: "They all joined steadfastly in prayer with Mary the mother of Jesus" (Acts 1:14). Paul, while retaining a certain generic quality, distinguishes proseuché - "prayers" - from "petitions, intercessions and thanksgivings" [1]. The synoptics consistently use proseuché, or its verb form, to highlight the solitary personal prayer of Jesus [2]. They, furthermore, employ the term to refer to the Christian's general attitude in prayer (Mt 5:44; Lk 18:1) as well as to designate his/her "prayer in secret" (Mt 6:5-8).

Proseuché also refers to the place where prayers are offered, hence: oratory [3].

During the Patristic era, the Greek Fathers continued to use proseuché. The Latin Fathers, for their part, captured its basic meaning in oratio, whence come oraison and "oratory". Both the Eastern and the Western church understood its respective word for prayer mainly in terms of request. Thus, for all practical purposes "prayer" meant "prayer of petition". Yet, St. Augustine (+ 410), among others, was careful to note that true prayer consists more in turning one's heart to God - affectus cordis and desiderium - than formulating a long series of specific intercessions. [4]

In the Middle Ages, we find several distinctions related to oratio. For example, the singular usage was differentiated from the plural: prayer/prayers. In the singular, oratio denoted the lifting up of one's inner self to God in any manner that seemed appropriate. Orationes, on the other hand, referred to the specific petitions that one might address to the Lord. Another example differentiated between meditative prayer and contemplative prayer. Meditation consisted in a laborious application of intellect and imagination to the things of God as they relate to the human condition. The purpose of that exercise was compunction and increased purity of intention. Contemplative prayer, by contrast, was considered a more quiet and affective beholding of the Lord. The verb orare covered the ensemble of different forms of praying from the Divine office to contemplation. [5]

From the sixteenth century to the time of Eugene de Mazenod, we see much insistence on oratio as a well defined spiritual exercise. Different masters - for instance: St. Ignatius of Loyola (+ 1556), St. Teresa of Jesus (+ 1582), St. Francis de Sales (+ 1622), the French School of spirituality with Pierre de Bérulle (+ 1629) and Jean-Jacques Olier (+ 1657) - proposed various methods of prayer or enhanced our understanding of degrees of prayer.

During those centuries, oratio was still employed in a generic sense - any form of prayer. Yet, increasingly the term came to designate a specific way of praying. In French, prière ordinarily referred to prayer in general. Oraison, or more precisely l'oraison (with the definite article), was often reserved for methods or degrees of personal solitary prayer. Thus, one spoke of the Ignatian method, the Salisian method, the Bérullian method of l'oraison. One also spoke of different degrees or modes of l'oraison: mental prayer, affective prayer, prayer of the heart, prayer of quiet, prayer of union etc. [6]

[1] See 1 Timothy 2:1.
[2] See Mark 1: 35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; 11:1; 22:41; etc.
[3] See "Oraison", in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, Paris, Beauchesne, 1982, vol. 11, col. 831-832. "Prière", ibidem, vol. 12, col. 2196-2347.
[4] See letter to Paulinus of Nola, no. 149: 2, 14-16; letter to Probus, no. 130: 7, 17 to 9, 18.
[5] See "Oraison", in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, Paris, Beauchesne, 1982, vol. 11, col. 832-834; "Prière", vol. 12, 2271-2288.
[6] See "France", in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, Paris, Beauchesne, 1982, vol. 5, col. 891-997; "Oraison", ibidem, vol. 11, col. 834-846; "Prière", ibidem, vol. 12, col. 2295-2317; BREMOND, Henri, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, Paris, Bloud and Gay,1921, vol. III.