Yooper Catholic Podcast

It may surprise us to learn how many prayers in the Bible are filled with complaints and protest, cries of despair and doubt, questioning and even anger toward God. Some of us might read these prayers and wonder if it's OK to pray like that. In this episode, Fr. Ryan explains the prayer of lament, using the prophet Habakkuk as an example. God wants to meet us in our pain and walk with us through it to renewed faith and confidence.

God's presence is easily missed in the moment, especially when we have bad experiences. But God is always laboring to love us and communicate to us. We need to stop and take time to engage our memories and ask God to shine his light through our daily experiences, circumstances, and interactions with people, to receive His presence and hear His call. In this episode, Fr. Ryan explains listening prayer and the practice of the daily examen, as a way to pray at the end of every day. The more we practice this way of prayer, the better we get at seeing God's presence and responding to His call through our daily experiences.

Many people reduce intercessory prayer to asking stuff from God, but in reality it's so much more. In this episode, Fr. Ryan Ford unpacks the why and how of intercessory prayer, as part of our inheritance as the managers of God's business on earth, cooperating with God in the salvation of his people. Intercession draws near to God to allow God's heart to flow through us to bend the affairs of the world in the right direction.

Imagination is a word many people associate with make-believe, fantasy, and Disney world. But can imagination be used in prayer? In fact, imagination is a powerful means by which God encounters us through the incarnate vividness and concreteness of Jesus. In this episode, Fr. Ryan discusses the imagination and its place in our Christian prayer life, and how to go about engaging our imagination when we spend time with God.

In this episode, Fr. Ryan dives into the first way of prayer in our series, "Powerful Ways to Pray." He discusses the why and how of 'Decisioning Prayer,' that is, conversing with God about your decisions, plans, and problems of each week. Every week, this is a way we can have a conversation with God during quiet time and find the direction, conviction, and strength we need to embrace the difficult things we need to do!