As children, our prayer is strong and intimate, for it is the prayer to our Father who loves us. We can call the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, 'Abba', 'Daddy', 'Dearest Father', because we are in his Son, and therefore share in his relationship to the Father. We are sons and daughters in 'the only-begotten Son'. 28 Prayer may be intensely personal in its performance and that even in the case of liturgical prayer, but its performance and fruits are socially powerful. In order to pray better, some people have recourse to various methods or techniques.
Church history records a rich legacy of method, and of the experience of prayer.
A new phenomenon has emerged today, however, in the form of psychological-corporal methods. Some disquiet arises where certain preparatory exercises, sometimes imported from non-Christian religions, are employed without discernment. Prayer is more necessary to the soul than food is to the body. Prayer is, in fact, the oxygen of the soul. The gospel tells us to pray constantly.