THE ITINERANT´S PRAYER

Searching of God

            The prayer of the itinerant one that continuously looks for God is raised by the combination of private prayer and community prayer.

          There is a tradition on the importance given by St. Dominic to community prayer by means of the Prayer of the Church and of the Mass. Praising God, giving him thanks and tasting the Word along with the others, was a joyful encounter with God for him. These moments of joy provided him with a glad heart, the capacity to deepen in the sense of events and the potential to engage in dialog with the others.

            Community prayer was an exciting moment for St. Dominic and made it maintaining his heart in tension. He took refuge only in God's Word and fled from complications that could break the simplicity.

              Private prayer is also essential for the itinerant one. In it one can express himself in his own language and listen to God's silent voice in words that make sense for him.

             Some brother, who witnesses his private prayer, transmitted it to us by means of a few drawings and a few simple explanatory texts. They are the Nine ways of praying of St. Dominic. Contemplating them, it is possible to perceive that St. Dominic used to go through a prayer’s itinerary by means of the Word, the silence and corporal positions. In the first three ways, he was straining to enter in touch with the divinity, from the fourth to the eighth, he was enjoying the union with God in different ways, and in the ninth, we assume that his prayer was continuing in daily life.