The Click to Pray prayer app offers us three prayers a day: one with Jesus in the morning, to start the day; another with Jesus in the afternoon, to take a break in the middle of the day; finally, a prayer with Jesus at night, to contemplate and rest before falling asleep.

Prayer at different times of the day has been a practice of the Church since its origins, following the Jewish tradition of prayers prayed at three times of daily prayer: at dusk, at dawn and at noon. Just see, in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, how Peter, “went up to the roof of the house for midday prayer” (10:9); how, after Pentecost, “Peter and John went up to the temple to pray at three in the afternoon” (3:1); Finally, as “about midnight, Paul and Silas, in prayer, sang praises to God” (16:25) in prison. We know that these prayers were mainly addressed to God the Father and then extended to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, without forgetting to make invocations for the needs of the Church.

Continuous prayer has great value in the first Christian treatises on prayer as it is based on the words of Saint Paul “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). Clement of Alexandria and Origen, in the transition between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and Basil of Caesarea, in the 4th century, understand continuous prayer as an interior disposition that takes root in the Christian’s life, in the fulfillment of the evangelical commandments, in the practice of the virtues and in the awareness of the wonders of creation. Thus, the prayer prayed at different times of the day and in any place, was organized until it gained a community dimension, constituting the so-called Liturgy of the Hours, as shown by John Cassian at the beginning of the 5th century.

Click To Pray, the Pope’s official prayer platform, managed by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, follows the tripartite prayer model in which we are invited to enter into the mission of compassion for the world in its three daily prayer proposals. Prayer must “come down to earth” and simply express what we experience in daily life based on the Pope’s monthly prayer intentions.

Fr. Antonio Sant’Ana, SJ
National Director Portugal
Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network