I have a few questions

[G-Freak12]

Hey I dont know if the following questions sound dumb but I really want to know the answers but I'm too scared to talk to my preist or anyone else at my church because they will think that because my family goes to church every week and that I'm religous that I should know the answers to these questions... but anyways like I said these are dumb questions for a Catholic like me to ask but like I said I dont feel confortable talking to anyone: Okay my first question.... I dont really know how to pray like do u just say "God I need your help" or "God thanx for such and such"


.... and I've heard people say that if you just listen God will "talk" to you.... I dont understand what they mean... because when someone is talking to you you hear what their saying because speaking is a sounds.... and this is probably the dumbest thing you've heard someone ask but my last question is... where is heaven? people say that heaven is "above the clouds"..... but I know it cant be literally true because well duh above the clouds is more sky and eventually outer space.... God bless thanx for your time to whomever answers my dumb questions lol

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
11/2 - All Souls' Day

G-Freak12,

Trust me, your questions aren't dumb at all. A group of young to middle-aged fishermen asked Christ once how they were to pray (we can assume they were devout Jews), and Christ said,

Thus, therefore, shall you pray:

1.) Our Father - the first part of our prayer should always be to call on God as our Father.

2.) who art in Heaven - to answer your question, Heaven is wherever God is, and Hell is wherever God is not. More precisely, though, Heaven is a reality apart from our current life where the blessed see God face to face.

3.) hallowed be Thy Name - adoration of God because He's God is always a good thing; try to do it first when you pray.

4.) Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven - then pray that we'll do whatever we can to make God's kingdom on earth a reality by living the good lives we were made to live.

5.) Give us this day our daily bread - This is the first real prayer of petition, coming in [i]fifth[/i] place. Now we ask God to give us what we need, physically and spiritually, to tackle our day. We also here ask Him and thank Him for the Holy Eucharist.

6.) And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us - here we pray in contrition for our sins, asking for forgiveness from God for our sins; however, this makes clear that He'll forgive us as much as we're willing to forgive others.

7.) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil - This is where we ask Him to defend us from the devil during temptation. We also ask Him to deliver us from every type of evil - natural (i.e. natural disasters, &c.) or moral (as in sin).

8.) Amen. - this is always good to say on its own as well. "Amen" means "I believe", but it has a little more [i]umph[/i] behind it. It's not just "I believe," but "I believe so much that I'm willing to stake my [i]life[/i] on it."

BTW, cf. Matt. 6:9-13. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Pio Nono