Prayer, as a classical spiritual discipline, is primarily relational, not functional. Henri Nouwen, the modern Catholic spiritual writer, characterizes the nature of prayer succinctly: In a situation in which the world is threatened by annihilation, prayer does not mean much when we undertake it only as an attempt to influence God, or as a search for a spiritual fallout shelter, or as an offering of comfort in stress-filled times. . . . Prayer is the act by which we divest ourselves of all false belongings and become free to belong to God and God alone.3
