And he withdrew from them as a stone's throw, and kneeling down, he prayed, saying, Father, if thou wilt, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
When spiritual suffering is so intense that it causes him to enter into agony, the Lord turns to his Father with a prayer full of trust. He calls him Abba, Father, and addresses him with intimate words. This is the path that we too must follow. In our life there will be moments of spiritual peace and others of more intense struggle, perhaps of darkness and deep pain, with temptations of discouragement.... The image of Jesus in the Garden shows us how we should always proceed: with persevering and trusting prayer. In order to advance on the path to holiness, but especially when we feel the weight of our weakness, we must recollect ourselves in prayer, in intimate conversation with the Lord.
Public (or common) prayer, in which all the faithful participate, is holy and necessary, for God wants to see his children praying together, but it can never replace the Lord's precept: you, in your room, with the door closed, pray to your Father. The liturgy is the public prayer par excellence, "it is the summit towards which all the activity of the Church tends and at the same time the source from which all her strength flows (...). However, the spiritual life is not contained in participation in the Sacred Liturgy alone. For the Christian, called to pray in common, must nevertheless also enter into his room and pray to his Father in secret, indeed, as the Apostle points out, he must pray without interruption (1 Thess 5:17)".
Prayer prayed in common with other Christians should also be personal prayer, while the lips recite it with appropriate pauses and the mind gives it its full attention.
In personal prayer we speak with God as in conversation with a friend, knowing that he is present, always attentive to what we say, listening to us and answering us. It is in this intimate conversation, like the one we are now trying to have with God, that we open our soul to the Lord, to adore, to give thanks, to ask him for help, to deepen - like the Apostles - in the divine teachings. "You wrote to me: "To pray is to talk to God. But about what?" - About what? Of Him, of you: joys, sorrows, successes and failures, noble ambitions, daily worries..., joys and sorrows; and thanksgiving and petitions: and Love and atonement.
"In two words: to know him and to know you: "treat each other!"".
It can never be anonymous, impersonal prayer, lost among others, because God, who has redeemed every man, wishes to maintain a dialogue with each one of them, and at the end of life salvation or damnation will depend on the personal correspondence of each one. It must be the dialogue of a concrete person - who has a specific ideal and a specific profession, and specific friendships..., and specific graces from God - with his Father God.