As we begin 2026, the National Eucharistic Congress is turning our full attention to prayer. Over the coming months, our newsletters will be devoted to helping us deepen our prayer lives, and during Lent we will launch a prayer course with Bishop Andrew Cozzens focused on helping us learn to pray.
For me, prayer is best understood as an exchange of hearts.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes prayer not first as words or techniques, but as relationship:
“Prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2564).
Prayer, then, is not something we merely do; it is something we enter. It is communion.
Saint Catherine of Siena famously asked Christ for his heart and, in a mystical exchange, received it. While extraordinary, this moment reveals something profoundly ordinary about the Christian life. The goal of prayer—from our earliest memorized prayers as children to our most mature contemplative moments—is union with the Heart of Christ. Prayer has a nuptial dimension: a self-gift, a mutual indwelling, a communion of love.
All forms of personal prayer—Lectio Divina, Eucharistic adoration, a Holy Hour, or a quiet moment of recollection during the day—serve this end. They dispose us for union. They train the heart. They enlarge our capacity to receive divine life. Yet none of these forms of prayer exists in isolation. Each point toward, and draws its deepest meaning from, the place where this exchange of hearts reaches its fullness: the Mass.
The Church teaches with striking clarity:
“The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’” (CCC 1324).
By this, the Church is referring to the Eucharist as it is celebrated sacramentally in the Mass, where Christ’s sacrifice is made present. This is not an abstract idea, but something that happens concretely each time the Church gathers for Mass. Here, prayer is grounded not in our effort, but in Christ’s perfect offering.
“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice” (CCC 1367).
Here, Christ prays in us, with us, and for us. Our fragmented intentions, distracted hearts, and imperfect words are taken up into his self-gift to the Father. This is why the Mass is not simply one prayer among many—it is the measure and meaning of all Christian prayer.
At Holy Communion, this exchange becomes astonishingly intimate. The Catechism states plainly:
“Holy Communion augments our union with Christ” (CCC 1391).
This is his heart exchanged for our heart. Divine life is given, not symbolically, but sacramentally. We are lifted into the inner life of the Trinity. Having received the Body of Christ, we leave the Mass not with a task completed, but with a life received.
The Mass also reveals something essential about Christian prayer: we are never meant to pray as isolated individuals. In the Mass, Christ gathers his Body and draws us into a single, communal act of worship. The Church teaches that the liturgy is not a private devotion, but the action of Christ united with his Church. When we pray the Mass, we pray not only for one another, but with one another, as members of one Body. There are no “lone ranger” Christians at the altar—only sons and daughters gathered together in Christ, offering themselves to the Father.
From this Eucharistic center flows the possibility of what Scripture calls praying without ceasing. Our prayer throughout the day—spoken and unspoken—becomes a continuation of what began at the altar. The Catechism captures this beautifully:
“The life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him” (CCC 2565).
Personal prayer outside of Mass is not a replacement for the Eucharist, nor is it a lesser alternative. It is a deepening. Meditation, for example, “engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire” (CCC 2655), while contemplation is “a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus” (CCC 2715). These forms of prayer stretch the heart so that, when we return to Mass, we are capable of receiving more fully the gift God longs to give.
This is why the Eucharistic Revival is not an either/or between Mass and adoration, or between liturgical prayer and personal prayer. It is a both/and. Eucharistic adoration flows from the Mass and leads back to it. Personal prayer sustains what the Eucharist inaugurates. The Christian life becomes Eucharistic when our entire day is lived as an offering, united to Christ’s offering to the Father.
Ultimately, prayer is not about mastering a method but about consenting to a relationship. It is about allowing our hearts—often guarded, distracted, or weary—to be exchanged for the Heart of Christ. And there is no place where this exchange happens more fully, more objectively, and more fruitfully than at the altar.
As we begin this year focused on prayer, may we rediscover the Mass not as an obligation to fulfill, but as the place where prayer reaches its perfection—and where our hearts are most fully made new.
Married for twenty years, father of five, convert, Jason serves as the President of the National Eucharistic Congress. Previously, the President of the Our Sunday Visitor Institute, Jason Shanks is a sought-after speaker, thought leader, and strategic mind. With degrees in the new evangelization and business, he has helped found and reinvigorate Catholic initiatives for more than two decades.
Photo by Diocese of Spokane on Unsplash
