A fundamental idea vibrates in Anthony's Sermones. It is the meaning of life polarised in God, to whom everything is subordinate. Anthony calls the fact that everything is oriented towards God by one name: "prayer."

Everything has the common denominator of "prayer," despite the variety of types of ascension toward God or one's level of perfection.

On no page of Anthony's writings is one not touched by the meaning and the taste for prayer and the capacity to pray. The saint prays for "duty," but always for conviction and spontaneous necessity.

Disciple of Augustine, the doctor of grace, Anthony was the first to practise what he preached and he never ceased to ask in every moment, even during the act of preaching, for the merciful help of the Lord.

For the saint, prayer is, above all, a love relationship, which creates an intimate union (oratio est hominis Deo adhaerentis affectio) with the loved one (that is, between God and man), and it then leads to a tender dialogue with the loved one (familiaris quaedam et pia allocutio) provoking an ineffable joy, while streams of light gently enfold the soul in prayer. Anthony is a natural orator, due to his need to give vent to that which he loves.

Prayer, for him, is, above all, a movement of the heart which, by filling the mind with heat, converts a meeting with God into a conversation of love.

The primacy of the heart

Prayer with God requires the presence of all the soul's faculties. The first, however, is still the heart. For this, Anthony prefers the idea of prayer as an "elevation of the heart" (cor ad sublimia investiganda attollere) to the current definition, but he does not leave out the comprehension of the mind (investiganda), illuminator of the heart in its itinerary towards God.

The phases of prayer

Illustrating Paul's text in Timothy 2,1, "Be advised, therefore, before all else, to ask questions, supplications, prayer and thanks." Anthony distinguishes four phases in prayer: obsecratio, oratio, postulatio and gratiarum actio.

• Obsecratio is the first phase of prayer.This expresses the sentiments of the soul who wants to gain favour with God.
• The second phase, or oratio, is a moment of affectionate contact with God.
• Once having entered into confidence, the soul reaches the third moment, postulatio, which is where questions are asked. Anthony makes it clear that the ray of the request transcends earthly things, as it extends to the Infinite, supreme object of every desire. "Ask God for God," this is, in order of dignity, the first question that should be at the base of every question. Here the saint, once again giving vent to his soul, underlines the Christ-centrality of his prayer, which is an aspect of that spiritual Christ-centrality which is so evident in his writings and which he condensed in an expression full of meaning, "Christ was given to us by his Father because 'living for him, we would love him; without him, living is dying."
• The final phase of prayer is the gratiarum actio, or praise. Praise which should never be forgotten, since it is identified with charity and with uninterrupted prayer, a perennial song of gratitude that rises up from the life of the aided soul.

Text by Antonio Giuseppe Nocilli, adapted by Father Paolo Floretta