Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 491.

YOUCAT Question n. 491 - Can you learn to pray from the Bible?

(Youcat answer) The Bible is like a wellspring of prayer. To pray with the Word of God means to use the words and events of the Bible for one’s own prayer. “To be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Christ” (St. Jerome).

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2652) The Holy Spirit is the living water "welling up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14) in the heart that prays. It is he who teaches us to accept it at its source: Christ. Indeed in the Christian life there are several wellsprings where Christ awaits us to enable us to drink of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 2654) The spiritual writers, paraphrasing Matthew 7:7, summarize in this way the dispositions of the heart nourished by the word of God in prayer "Seek in reading and you will find in meditating; knock in mental prayer and it will be opened to you by contemplation" (Guigo the Carthusian, Scala Paradisi: PL 40, 998).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Sacred Scripture, especially the Psalms and the New Testament, are a valuable treasury; in it we find the most beautiful and most powerful prayers of the Judeo-Christian world. Reciting these prayers unites us with millions of people from all times and cultures who have prayed, but above all with Christ himself, who is present in all these prayers. 

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2653) The Church "forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful… to learn 'the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ' (Phil 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.... Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For 'we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles"' (DV 25; cf. Phil 3:8; St. Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum 1, 20,88: PL 16, 50).   

(The next question is: Does my personal prayer have something to do with the prayer of the Church?)