Anonymous
Post 08/22/2014 21:40     Subject: Re:Questions to Jews & Christians

Muslima, thank you for your open and thoughtful questions. I cannot speak to all forms of Christianity, but I will address what I know about Catholicism.

In Catholicism, there are five basic kinds of prayer: blessing, petition, thanksgiving, intercession and praise. These can be done vocally, contemplative or meditatively. There are prayers for just about everything and everytime, but no set time for daily prayer in the way you mentioned in your original post. Perhaps the greatest reason for this is because we are to pray without ceasing as is stated by Saint Paul in 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 5, Verses 16-18.

The Holy sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated daily, and all are encouraged to attend all of them, not just Sundays. (Having said that, attending mass every Sunday no more makes one a Catholic than sitting in a garage makes one a car.) Attending Mass should be a desire, not an obligation, but that is often a difficult state to achieve.

There are some great resources on the subject that are written by much wiser people than I. If you are interested, here are a few titles that I can think of: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, What Catholics Really Believe, and Handbook of Catholic Apologetics.

Best of luck finding answers to your questions. I think they are very interesting.