When is National Prayer Day in 2024? – This is the problem, which can be asked in any corner of the contemporary world, where you can find many people, who believe in God and the exceptional powers of Heavens.

History

Of course, it would be quite silly to discover the subject, what day World Prayer Day in 2024 is, without paying attention to the curious historical past of this event.

Initially, we want to tell our readers that this holiday has had a great past. Everything happened in distant 1775, when the representatives of the Continental Congress made a very useful decision to establish special time for prayer. They were sure that the activity would help much in new nation forming. The idea had a great success and even the leading American Presidents tried to take part in it.

However, in 1988 there was R. Reagan, who adopted the special law, according to which the holiday should be celebrated every first Thursday in May.

Nowadays there are a lot of activities, which are organized for this purpose exactly. There are even people, who are sure that this event has to be a public holiday. The followers of this direction are sure that the whole day should be devoted to this action as well as to the thinking about the problems and the ways of life.

Meaning

What does National Prayer Day mean? – Oh, frankly speaking, it would be rather difficult to us to answer this subject, if you asked us to do it. Why? – As you understand, such personal questions have to be discussed personally by every man or woman.

Among the representatives of contemporary society there are a lot of those, who don’t believe in God. These people are called atheists, so they are not going to celebrate this holiday, of course, and this isn’t a big surprise.

In general, it has a constant influence on the self-concept of man, making one of the leading social roles the role of a person belonging to a certain confession (for example, «I am a Christian», «I am a Buddhist»). Having adopted this role, a person becomes a full-fledged part of a religious society, having mastered the norms, rules and duties of this social group.

When a person begins to pray, the vector of his/her soul rushes upward, vertically, while radically changing a person’s state, because his/her mind, feelings and will at that moment are oriented towards spirituality, morality and morality. This, in turn, weakens the individual’s ego, releasing energy for such qualities as altruism and sacrifice.

Following the psychic forces, the focus of attention rises as one of the cognitive functions of the mind, thereby greatly expanding the locus of perception: the person begins to notice the manifestations of life that previously remained for him/her outside of the focus. The state of the expansion of the locus in religious practice is usually called enlightenment.

Definition

In our attempts to find out the wide answer to the direction “When is International Prayer Day 2024?” we would love to mention a huge quantity of important facts and pieces of information.

First of all, we’ve to explain the curious readers that in each of the world’s religions, their branches or even small religious communities, there must be a ritual, which is called a prayer. The ritual of prayer is one of the components of the phenomenon of faith, in the process of fulfillment of which the believer is converted to God, as a result of which the state of a person changes due to the correction of his/her consciousness and value system.

The first fairly profound scientific study, devoted to this action, was conducted by the American cardiologist Byrd in the 80s of the last century. A so-called «intercessory prayer» was organized for 392 patients in the cardiac resuscitation unit of the San Francisco Hospital.

Patients were divided into two equal groups. The representatives from the first group were prayed daily by parishioners of local Protestant and Catholic churches, and the second group was a control group, nobody prayed for it. The experiment continued until the discharge of patients from the clinic, while none of the 392 patients knew, whether he/she is prayed for or not, which excluded the effect of auto-suggestion.

And here are statistically reliable results: 12 patients in the control group required artificial ventilation. In the «prayer» group, the lungs of the patients were in much better condition, and no one was required to connect the ventilator. Diuretics commonly used to treat congestive heart failure were needed by 15 patients in the control group and in 5 cases in the first group. Heart failure occurred in 14 cases among the control group and only in 3 cases of the mentioned group.

Traditions

When is Prayer Day in 2024, calendar will definitely remind you. Nobody sees this as a problem. The usual trouble is to spend May 7th in the proper way, as in general there are no any certain rules, customs and recommendations for this.

We want to advise you to start this date with a sincere activity. The theme and the direction may be any you like. You see, in the world as well as in the society there are always a lot of people and issues you can pray to. Why not to do it in the very beginning of the third spring month?

According to the specialists’ points of view, the effect of this activity is based on the laws and peculiarities of the work of cognitive processes.

All in all it is founded on two powers of attention:

• switching;
• concentration.

In the course of prayer, a person switches and focuses on areas of higher spirituality. The requirement of regularity and systematic reading of the line like these ones leads to frequent repetition of the state of concentration on religious categories, which strengthens the mental, sensual and strong-willed connection with God.

Thus, it becomes clear that prayer is not an end in itself or a conversation with God, but rather a perfect mechanism for adjusting to spiritual values that lead to the establishment of a strong bond between a person and the Higher Powers.

International Prayer Day Facts

It seems to be quite silly to investigate the matter “What is the date of National Prayer Day 2024?” without talking about the role of this activity in the life of contemporary people.

With careful in-depth analysis, the functions are clarified, the essence of which is set out below:

• The function of generality or socialization

The rhythmic and systematic repetition helps to consolidate the ideals and orientations adopted in one or another religion, synchronizing the system of values of a person with the generally accepted religious one.

• The function of the development of spirituality

This function is associated with a change in the direction of the action of psychic forces and an extension of the focus of perception of life. In everyday life, most of the time, all psychic powers of the personality (which are called in religion by the soul) — mind, feeling, will — are directed horizontally, to experience, analyze and solve mundane problems.

• The function of soothing

The ritual (text, atmosphere, manner of singing or pronunciation) is composed in such a way that prayer acts like an auto-training, allowing a person to tune into a state of peace and harmony, contributing to a sense of the integrity of the individual.