Jesus prayed in various ways. As a good Jew, He knew many prayers by heart. Other times He prayed in His own words (Lk 10:21). Then there were other times He prayed by Himself during the night, sometimes spending the whole night in prayer. (Lk 6:12).
During those long hours, what was the nature of His prayer? Surely He was doing more than repeating over and over prayers He had learned from childhood or talking to God in His own words hour after hour. He was, I think, simply being in the Father's presence with loving awareness. He was doing Contemplative Prayer.
Contemplative Prayer is a prayer of being, rather than doing. In this prayer, our intention is simply to be in the Divine Presence beyond thoughts and images. The prayer is like a child climbing into the arms of the parent or grandparent just to be loved. All the child has to do is be still.
In other prayers we use the thinking or imaging part of our mind. In Contemplative Prayer there Is nothing to think about, nothing to imagine. Because we use the thinking part of our mind all day long, our mind may not cooperate when we want it to be quiet.
A prayer focus will help when our mind wanders. In Christian Meditation (or in Eastern forms of meditation), we repeat a prayer word like Maranatha or Peace over and over. Or we repeat a short prayer like the Jesus prayer. (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”). Or we combine our breathing with our prayer word. (In this case, we become aware of breathing in and we utter the prayer word on the outbreath).
In Centering Prayer, whenever our mind wanders, we use a prayer word like Jesus or love to renew our consent and return to our center.
It is important to have an attitude toward our wandering mind, or we can become discouraged. The prayer is not in our perfect attention; otherwise, those who have the best concentration would be the best prayers. What makes our prayer pleasing to God is the level of our faith and the degree Of our love.
We do not have complete control over our mind so all we can give is our best effort to be attentive. The prayer is in our heart, not in our mind. Our mind may wander, but once we enter the prayer our heart does not waver.
Still it is frustrating our mind is not more focused. This is because even in prayer we want to be in control. Our wandering mind is no problem for God who looks to the heart.
How do we know we are making progress in this prayer? We cannot analyze the prayer itself; that is mystery. All we can evaluate is our effort to be attentive. When we can accept our wandering mind as part of the prayer and surrender our control, we are making progress.