Acknowledge, Relate, Receive, Respond, Offer
The following is a blog post from Dr. Tom Neal posted on January 29, 2026.
We have been very impacted and blessed by the method of prayer that he describes below. We have used this method in our prayer often over the years.
We asked him if we could repost this here on our website. He was happy to have us do so.
ARRRO Prayer
By Dr. Tom Neal
One of the most enduring gifts I received from my time with the Institute for Priestly Formation was a simple and, I find, very effective method of prayer designed especially for time spent in Eucharistic adoration. It moves through four interior acts: Acknowledge, Relate, Receive, Respond. Over time, by regular practice, this flow became almost second nature to me. Its logic gave voice to the demands of recollection, and helped reign in my distractions and focus my meandering thoughts on God’s presence
And yet, after years of this method I always found myself wanting to add one final movement — I added an O at the end: Offer. With that addition, ARRRO became both a way of praying and a way of activating my baptismal priesthood shared out to me by Christ. I once wrote of it in my journal as a way of preparing the “raw material” of daily life for entry into the new creation.
Here’s a sketch I created for use in a retreat once:
Acknowledge: becoming aware before God
Prayer begins with attention, and so to acknowledge is to notice what is actually present in my heart right now. Thoughts, feelings, desires, resistances, hopes, distractions, fears. Nothing more and nothing less, very simple. It’s not analysis or self-correction or self-evaluation. I don’t sort through things, rank, explain or fix what I notice. I simply allow it to be seen. Prayer here begins with honesty before the Face of God. If I want to receive what God desires to give me, it must be ME that is present to him, and my awareness is crucial to opening myself to him freely.
Ask simple questions: What am I thinking. How do I feel. What do I desire. Grace always meets us where we are, not where we imagine we should be.
Relate: speaking honestly with God
What I acknowledge, I then relate to God. I gather up what I’ve found in my heart and speak of it directly to God. I bring it into his presence and entrust it to him. I speak without editing or concealment.
This step is important as prayer is not just an interior monologue but a colloquy, a dialogue, a conversation between friends. Yes, God already knows what is in my heart, but prayer freely permits God to enter my knowledge as his own. When I speak my thoughts, feelings and desires to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, my inner life becomes shared life. The hypostatic union is realized in a unique way in me.
If the same thought or concern returns again and again, I speak of it again. God never tires of my heart, never grows weary or bored. Over time, this honest repetition trains the heart in transparency and trust. Nothing is too small, too ordinary or too tangled up to be brought into the presence of God.
Receive: letting God act
Only after acknowledging and relating am I now disposed to receive from God. This is the most counterintuitive movement of prayer as I don’t ‘perform,” I receive. And receiving can take many forms. A sense of peace may emerge, or confusion may begin to stir. My inner desire may be clarified or gently redirected. Sometimes, maybe often times, the change is barely perceptible. But movements that draw the heart toward God, toward truth, toward love, toward virtue are signs of his action already at work within me.
Faith makes alive for us that Jesus is present in our hearts through the power of his Holy Spirit, waiting for us to be with him, to hear his voice and to receive strength. This is all God’s initiative, prayer only disposes me to welcome what God gives rather than being a “striving” to generate spiritual results on my own.
Sit for a time in silence and slowly repeat a simple phrase of receptivity, like “Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit. Come, Father of the poor. Speak, Lord.”
Respond: gratitude
Grace always calls forth a response, beginning with gratitude. When God gives, the heart answers without strain, flowing from what has been received. This response may take the form of praise, acts of faith-trust-love, a renewal of desire or just an act of thanksgiving. It arises organically from graces given.
At this point, the original ARRR method could conclude. But, as I said above, I believe any prayer shaped by the Holy Eucharist presses Upward and does not end with interior fruit alone.
Offer: living baptismal priesthood
Here’s where the final “O” becomes essential. To “offer up” is to place my entire life into the hands of God through-with-in Christ. My work and responsibilities, my marriage and family, my vocation and limits, my health, fatigue, successes, failures, joys, sorrows. Even my vices that may have manifested during my prayer, now given up to God as gift through contrition. Nothing is excluded.
This allows God’s love to re-orient the whole of my life as an oblation, as an act of surrender and trust. It says that everything I am and have is pure gift to be freely returned to the One who gave it.
This is where my prayer becomes explicitly priestly. Every baptized Christian shares in Christ’s priesthood. Not by standing at the altar in the sanctuary of the Church, but by offering on the altar of the heart the entire world back to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The Second Vatican Council expressed this beautifully in Gaudium et Spes 38, teaching that when the faithful unite their daily lives to Christ’s Eucharistic offering, even the most ordinary human activities become material for the kingdom of heaven.
So in this sense, “offering” is my interior prayer aimed at the universal new creation. What I place in God’s hands, however incomplete or fragile, he will take up and transform. Nothing offered in Christ is wasted.
ARRRO opens the soul up to a Eucharistic rhythm of life. Becoming aware, speaking honestly, receiving grace, responding with gratitude and then offering everything back to God. It is the best preparation for “full, conscious and active participation” in the Liturgy. In this prayer, enacted in Christ, you pivot the world back to God so that the world itself may be drawn toward its final fulfillment and be made new.
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Read his blog online at nealobstat.wordpress.com