ABSTRACT
In the Philippines where 80 per cent of the population professes to be Catholic, prayer is a predictably highly-practised religious activity. This chapter looks at prayer as an everyday phenomenon among Catholics in the Philippines. Specifically, it probes two areas: the ways in which Filipino Catholic students understand the nature of praying; and how they perceive God responds to their prayers. If prayer is 'interpersonal communication with God', the latter dimension is equally important. The chapter argues that the way prayers are answered reveals who God is in the religious subjectivity of Filipino Catholic youth today. The data which informs in the chapter comes from interviews with sixty-two tertiary students involved in Catholic organisations in twelve colleges and universities in Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines. Furthermore, by drawing from the subjectivity of Catholic youth, the chapter may also be seen as a contribution to the emerging literature on religion and youth.
