Closing his eyes, he sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening, asking please, for God's sake, stop sending him signals that they were right for each other. He'd read that book, seen the movie, bought the soundtrack, the DVD, the T-shirt, the mug, the bobble-head, and the insider's guide. He knew every reason they could have been lock and key. But just as he was aware of all that aligned them, he was even clearer on how they were damned to be ever apart.
I have not the courage to search through books for beautiful prayers. . . Unable either to say them all or choose between them, I do as a child would do who cannot read-I say just what I want to say to God, quite simply, and he never fails to understand.
Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness.
Art is prayer - not the vulgarized notations handed down to us in the scriptures, but a fresh vital discovery of one's own special presence in the world.
All the Ten Commandments and prayer is an acknowledgement of the Almighty God. We will not back down from that.
My attempt and prayer are and will be for an honorable peace between belligerent nations in the least possible time.
I am very defective in all duties. . . In prayer I wander and am formal. . . I soon tire; devotion languishes; and I do not walk with God.
I assure you, where prayer focuses power falls.
The Living God alone can make us living men; the mighty God alone can make us mighty men; the loving God alone can make us consecrated men.
No man is greater than his prayer life.
Catholicism is the big house of Christianity. It's got many, many rooms in it. And I've always been attracted to the rooms which are to do with prayer. The mystical strain is the strain whereby the whole day can be given over to prayer through what we call lectio divina, prayerful reading of Scripture, through practice of meditation of when one uses the imagination and the intellect with respect to images, and then finally, and most difficult of all, contemplation, where one empties the mind of all images and all ideas, all concepts, in order to be completely attentive to God.
The men that will change the colleges and seminaries here represented are the men that will spend the most time alone with God. . . It takes time for the fires to burn. It takes time for God to draw near and for us to know that He is there. It takes time to assimilate His truth.
Let us not grow tired of knocking at God's door. Let us go to the heart of God through Mary, our whole life, every day, knocking at the door of God's heart! Mary prays - prays together with the community of disciples, and teaches us to have full faith in God, in his mercy. This is the power of prayer!
The highest level of prayer is not a prayer for anything. It is a deep and profound silence, in which we allow ourselves to be still and know Him. In that silence, we are changed. We are calmed. We are illumined. Prayer is meant to dissolve the worldly focus, to dissolve our sense of a separate self, to help us detach from an insane world order. We pray that He might flood our minds. Prayer is like pouring hot water on an ice cube, melting the cold and encrusted thought forms that still surround our hearts.
Believers often forget that most atheists used to be religious, that many non-believers used to think they had a personal relationship with their God and they used to 'feel' the power of prayer. They've since learned that it was all a farce, that their feelings were internal emotions and not some external force.
Prayer is good, but when baked potatoes and milk are needed, prayer will not supply their place.
There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.
For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.
The prayer offered to God in the morning during your quiet time is the key that unlocks the door of the day. Any athlete knows that it is the start that ensures a good finish.
Purity is the fruit of prayer.