If your life is rushing in many directions at once, you are incapable of the kind of deep, unhurried prayer that is vital to the Christian walk.
A temple, first of all, is a place of prayer; and prayer is communion with God. It is the 'infinite in man seeking the infinite in God. ' Where they find each other, there is holy sanctuary--a temple.
The Atonement has practical, personal, everyday value; apply it in your life. It can be activated with so simple a beginning as prayer.
You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.
Prayer is nothing but that complete surrender, complete oneness with Christ. And this is what makes us contemplative in the heart of the world; for we are twenty-four hours then in His presence: in the hungry, in the naked, in the homeless, in the unwanted, unloved, uncared for. For Jesus said, Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.
It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions.
Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as 'Pass the salt' It's a secret, direct prayer language to God.
Islam lays great emphasis on the social side of things. Every day, the rich and the poor, the great and the small living in a locality are brought five times in a day in the mosque in the terms of perfect equality of mankind and thereby the foundation of a healthy social relationship is laid and established through prayer. At the end of Ramazan comes the new moon, the crescent as a signal for a mass gathering on the 'Id day again in perfect equality of mankind which effects the entire Muslim world.
Who knows when the end is reached? Death may be the beginning of life. How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his way home? How do I know that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?
Prayer is either petitional or, in its wider sense, inward communion.
All you have to do is walk into any children's hospital and you know there is no God. Prayer doesn't make any difference. Those people pray for their beloved children to live and they die.
Two of the central ingredients to our family are food and faith, so sitting down together and thanking God for the food He's provided means everything to us. Prayer is a natural part of our lives - not only around the dinner table but all day long.
The savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the Christian prays to a god he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful.
We must focus on prayer as the main thrust to accomplish God's will and purpose on earth. The forces against us have never been greater, and this is the only way we can release God's power to become victorious
Prayer steadies one when he is walking in slippery places - even if things asked for are not given.
Say, ye oppress'd by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye, to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease, To name the nameless ever-new disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain and that alone can cure; How would ye bear in real pain to lie, Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would ye bear to draw your latest breath, Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?
Obedience unites us so closely to God that it in a way transforms us into Him, so that we have no other will but His. If obedience is lacking, even prayer cannot be pleasing to God.
If for every well-intended prayer uttered in hopes of making the world a better place, there was instead a good deed accomplished, the world might look as though those prayers had been answered.
Without prolonged moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the word, of sincere conversation with the Lord, our work easily becomes meaningless; we lose energy as a result of weariness and difficulties, and our fervor dies out. The Church urgently needs the deep breath of prayer, and to my great joy groups devoted to prayer and intercession, the prayerful reading of God's word and the perpetual adoration of the Eucharist are growing at every level of ecclesial life.
O what their joy and their glory must be, Those endless sabbaths the blessed ones see! crowns for the valiant, for weary ones rest: God shall be all, and in all ever blest. Truly Jerusalem name we that shore, vision of peace that brings hope evermore; wish and fulfillment shall severed be ne'er, nor the thing prayed for come short of the prayer.