June 10 2002

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed … in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening.

Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.

There's more gossip passed around under the guise of prayer request than anything I know.

Prayer, as St. Theresa tells us, consists not in speaking a lot, but in loving a lot.

We pray best when we are no longer aware of praying.

As the floor is swept everyday, so is the soul cleansed everyday by confession.

Those people who pray know what most around them either don't know or choose to ignore: centering life in the insatiable demands of the ego is the sure path to doom . …They know that life confined to the self is a prison, a joy-killing, neurosis-producing, disease-fomenting prison.

I am reminded that one old saint was asked, "Which is the more important: reading God's Word or praying?" To which he replied, "Which is more important to a bird: the right wing or the left?"

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Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or for bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. It is by prayer that we seek God's will, embrace it and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme, "Your will be done." Our Master taught us to say this in the pattern prayer he gave us, and added the supreme ...