Quotes About Prayer

The practice of the presence of God, though we begin it at special times of prayer, is designed to spill out and over and into all times.

We pray, not simply as some solitary self-improvement program, but because we have been addressed by God. Prayer is a response to a prior divine invitation.

Praying anywhere can easily become praying nowhere, just as praying anytime can easily become praying at no time. Everything in general becomes nothing in particular.

nothing else can ever cure our sick world except saints, and saints are never made except by prayer.

We pray to obey God, not to "play God". We pray, not to change God's mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let God command us. We pray to "let God be God". Prayer is our obedience to God even when it asks God for things, for God has commanded us to ask (Mt 7:7).

First, you must read it, not as you read other books, but slowly and thoughtfully (that is why I made it very short) and above all prayerfully, that is, under the eye of God, in the presence of Truth and therefore in absolute honesty. Second, you must actually do it, not just read about doing it, think about doing it, understand how to do it, plan to do it, or imagine yourself doing it. It is a cookbook, not a dinner.

Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life.

For even though our prayer-contact with God may be almost infinitely poor, the God we thus contact is infinitely rich!

Delight is a subjective reason for praying, but it is a valid one.

Therefore the prayers we offer in the Mass for the world are far more powerful than the prayers we offer outside the Mass, even if the prayers we offer outside the Mass are the same prayers, and even if there are more of them, and even if they are offered for the same people, or for more people, and even if they are offered with the same faith and devotion on our part, or even with a little more faith and devotion on our part.

Belief in angels makes an even bigger difference if you believe in God and pray, because your prayers to God to send angel help will be answered.

God, I don't know whether you exist or not. Maybe I'm praying to nobody, but maybe I'm praying to you. So if you are really there, please let me know somehow, because I do want to know. I want only the Truth, whatever it is. If you are the Truth, here I am, ready and willing to follow you wherever you lead.

Webster growled a Webster kind of prayer: "God Almighty, here is two more meek that has inherited Your earth." Webster spoke in his own peculiar way; we never did learn how to hear him.

Too many times we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be swept asunder.

Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive.

When we were alive, they told us that when we died we'd go to heaven. And they said that heaven was a place of joy and glory and we would spend eternity in the company of saints and angels praising the Almighty, in a state of bliss. That's what they said. And that's what led some of us to give our lives, and others to spend years in solitary prayer, while all the joy of life was going to waste around us, and we never knew.

There had to be forces outside. The prayer went, Lead me not in temptation. If people were not led by others, why was the famous prayer that it was?

Prayer is easily ruined when we make it a project - part of a spiritual self-improvement plan. Rather than pushing yourself forward by resolve, allow God to lead you by desire. The most typical evidence of grace at work within us is not awareness of duty but awareness of desire.

We do not pray so that we can get God's attention. We pray so that God will get our attention.

I accept Augustine's maxim of solvitor ambulando - things are solved by walking.' Sometimes when I walk, I think of God, and sometimes I explicitly direct worded thoughts to God. But my walking prayer is in no way limited to these times when I specifically speak to God. The whole experience is prayer when I walk with openness before God.

The only thing we should seek in prayer is God. When we focus on how we are doing or what we are getting out of prayer, we have taken our eyes off God and put them back on our self.

Teresa of Avila says that the important thing in prayer is not to think much but to love much. The head is not a bad place to start our prayer journey. But if prayer stays there too long and does not begin to sink to the heart, it will inevitably become arid and frustrating.

If we are honest, most of us have to admit that prayer is often more of an obligation than something arising spontaneously from desire . . . the core of the misunderstanding lies in thinking of prayer as something that we do. Understood more correctly, prayer is what God does in us. Our part has much more to do with consent than initiative.

This is where you must each make a prayer to Saint Vladmir-" We were at the final hatch. "Saint Vladmir…?" "I made up. He is the patron saint of smugglers. I smuggled him to heaven. Now let's see if he is appropriately grateful.