Quotes About Prayer

In fact, prayer and certainty are the same thing; both mean the power to truly see into the future, the true future, not the image of the eternal return of the past: no one prays for the sun to come up tomorrow.

In fact, prayer and certainty are the same thing; both mean the power to truly see into the future, the true future, not the image of the eternal return of the past: no one prays for the sun to come up tomorrow. Through belief, we see the future and already inhabit it.

Spontaneous prayer, sincerely expressed, may be a very important way to speak to the Lord. However, the prayers that we have received from the Church are important ways of teaching us how to pray in theologically correct ways and may even be superior if our spontaneous prayers express untrue notions of God or our relationship to him.

D iscerning God's will is not an experience of warm and fuzzy feelings. Rather, it means recognizing and choosing things that are good in themselves and are the good things that God wants us to do. In our discernment process, we need balance, and we can achieve this by integrating our intellect, our will, and our emotions into our prayer and discernment. All three are necessary to discern God's will properly. Each one in isolation can be inadequate for the task.

First and foremost in this struggle, we need an authentic prayer life that deepens our relationship with God and reconciles us to him. We must also have a desire to choose for our lives whatever gives the greater glory to God, which requires that we be "equal-minded"—happy with whatever good option that we discern our Lord most wants for our lives.

Irish fishermen's prayer: "Dear God, be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.

O God! I ask You for the means to do good, to avoid evil and to love the poor.

It is better in prayer to have a heart without words then words without a heart

Each one prays to God according to his own light.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

He attracted the eyes of the whole congregation by the fervency with which he sent up his prayers to Heaven.

She crossed herself and started to pray in that loose, easy way Roman Catholics do: 'Holy Mary, pray for us now and in the hour of our death … Merciful Jesus

Gabe, did you pray?' 'Sort of.' 'Me too. Do you believe?' 'No. Do you?' 'No.' 'I don't believe,' said Gabriel, 'But I have faith, if you know what I mean.' 'What in?' 'I don't know, life, carrying on, I suppose.' 'Yes.

Oh Lord please don't burn us don't kill or toast your flock. Don't put us on the barbecue or simmer us in stock. Don't bake or baste or boil us or stir-fry us in a wok.

And people pray—millions of them—and claim they are answered. Are they? Was ever supplication sent into that sky by troubled humanity answered, or even heard? Who knows? They pray for rain and sunshine, and both come in time. They pray for health and success and both are but natural in the marching of events. This is not evidence. But they say that they know, by spiritual uplifting, that they are heard, and comforted, and answered at the moment.

True prayer has no set form

[I]t seems as if pain were the prayer of the nerve for healthy blood.

Saint Benedict of Nursia in Italy (c. 480-c. 543) brought common sense to monastic practice. His famous Rule encouraged asceticism and otherworldliness, without leading to excess. It prescribed, in reasonable proportions, prayer, praise, study, and labor in the fields. The Rule is still the guide for many monasteries.

I feel the life slipping out of me. When the pain comes, I cry out, but there is no prayer in it, only fear. I kneel and recite my office and the Rosary but the words are empty - dry gourds rattling in the silence. The dark is terrible and I feel so alone. I see no signs but the symbols of contradiction. I try to dispose myself to faith, hope and charity, but my will is a blown reed in the winds of despair.

If prayer fails I am in a greater darkness yet, not knowing whether I have presumed too much or believed too little.

One solved nothing by waving the commandments like a bludgeon at people's heads. There was no point in shouting damnation at a man who was already walking himself to hell on his own two feet. One had to pray for the Grace of God and then go probing like a good psychologist for the fear that might condition him to repentance or the love that might draw him toward it.

I come from a family of very devout, praying people. That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind.

Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.

God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.