Prayer repairs…
Prayer is the means by which we can repair all that is broken.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582
Begin in silence…
I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence, so we need to listen. For, it is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul — as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul — and it brings us closer to God.
–Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)
For beginners, prayer is…
For beginners prayer is like a joyous fire kindled in the heart; for the perfect it is like a vigorous sweet-scented light. –Saint Gregory of Sinai (c. 1295-1346)
We are what we pray…
Prayer is the sum of our relationship with God. We are what we pray. The degree of our faith is the degree of our prayer. The strength of our hope is the strength of our prayer. The warmth of our charity is the warmth of our prayer. No more nor less.
Our prayer has had a beginning because we have had a beginning. But it will have no end. It will accompany us into eternity and will be completed in our contemplation of God, when we join in the harmony of heaven and are ‘filled with the flood of God’s delights.’ The story of our earthly-heavenly life will be the story of our prayer.
–Carlo Coretto (1910-1988)
Devote ourselves to prayer…
But we must above all devote ourselves to prayer; for prayer is like a choir-leader in the choir of virtues, by means of which we ask God for the virtues we still lack. Devotion to prayer unites the Christian to God in the communion of a mystic sanctity, in a spiritual possession and a disposition of the soul that no words can describe. With the Spirit then to guide and help him, his love for the Lord like a bright flame, he prays unceasingly in ardent desire, always burning with love for the divine good and refreshing his soul with renewed zeal.
–Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395)
Everything that is done…
Everything that is done for God becomes a prayer!
–Saint Gerard Majella (1726-1755)
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