By our prayer we share the life of God. True prayer demands that we be more passive than active; it requires more silence than words, more adoration than study, more concentration than rushing about, more faith than reason. The highest state of prayer is to be children in the arms of Love: silent, loving, rejoicing.
–Carlo Coretto (1910-1988)
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)
It is true that Jesus said, “Go, and make disciples of all nations.” But he also added, “Without me you can do nothing.” It is true that Saint Ignatius said, “Act as though everything depended upon you.” But he added, “But pray as though everything depended upon God.” God is the creator of the physical cosmos as well as of the human cosmos. He rules the stars as he rules the church. And if, in his love, he has wished to make us his collaborators in the work of salvation, the limit of our power is very small and clearly defined. It is the limit of the wire compared with the electric current. We are the wire, God is the current. Our only power is to let the current pass though us. Of course, we have the power to interrupt it and say “no.” But nothing more.…
–Carlo Coretto (1910-1988)
I feel immersed in God like a drop in the ocean, like a star in the immensity of night; like a lark in the summer sun or a fish in the sea.
–Carlo Coretto (1910-1988)
