prayer

March 1997 (Vol. X, No. 3)

BLESSINGS BE YOURS, dear friends! As we enter the Spring season, may you each pause to enter the Chapel of your heart where in silence you can commune gently, lovingly, humbly, with the Heart within your heart.

The wonderful beauty of prayer

John Main Community of Love

The wonderful beauty of prayer is that the opening of our heart is as natural as the opening of a flower. Just as to let a flower open and bloom it is only necessary to let it be, so if we simply are, if we become and remain still and silent, our heart cannot but be open, the Spirit cannot but pour through into our whole being. It is for this we have been created.

You can do more than pray

S.D. Gordon

You can do more than pray -- but only after you have prayed.

The path of silence

Lauren Artress Walking a Sacred Path

The path of silence ... is the path of meditation or contemplation which leads us to the center of our being. We plant the seed of silence within ourselves by quieting the mind. We allow our minds to empty of thought so we can enter our own resounding silence, a state from which we gain deep refreshment... Experiencing the silence within is like opening a hidden door to the soul.

It is impossible to have a prayer without power

Gary Zukav The Seat of the Soul

Prayer is moving into a personal relationship with Divine Love and intelligence. It is impossible to have a prayer without power. It is impossible to have a thought that is a secret, for all energy is heard. When you pray, you draw to you and invoke grace. Grace is uncontaminated conscious Light. It is Divinity. Prayer brings grace and grace calms you. Grace is the tranquilizer of the soul. With grace comes a knowing that what you are experiencing is necessary. It calms you with a sense of knowing.

Are you aware that God visits with you?

Frere Roger Awakened from Within

Are you aware that God visits with you?
In a breath of silence, in a whisper,
God speaks to you humbly.
Simply remaining in silence,
in God's presence,
to receive the Spirit, is already prayer.
God will show you the way.
At times silence can be everything in prayer.

There is a time for silence and a time for speech

Unknown

"There is a time for silence and a time for speech." Teach me, O Holy One, the silence of humility, the silence of wisdom, the silence of love, the silence of perfection, the silence that speaks without words, the silence of faith. Teach me to silence my own heart that I may listen to the gentle movement of Thy Spirit within me and sense the depths which are of God.

Prayer is an opening of the heart

Diane Mariechild Open Mind

Prayer is an opening of the heart, an alignment with the beauty of the universe. We pray to open our hearts to spiritual power, the ability to sparkle, to shine warmth and light. We open to both the power of clear sight and the power of reflection, to actions that are thoughtful and kind.

When prayer becomes the one thing necessary

James Finley Merton's Palace of Nowhere

Prayer never touches us as long as it remains on the surface of our lives, as long as it is nothing but one more of a thousand things that must be done. It is only when prayer becomes "the one thing necessary" that real prayer begins. Prayer begins to take on its full dimensions only when we begin to intuit that the subtle nothingness of prayer is everything.

Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus

Eugene H. Peterson Earth and Altar

Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus: for God alone my soul waits. Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a will that is more important, more essential... In prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts. Waiting is our participation in the process that results in the "time fulfilled".

Opening up a two-way street between us and God

John Heuss

There are many different kinds of prayer. Yet all prayer has one basic purpose. We pray not to get something, but to open up a two-way street between us and God so that we (and others) may inwardly become something beautiful that we share with others.

Through prayer that we receive the courage to accomplish

Edward C. Sellner Wisdom of the Celtic Saints

For, it is through prayer that we receive the courage to accomplish what God, neighbor, and our deepest selves are calling us to do. It is when we pray that we are able to surrender to a higher power one day at a time, accepting whatever comes. It is the practise of prayer that can teach us true wisdom, the wisdom of compassion, the wisdom of the heart.

Inner stillness is perhaps our greatest ally

Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love

Inner stillness is perhaps our greatest ally. Gandhi once wrote that silence brings "the highest potency and is self-acting power." Prayer, meditation, reading scripture (which is, to me, alive with silence, embedded with sacred codes about our deepest mind) -- even quiet walks -- become healing acts. These quiet the world's noises and provide clues about who we are and our healthiest directions.

Let the prayer speak

Tito Colliander

When you pray,
you yourself must be silent.
Let the prayer speak.

Spiritual beings having human experiences

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We are not human beings having spiritual experiences; we are spiritual beings have human experiences.

The duty of prayer

Ohiyesa

In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty -- the duty of prayer -- the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. Daily devotions were more necessary than daily food... Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth and the Great Silence alone!

We need quiet time in the presence of God

We need quiet time in the presence of God. Although we want to make all our time time for God, we will never succeed if we do not reserve a specific and consistent amount of time to listen in the Silence. This asks for much discipline and risk-taking, because we often have something more urgent to do and "just sitting there" and "doing nothing" may disturb us more than it helps. But there is no way around this. Being useless and silent in the presence of God belongs to the core of all prayer. In the beginning, we often hear our own unruly inner noises more loudly than God's voice. This is at times very hard to tolerate. But slowly, very slowly, we discover that the silent time makes us quiet and deepens our awareness of ourselves and God. Then, very soon, we start to miss these moments when we are deprived of them, and before we are fully aware of it, an inner momentum has developed that draws us more and more into silence and closer to that still point where God speaks to us.

A simple intuition of the truth

Contemplation is the central human act that puts us perceptively and lovingly in touch with the innermost reality of everything because it is a simple intuition of the truth.

The silence of contemplation!

The silence of contemplation! Within each of us lie unknown gulfs of doubt, violence, secret distress ... as well as guilt, of things unacknowledged, so that gaping below our feet we sense an immense void. As we let divine love pray in us, trusting as a child, one day these gulfs will be inhabited. And, one day we shall discover that there has been a revolution in ourselves. With time, contemplation begets a happiness. And, that happiness is the drive behind our struggle for and with all people. It is courage, energy to take risks. It is overflowing gladness.

The door swung wide

I cried to God,
I beat upon the door
Until my knuckles bled;
God gave me no answer, gave no sign.
"There is no God," I sad.
I stopped my clamor
And lay spent,
A channel at ebb tide,
And slowly in the silence
The door swung wide.

The truth of the hermitage comes down to paradoxes

The truth of the hermitage comes down to paradoxes. It empties us so we may be filled; its simplicity is a luxury, and we go there seeking solitude so we can better serve God's people ... Whether we serve as parents, as pastors, as missionaries, as teachers, as peace-makers -- there is a monk in all of us. To get in touch with the silence of God is necessary for everyone. The hermitage allows people to get in touch with that silence. That does not mean the touch only happens here. But it can be refreshed here. It can be strengthened.

When everything we do is prayer

The life of prayer is a journey with God as well as toward God, a journey in which prayer becomes for those who pursue it as natural as breathing. The first big step is to cease talking TO God and start listening FOR God. And that requires silence. Silence is the language God speaks, and everything else is a translation. "As long as you know you are praying, you are not praying properly", says Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. When everything we do is prayer, the fruit is an increase in love, patience and compassion for others, leaving behind the unmistakable taste of holiness.

Prayer and meditation facilitate integration

In some religions, prayer is undertaken, not with the intention of influencing a deity, nor with any hope of prayers being directly answered, but in order to produce a harmonious state of mind. Prayer and meditation facilitate integration by allowing time for previously unrelated thoughts and feelings to interact. Being able to get in touch with one's deepest thoughts and feelings, and providing time for them to regroup themselves into new formations and combinations, are important aspects of the creative process, as well as a way of relieving tension and promoting mental health ... Human beings easily become alienated from their own deepest needs and feelings. Learning, thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one's own inner world are all facilitated by solitude.

Blessed are You, Heart of my heart!

Blessed are You, Heart of my heart!
for You heed the cry of my spirit.
You are my strength and my protection;
into your hands I commend my soul.
My heart leaps as You come to my aid,
and my lament becomes
a song of exultation,
a shout of praise to You,
O my Comforter!

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