Prayer & Spirituality

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"Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to God's voice in the depths of our hearts." -- Mother Teresa

"Prayer can truly change your life. For it turns your attention away from yourself and directs your mind and your heart toward the Lord. If we look only at ourselves, with our own limitations and sins, we quickly give way to sadness and discouragement. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, then our hearts are filled with hope, our minds are washed in the light of truth and we come to know the fulness of the Gospel with all its promise and life." -- John Paull II to the youth at New Orleans, September 12, 1987

"Prayer may not save us, but it makes us worth saving." -- Rabbi Heschel

"We have to learn to pray. As it were, learning this art is ever anew from the lips of the divine master himself, like the first disciple: 'Lord, teach us to pray!'(Lk. 11:1) Prayer develops that conversation with Christ which makes us his intimate friends: 'Abide with me and I in you'(Jn. 15:4) This reciprocity is the very substance and soul of the Christian life and the condition of all true pastoral life. Wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, this reciprocity opens us through Christ and in Christ to contemplation of the Father's face.

Learning this Trinitarian shape of Christian prayer and living it fully, above all in the liturgy, the summit and source of the church's life but also in personal experience, is the secret of a truly vital Christianity. . . by opening our heart to the love of God, it also opens it to the love of our brothers and sisters, and makes us capable of shaping history according to God's plan." - Novo Millennio Ineunte