Prayer is our personal response to God’s presence. We approach the Lord reverently with a listening heart. God speaks first. In prayer, we acknowledge the Divine presence and in gratitude respond to God in love. The focus is always on God and on what God does.
–Jacqueline Syrup Bergan and Marie Schwan (1983)
Prayer finds its source in God’s holiness and it is at the same time our response to this holiness.
–Saint John Paul (1920-2005)
It seems as if we were created for prayer. Prayer is the only bond that links us to God. It stands before our hearts as the eternal life, which is our hope. Prayer is the condition in which we discover our own divine image, on which the stamp of the Holy Trinity is impressed. When we lose prayer, we actually lose the glory of our image, and we no longer resemble God in any way. God draws us to himself through prayer, and through prayer we mysteriously travel toward him in a manner too deep to understand. In fact, through prayer we draw God to ourselves, and he comes to us and makes his home with us.
–Matthew the Poor aka Matta El-Meskeen (1919-2006)
Vocal prayer consists in making use of a ready-made formula of words provided for us, trying to mean what we say.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
To the extent that prayer is a colloquy, discussion, or conversation of the soul with God, then by prayer we speak to God and God in turn speaks to us. We aspire to God and breathe in God; God reciprocally inspires us and breathes upon us.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul “prays in us with unspeakable groanings.”
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
