Quotes about Prayer

In fact, I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those effects down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives.

Prayer is essentially the practice of the presence of God, and that is the road to Heaven. There is no alternative. God is the only game in town. All other roads are dead ends. Since we must give our all to the one true God, we must not give any part to idols, to the many false gods that now bite away at our lives.

God makes it easy to begin: just do it! God also makes it easy to progress in prayer, for he rewards our efforts with peace and joy. And he makes it easiest of all at the end, for it gradually becomes more natural and delightful.

But that is all prayer requires: faith, hope, and love. Great holiness, or piety, or sanctity are not required. Prayer is a road to holiness.

The practice of the presence of God, though we begin it at special times of prayer, is designed to spill out and over and into all times.

We pray, not simply as some solitary self-improvement program, but because we have been addressed by God. Prayer is a response to a prior divine invitation.

Praying anywhere can easily become praying nowhere, just as praying anytime can easily become praying at no time. Everything in general becomes nothing in particular.

nothing else can ever cure our sick world except saints, and saints are never made except by prayer.

We pray to obey God, not to "play God". We pray, not to change God's mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let God command us. We pray to "let God be God". Prayer is our obedience to God even when it asks God for things, for God has commanded us to ask (Mt 7:7).

First, you must read it, not as you read other books, but slowly and thoughtfully (that is why I made it very short) and above all prayerfully, that is, under the eye of God, in the presence of Truth and therefore in absolute honesty. Second, you must actually do it, not just read about doing it, think about doing it, understand how to do it, plan to do it, or imagine yourself doing it. It is a cookbook, not a dinner.

Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life.

Delight is a subjective reason for praying, but it is a valid one.