LA Times on prayer:
Prayer does not come easily for most people.
All too often, distracting thoughts and feelings surface, perhaps an unfinished project at work, lingering frustration over a spat with a loved one, or simply fatigue. So, how to pray when one doesn’t feel like it?
By understanding what prayer is, experts say.
And that article made me think of what some others have written:
“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trail and joy.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux (quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2558).
“If a man prays to God and perceives that he is praying, he is not perfectly attentive to his prayer. He diverts his attention from God, to whom he prays, in order to think of the prayer by which he prays. … Do you wish to contemplate God? Then turn your gaze on Him, and be attentive to that. If you reflect and turn your eyes down upon yourself to see how you look when you look at Him, then it is not God that you behold; it is your own behavior, it is yourself. A man in fervent prayer does not know whether he prays or not, for he does not think of the prayer he makes, but of God, to whom he makes it.” St. Francis de Sales.
“‘Minutes of silence’. Leave silence for those whose hearts are dry. We Catholics, children of God, speak with our Father who is in heaven.” St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 115.
“You write. ‘In my spiritual reading I build up a store of fuel. — It looks like a lifeless heap, but I often find that my memory, of its own accord, will draw from it material which fills my prayer with life and inflames my thanksgiving after Communion.’” Ibid., 116.
“Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him. … There is no time or place in which it is inappropriate to offer up a petition to God. There is nothing that can prevent us from lifting up our hearts in the spirit of earnest prayer. In the crowds of the street, in the midst of a business engagement, we may send up a petition to God and plead for divine guidance, as did Nehemiah when he made his request before King Artaxerxes. A closet of communion may be found wherever we are. We should have the door of the heart open continually and our invitation going up that Jesus may come and abide as a heavenly guest in the soul.” Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ.
