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- God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,
- And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
- A gauntlet with a gift in 't.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, Aurora Leigh
As men's prayers are a disease of the will so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Essays
Souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use.
TERESA OF AVILA, The Interior Castle
When the gods would make us mad, they answer our prayers.
DAVID MAMET, Speed-the-Plow
- My God, is any hour so sweet
- From blush of morn to evening star,
- As that which calls me to Thy feet
- The hour of prayer?
CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT, My God, Is Any Hour So Sweet
In our search for the holy, there are times when our restless preparations smother the very truth for which are searching. We decorate our rooms and make elaborate preparations for our prayer, when a single flower and a moment of waiting are all we need to meed the One Who Comes.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, Seasons of Your Heart
The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls.
MOTHER TERESA, A Gift for God
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is "thank you," it will be enough.
MEISTER ECKHART, Woman's Day Magazine, Nov. 13, 2007
It is not possible to engage in the direct apostolate without being a soul of prayer. We must be aware of oneness with Christ, as he was aware of oneness with his Father. Our activity is truly apostolic only insofar as we permit him to work in us and through us with his power, with his desire, with his love.
MOTHER TERESA, A Gift for God
I strain toward God; God strains toward me. I ache for God; God aches for me. Prayer is mutual yearning, mutual straining, mutual aching.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, A Tree Full of Angels
- The fruit
- and the purpose
- of prayer
- is
- to be oned with
- and like
- God
- in all things.
JULIAN OF NORWICH, Meditations with Julian of Norwich
There are people who do not find it necessary to use words or ideas for meditation. We know that we can hear a song, sung in a language of which we know not one word, but of the rhythm, the melody of it finds an answer in our heart, it echoes from our own soul. We can understand it without being able to translate a word of it into our own speech. For some, prayer is like that. The muted music of the human, suffering Christ touches a responsive chord in their own being. They do not require words and images, and indeed cannot use them. They cannot explain. They have no words, even for Christ. Perhaps they do not understand the music themselves. Perhaps if they uttered it aloud it would only confuse the world. It would not sound in their voice as it sounds in their souls.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER, This War is the Passion
If you just sit around praying, nothing gets done.
NORA ROBERTS, Blue Smoke
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