Why pray?Here are 5 pretty good reasons from prayerful people. . .
1. “Prayer deepens our intimacy with God and transforms us into our truest self, humbling us and creating us anew.”
St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi at age 16 by Santi di Tito (1583)
Let us pray because . . .
2. “Prayer is the bridge between our conscious and unconscious lives.
One of Henri Nouwen’s many classic books on spirituality.
“Often there is a large abyss between our thoughts, words, and actions, and the many images that emerge in our daydreams and night dreams. To pray is to connect these two sides of our lives by going to the place where God dwells.
“Prayer is ‘soul work” because our souls are those sacred centers where all is one and where God is with us in the most intimate way.”
— Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey
We should pray because . . .
Her Greatness Anne Lamott
3. “[Prayer] is certainly not what TV Christians mean. It’s not for display purposes, like plastic sushi or neon. Prayer is private, even when we pray with others. It is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Let’s say it is communication from one’s heart to God. Or if that is too triggering or ludicrous a concept for you, to the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we don’t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Let’s say it is what the Greeks called the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions, and wounds. Or let’s say it is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital L’s.”
— Anne Lamott in Help, Thanks, Wow
N.T. Wright: On everybody’s short list of greatest living theologians
4. We pray because . . .
“The new life of the Spirit, to which Christians are called in the present age, is not a matter of sitting back and enjoying spiritual comforts in a private, relaxed, easygoing spirituality, but consists rather of the unending struggle in the mystery of prayer, the struggle to bring God’s wise, healing order into the world now, in implementation of the victory of the cross and anticipation of the final redemption.”
— From Evil and the Justice of God by Anglican theologian N.T. “Tom” Wright
Words of wisdom from Mother Teresa, who was wealthy in wisdom.
Because . . .
5. “God has created us to love and to be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer—-to know that He loves me, that I have been created for greater things.”
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Anne Lamott, Tom Wright & more on why we pray (Noon Wine)
February 2, 2016 by Rev. Paul McKay
I have a list of those whom I recognize as saints – particular friends of the Most High Lord – and Henri Nouwen is at the top. I do not understand how he is not yet recognized by the wider Catholic Church. And while we are at it: I would delight to see Archbishop William Laud as well as King Charles Ist (Stuart), K&M, universally recognized and serve as patrons of of the Church…that Church they gave their full measure to secure the continued life thereof.
My little hermitage – dedicated to the preservation and usage of The Authorized King James Version of the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer, 1928, and the Anglican Breviary, has as two of its Heavenly Patrons, King Charles and St. Athanasius. Athanasius had a wry sense of humor, which saved his life on more than one occasion, but at the Council of Nicaea, he was also a staunch defender of the Trinity, a TRUTH I am not certain we focus on enough today, as though HE is ignorable.