More about Prayer

When I wrote yesterday about prayer, using Ruth Burrows' quotes, I felt like I could not add anything else; it was too long already. So I am now going to put the rest of her words that follow St. John of the Cross' loosely translated words: "God is always at work and God's work is God," which you can see at Prayer is what God does.

"Such must be our certain faith. Given this understanding and the resolution to stand by it, there can be no problems about prayer, nor can there be any illusions. Anxieties, problems, doubts about our prayer can only arise when we are viewing prayer essentially as what we do for God; and so, of course, what we do becomes very important to us and we are anxious to get it right. Firmly grasping that this is not the case, but that prayer is always rather what God does for us, in us, through us and that our part is simply to be there, as simply and humbly as a child, for Him to act, we are always at peace, never discouraged. We might think that we fail all the time, that we 'can't pray', or that our hour of prayer seems, perhaps, a wash-out from start to finish. But we can smile at ourselves and tell ourselves it doesn't matter: the hour has been full of God because we have wanted to give God that time and receive from Him there all that He has to give." (178-179)

Burrows, Ruth. Essence of Prayer. Mahwah, NJ: Hiddenspring. 2006.