If you really wish to follow Christ, if you want your love for him to grow and last, then you must be faithful to prayer. It is the key to the vitality of your life in Christ. Without prayer, your faith and love will die. If you are constant in daily prayer and in the Sunday celebration of Mass, your love for Jesus will increase. And your heart will know deep joy and peace, such as the world could never give.
Christ remains primary in your life only when he enjoys the first place in your mind and heart. Thus you must continuously unite yourself to him in prayer.... Without prayer there can be no joy, no hope, no peace. For prayer is what keeps us in touch with Christ.
He has chosen you, in a mysterious but real way, to make you saviors with Him and like Him. Yes, Christ calls you, but He calls you in truth. His call is demanding, because He invites you to let yourselves be 'captured' by Him completely, so that your whole lives will be seen in a different light.
I believe above the storm, the smallest prayer will still be heard. I believe that someone in that great somewhere hears every word.
Let him never cease from prayer, who has once begun to pray, even though his life is ever so bad. For prayer is the only way to amend one's life and without prayer it will never be mended. Let him not be tempted of the devil, as I was, to give up prayer on account of one's unworthiness. Let such a one rather believe that if he will only repent and pray, our Lord will still hear and answer.
We prepare the ground for our prayer when we shed something which is not Christ's, which is unworthy of him, and only the prayer of one who can, like St. Paul say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me,' is real Christian prayer.
There is no place for fear among men and women who Almighty, who do not hesitate to humble themselves in seeking divine guidance through prayer. Though persecutions arise, though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul. That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life's greatest blessing. .
When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed. Men and women changed for Christ will be captained by Christ. Their will is swallowed up in His will. They do always those things that please the Lord. Not only would they die for the Lord, but more important they want to live for Him. They stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places. They have Christ on their minds, as they look unto Him in every thought. They have Christ in their hearts as their affections are placed on Him forever.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer will still be heard.
When I started out on my pilgrimage, I was using walking for two purposes at that time. One was to contact people, and I still use it for that purpose today. But the other was as a prayer discipline. To keep me concentrated on my prayer for peace. And after a few years I discovered something. I discovered that I no longer needed the prayer discipline. I pray without ceasing now. My personal prayer is: Make me an instrument through which only truth can speak.
Winter invites white; white invites silence; silence invites peace. You see, there is so much peace in walking on the snow!
If every call to Christ and His righteousness is a call to suffering, the converse is equally - every call to suffering is a call to Christ, a promotion, an invitation to come up higher.
I'm not sure where I heard it or why I believed it but when I was in my mid-twenties, a few words changed my approach to and experience of prayer. The words were these: 'Every thought you think is a prayer. Every word you speak is a prayer. Every act in which you engage is a prayer, because the Spirit of God lives in you.' Now, how awesome is that?
Prayer worth calling prayer, prayer that God will call true prayer and will treat as true prayer, takes for more time by the clock than one man in a thousand thinks.
When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking about Christ.
Prayer makes a godly man, and puts within him "the mind of Christ," the mind of humility, of self-surrender, of service, of pity, and of prayer. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying.