Thoughts on Prayer

Prayer is “an intimate sharing between friends, a frequent lingering in solitude with Him Who we know loves us” (St. Teresa. Life 8, 5). The dignity of the human person consists in our direct and conscious relationship with the Mystery Who gives us being. We share with angels the privilege of praising, adoring and serving Him. Unlike angels, however, we cannot see God face to face while we journey on earth. Our personal and free response to the fact of God takes the form of faith, hope and love.

To grow in the life of prayer, we need to keep the Word of God in our minds and hearts. The more we come to know Jesus, the more we will love Him and we will come to experience that only Christ can fully satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. At the center of our community is the abiding Eucharistic Presence of Christ, through Whom we are united with the whole Church.

Prayer and self-indulgence cannot co-exist. In order for prayer to permeate our entire existence, we need to create an atmosphere that favors communion with God. This is the reason for fasting, silence, solitude, study, manual work, and the practical virtues called for in community life. Prayer awakens our awareness of the meaning within all of reality. Life becomes an awesome adventure of faith, between God’s interventions and our freedom, through which we allow the Holy Spirit to gradually transform us into the likeness of Christ for the sake of His Church.

“Those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them…such love is possible: it becomes so as a result of the most intimate union with God, through which the soul is totally pervaded by Him – a condition which enables those who have drunk from the fountain of God’s Love to become in their turn a fountain”

(DEUS CARITAS EST. 42).