Sunday, December 3, 2017

On Prayer

The following excerpt on prayer is from an article at  http://www.holyfamilybordeaux.org/reflection/prayer/

“C.S. Lewis, in the play ‘Shadowlands’ by William Nicholson, says, “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.” Kahlil Gibran goes further when he says: “You pray in your distress and in your need: would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance…”

Prayer is gift. St Augustine says that in prayer we open our hearts to receiving what God intends to give. Matt Talbot prayed for the gift of prayer and he tells us that it was given to him “in abundance.”
In prayer we bring together the whole of Creation, so that in the words of St Paul,“all things may be united in Christ – things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:10)”