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Reflection: Becoming Prayer
Catholic Online ^ | 8/22/09 | Deacon Keith Fournier

Posted on 08/22/2009 5:01:15 AM PDT by tcg

Prayer is an ongoing dialogue of intimate communion with God. God fashioned men and women as the crown of His creation, creating us in “His Image”, for this loving, relational conversation of life with Him. ... The Lord wants us to freely choose to respond to His continual invitations to love. We will only find our fulfillment as human persons by entering into that kind of relationship. This is the meaning and purpose of life itself. ...Prayer is about falling in love with God. Isaac of Ninevah was an early eighth century monk, Bishop and theologian. For centuries he was mostly revered in the Eastern Christian Church for his writings on prayer. ... He wrote these words in one of his many treatises on Prayer:

“When the Spirit dwells in a person, from the moment in which that person has become prayer, he never leaves him. For the Spirit himself never ceases to pray in him. Whether the person is asleep or awake, prayer never from then on departs from his soul. Whether he is eating or drinking or sleeping or whatever else he is doing, even in deepest sleep, the fragrance of prayer rises without effort in hid heart. Prayer never again deserts him. At every moment of his life, even when it appears to stop, it is secretly at work in him continuously, one of the Fathers, the bearers of Christ, says that prayer is the silence of the pure. For their thoughts are divine motions. The movements of the heart and the intellect that have been purified are the voices full of sweetness with which such people never cease to sing in secret to the hidden God.”

(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Orthodox Christian; Prayer; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; contemplation; prayer; worship
Through prayer, daily life takes on new meaning. It becomes a classroom of communion. In that classroom we learn the truth about who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus.
1 posted on 08/22/2009 5:01:16 AM PDT by tcg
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To: tcg

such a sweet post! My prayers are more along the spontaneous kind, throughout the day and whenever I feel the need or desire to “talk to God.” And, I try more and more to just be still and let Him talk to me (after all, even Moses had to be told to “be still and know that I am God!” Learned a long time ago to Praise, Rejoice, Ask, Yield. That’s the format I’ve taught my daughter and sometimes at night her evening prayers are so touching they bring tears to my eyes.

I’m doing a Beth Moore study in my church right now—it’s on Esther. I am SO enjoying studying His Word and learning how the OT still applies to today.

Obviously, I’m not a Catholic, but we who believe in Christ must pray and pray constantly that God will have mercy on us. Again, thank you for your post!


2 posted on 08/22/2009 5:29:17 AM PDT by sassy steel magnolia (USAF life and Navy wife...God Bless the USA!)
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To: tcg

Thank you for the post.


3 posted on 08/22/2009 5:55:53 AM PDT by squarebarb
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