Posted on 08/25/2016 7:14:46 AM PDT by Salvation
The Lord says that we have to pray and indicates that without prayer we will give way to temptation. Thus prayer is essential for us to escape sin and keep our lives on the right path. While God offers many graces to overcome sin and live holy lives, those graces are often delivered through the doorway of prayer. Prayer is God’s way of knocking at the door of our heart; prayer is our way of answering. Prayer is God’s offer and prayer is our response. Jesus says,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me (Rev 3:20).
The shared meal referred to here, beyond its reference to the Eucharist, is also a sign of intimacy. While our culture is casual about eating (and just about everything else), in those days sharing a meal was not done with just anyone. Meals were shared with close family and friends. That is one reason that people of Jesus’ time were often surprised to see the people with whom Jesus shared meals. St. Peter also shocked the people of his time when he entered the household of a Gentile (Cornelius) and ate with him (Acts 10 & 11).
So, Jesus knocking at the door of our heart, seeking entrance, and sharing a meal, is a sign of reverence and intimacy. And we surely also need the food He offers: His Word and His Word made flesh.
Yes, prayer is both beautiful and essential.
Yet many Christians find prayer difficult. To some degree, our difficulties today are greater than in previous eras due to the constant noise and abundant distractions of our time. So noisy and frantic are our lives that sitting still and being silent is downright unnerving for many.
This is all the more reason that we must pray and pray well!
Learning to pray is not just a “fake it till you make it” proposition. As with any other area of life, we need to be taught; we can benefit from the experience of those who have gone before us. While it is true that prayer must be more than a “technique,” it is also true that prayer is more than a vague and purely subjective experience. Thus teaching can help us to find what is best and to avoid pitfalls that can discourage us.
Of all the books on prayer I recommend, The Fulfillment of All Desire by Dr. Ralph Martin is at the very top of my list. Anyone for whom I have been a spiritual director will attest that my first request of him or her is to obtain a copy of Dr. Martin’s book and begin reading it.
The book is valuable not only due to Ralph’s own wonderful insights, but also because he organizes and summarizes the teachings of the great Doctors of prayer (from the Catholic and Western traditions) so well. He draws heavily from St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis De Sales, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
He organizes the material along the fundamental stages of prayer: the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way. In the purgative stage we seek, by God’s grace, to identify our sins and attachments and to become increasingly free of them. We undergo basic conversion and begin to develop the habit of prayer. In the illuminative stage we see our love for and intimacy with God and neighbor increase, the virtues grow stronger within us, and our prayer become quieter and deeper. In the unitive stage, having made progress by grace, we receive a habitual, deep, and ever-deepening union with God, marked by joy, humility, and stability.
In his presentation of each stage, Dr. Martin samples richly from the writings of the saints and the teaching of the Church. He also gives much practical advice that helps to root the teaching within the setting of the modern world. He goes to the sources and brings them to us, applying their wisdom to our situation.
Simply put, the book is essential to anyone who seeks a guide to prayer.
And, dear readers, I hope you do seek a guide to prayer, for prayer is essential. Jesus said that temptation is looming, and if we don’t pray our lives can go off track pretty quickly without that remedy. But the Lord did not leave us alone to respond to so great a summons! He has sent us saints and biblical wisdom to teach us. And in our times, He anointed Dr. Ralph Martin to compile and present this wisdom to us freshly and comprehensively.
If you don’t have a copy of The Fulfillment of All Desire, go sell all that you have and buy one! 🙂
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And every rhetorical question begs a thousand answers.
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The cultural equivalent?
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As commonly preached and understood ... yes
Unless the question or statement was essentially yes / no
The Bible CAN be used for prayer, besides the Psalms, for example there is the “Song of Moses” which is often is sung on Holy Saturday eve to Easter. That is one example.
According to our view, they had Catholic priests from the Pentecost.
But not all writers or teachers on prayer are priests. Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich couldn’t pass the physical.
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and yet many of those in the Upper Room for Pentecost were also women...and the Holy Spirit fell on them also (just like the men...)
oh dear they were eligible to be Catholic priests after all...
:(
the Mormons require us to do “further reading” also...
they insist on Joey Smith’s book of mormon...
But even in prayer there is time wasted “reinventing the wheel.”
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again...you mentioned Pentecost...
there is never a wasted prayer if it is prayed in (unknown) tongues...
also anytime we call on God He listens...
He would rather listen to a red neck who has a ghastly accent and stumbles over the words trying to express himself but loves God, than the pope with all his perfect languages and pronunciations...and written directions..
Who is talking about we NEED to know? Not me?
“MY reference is to YOUR reference to a book a man wrote, NOT what the scripture says ...”
And you’re still denying Jesus. Jesus taught us how to pray to the Father. You wrote: “I don’t need a book describing, explaining or teaching me how to talk to my Dad .. !”
Luke’s gospel shows Jesus describing, explaining, and teaching how to talk to His Father. Thus, by your own logic, you don’t need Luke’s Gospel.
“Use your God given brain to parse your own language !”
My language doesn’t need parsing.
“Protestants may ... but believers don’t.”
And there you’re saying that Protestants aren’t believers.
“Jesus NEVER said; “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” (Luke 11:1-13).” NEVER”
Luke says He did. Luke was inspired. You’re not. Luke wins.
“It had nothing to do with anything.”
Your posts rarely do.
Changing the subject and assuming what I did not say.
Yes, in a way I do. The Bible does not, by itself, teach you everything you need to know about being a spouse or a parent. It does not teach you everything you need to know about HOW to put up with the one person in the group who ruins things for everyone else.
Like “complete” the word “need” has slight differences in meaning for different applications or contexts.
It gets my attention that people mostly tall about prayer as though it were nothing but us telling God stuff. But that may not be all it is. And people respond to Monsignor Pope’s article as though he were saying that one sort of prayer was more likely to be heard than another.
I don’t know what he thinks, but I doubt he thinks that God is hard of hearing.
Tell you what: if you don’t think a book on prayer would help you in any way, don’t read it.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
I am not protesting anything
Yes, it does teach you everything you NEED to know.
What it doesn't tell you is all the answers to the want to know questions.
And much of what is needed to know about being a good spouse is not labeled under the heading of *spouse*. There are things that make a good spouse that are covered in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles that are part of the *one another's*.
And of course, Proverbs is a treasure house of stuff for getting along with people.
Don’t know much about Mormons. Never had the occasion to care. I will read the recommended book, though. Sounds interesting.
I believe you are wrong.
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