Religious Behaviour And Experience

"For beginners prayer is like a joyous fire kindled in the heart; for the perfect it is like a vigorous sweet-scented light. Or again, prayer is the preaching of the Apostles, an action of faith or, rather, faith itself, 'that makes real for us the things for which we hope' (Heb. 11:1), active love, angelic impulse, the power of the bodiless spirits, their work and delight, the Gospel of God, the heart's assurance, hope of salvation, a sign of purity, a token of holiness, knowledge of God, baptism made manifest, purification in the water of regeneration, a pledge of the Holy Spirit, the exultation of Jesus, the soul's delight, God's mercy, a sign of reconciliation, the seal of Christ, a ray of the noetic sun, the heart's dawn-star, the confirmation of the Christian faith, the disclosure of reconciliation with God, God's grace, God's wisdom or, rather, the origin of true and absolute Wisdom; the revelation of God, the work of monks, the life of hesychasts, the source of stillness, and expression of the angelic state. Why say more? Prayer is God, who accomplishes everything in everyone (cf. 1 Cor. 12:6), for there is a single action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, activating all things through Christ Jesus."

"Narrated As-Saburah: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Command a boy to pray when he reaches the age of seven years. When he becomes ten years old, then beat him for prayer."

"Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately."

"What returns does prayer show? None, if it is real prayer. For prayer is for growth. We can therefore, never return to what we were thank heaven, for we are growers. So prayer is a call. And it's answered by a call. We call up and we are called on. We're summoned, told to advance, to grow. That's the nerve of prayer, as prayer is the nerve of religion."

"He that will learn to pray, let him go to Sea."

"In prayer the lips ne'er act the winning part Without the sweet concurrence of the heart."

"Prayer invites the Eternal Presence to suffuse or spirits and let God's will prevail in our lives. Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will."

"The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. .... Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost."

"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be? The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster. To pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question."

"Is there never a chink in the world above Where they listen for words from below?"

"The prayer of Noah, He cried out in the darkness, Hear, O God, Hear HIM: hear this one; through the gates of death, If life be all past praying for, O give To Thy great multitude a way to peace; Give them to HIM."

"I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered."

"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring."

"Who is a worshiper? What is prayer? What is real religion? Let me answer these questions. Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshiper. Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer, — good, honest, noble work."

"…prayer is more powerful than prison bars, more enduring than legal persecution."

"If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, "Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled"; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead."

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

"But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion."

"But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer."

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

"I have visited a few astronauts, but all three either ignored me or prayed. The senseless chanting, I confess, repulsed me."

"If prayer is an offering of the lips and pleasing to God, then mercifulness is actually the heart’s offering and is, as Scripture says, a sweet fragrance in God’s nostrils. Oh, when you think of God, never forget that he does not have the least understanding about money. My listener, if you were a speaker, what assignment would you choose: to speak to the rich about practicing generosity or to the poor about practicing mercifulness? I am quite sure which one I would choose or, rather, which one I have chosen-if only I were a speaker. Oh, there is something indescribably reconciling in speaking to the poor man about practicing mercifulness!"

"The surprising happened to him. In proportion as he became more and more earnest in prayer, he had less and less to say, and in the end he became quite silent. He became silent – indeed, what is if possible still more expressly the opposite of speaking, he became a hearer. He had supposed that to pray is to speak; he learnt that to pray is not merely to be silent but to hear. And so it is; to pray is not to hear oneself speak, but it is to be silent, and to remain silent, to wait, until the man who prays hears God."

"Lord Jesus Christ, our foolish minds are weak; they are more than willing to be drawn—and there is so much that wants to draw us to itself. There is pleasure with its seductive power, the multiplicity with its bewildering distractions, the moment with its infatuating importance and the conceited laboriousness of busyness and the careless time-wasting of light-mindedness and the gloomy brooding of heavy-mindedness—all this will draw us away from ourselves to itself in order to deceive us. But you, who are truth, only you, our Savior and Redeemer, can truly draw a person to yourself, which you have promised to do—that you will draw all to yourself. Then may God grant that by repenting we may come to ourselves, so that you, according to your Word, can draw us to yourself—from on high, but through lowliness and abasement."

"In the face of real danger Elak forgot the gods and drew his rapier. Prayers, he had found, would not halt a dagger’s blow or a strangler’s hands."

"All the world screamed. The Reverend did not pray, having decided long ago his boss had already made up his mind about things."

"A knowledge of the hidden side of life by no means teaches us to forget our dead, but it makes us exceedingly careful as to how we think of them; it warns us that we must adopt a resolutely unselfish attitude, that we must forget all about ourselves, and the pain of the apparent separation, and think of them neither with grief nor with longing, but always with strong affectionate wishes for their happiness and their progress. The clairvoyant sees exactly in what manner such wishes affect them, and at once perceives the truth which underlies the teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to the advisability of prayers for the dead. By these both the living and the dead are helped; for the former, instead of being thrown back upon his grief with a hopeless feeling that now he can do nothing, since there is a great gulf between himself and his loved one, is encouraged to turn his affectionate thought into definite action which promotes the happiness and advancement of him who has passed from his sight in the physical world."

"If she had supposed the gods ever listened, she would have prayed."

"At Tai Ji Men, I realized that prayer is not merely a ritual but a form of deep reflection and meaningful action."

"He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

"Prayer was not so much a matter of asking for something as a clear statement of what was important to you; a definition of who you were, and what you lacked, what you were sorry for, what you wished to be. A peeling away to your essence."

"She thought about praying, but learned long ago there’d be no answer."

"“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”"

"“And for what it’s worth, which in my professional opinion isn’t a bloody lot, I’ll pray for you.” “Pray to what?” Marge said. He smiled.... “Fuck it,” the man said. “Tell you what. What’s the point collecting stuff you don’t use? I’ll pray to all of them.”"

"For those who do not guard their morals, Prayers are but wishful thinking. For those who do not practice what they preach, Oratory is but faithless lying."

"Hear his sighs though mute; Unskillful with what words to pray, let me Interpret for him."

"But that from us aught should ascend to Heav'n So prevalent as to concern the mind Of God, high-bless'd, or to incline His will, Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer."

"And if by prayer Incessant I could hope to change the will Of Him who all things can, I would not cease To weary Him with my assiduous cries."

"Mein einziges Gebet ist das um Vertiefung. Durch sie allein kann ich wieder zu Gott gelangen. Vertiefung! Vertiefung!"

"There are not petitional or intercessory prayers in Buddhism. However much we may pray to the Buddha we cannot be saved. The Buddha does not grant favors to those who pray to Him. Instead of petitional prayers there is meditation that leads to self-control, purification and enlightenment. Meditation is neither a silent reverie nor keeping the mind blank. It is an active striving. It serves as a tonic both to the heart and the mind. The Buddha not only speaks of the futility of offering prayers but also disparages a slave mentality. A Buddhist should not pray to be saved, but should rely on himself and win his freedom."

"I don't need to pray. I have God in myself."

"I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also."

"Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God; it is a sincere seeking for a good thing; and it is a concentration on the thing sought, with faith that it is obtainable."

"I talk to God but the sky is empty."

"I used to pray to recover you."

"Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside."

"He pray'd by quantity, And with his repetitions, long and loud, All knees were weary."

"Oats knelt in the mud and tried a prayer, but there was no answering voice from the sky. There never had been. He’d been told never to expect one. That wasn’t how Om worked anymore. Alone of all the gods, he’d been taught, Om delivered the answers straight into the depths of the head. Since the prophet Brutha, Om was the silent god. That’s what they said. If you didn’t have faith, then you weren’t anything. There was just the dark. He shuddered in the gloom. Was the god silent, or was there no one to speak?"