Religious Behaviour And Experience

"That’s what prayers are...it’s frightened people trying to make friends with the bully!"

"God detests the prayers of a person who ignores the law."

"When trouble toucheth a man, He crieth unto Us (in all postures)- lying down on his side, or sitting, or standing. But when We have solved his trouble, he passeth on his way as if he had never cried to Us for a trouble that touched him! thus do the deeds of transgressors seem fair in their eyes!"

"Observe prayer at early morning, at the close of the day, and at the approach of night; for the good deeds drive away the evil deeds."

"Put up then with what they say; and celebrate the praise of thy Loud before the sunrise, and before its setting: and some time in the night do thou praise Him, and in the extremes of the day, that thou haply mayest please Him."

"Observe prayer at sunset, till the first darkening of the night, and the daybreak reading-for the daybreak reading hath its witnesses', and watch unto it in the night: this shall he an excess in service."

"Seek aid with patience and prayer."

"When ye have fulfilled your prayer, remember God standing and sitting, and lying on your sides; and when ye are in safety, then be steadfast in prayer-. Verily prayer is for the believers prescribed and timed."

"But what happens in true petitionary prayer when it is part of genuine religion? Human beings face the incomprehensible plan of their existence, which they accept as at once incomprehensible and yet as originating in the wisdom and love of God; however it may turn out, whether it brings life or death. people then have a sense of themselves, with their own identity and vital impulses, as willed by God, without waiting to produce or force an intelligible synthesis between their vital impulses and the plan of their existence. And so they say Yes to the incomprehensibility of God and to their own will to live, without wanting to know how the two fit together. The unity of the two, which is not something that we can create, is petitionary prayer, since it is only prayer if it says radically, "Your will, not mine", and it would not be petitionary prayer if it did not dare to ask God for something which we had thought of ourselves. Petitionary prayer is thus simply actualising the incomprehensibility of human existence which, down to the last fibre, comes from God alone and goes out to him, and yet is such that it can hold its own before God and not be destroyed."

"Passion is the power of prayer."

"The Divine wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it."

"It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws."

"When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer."

"I do not pray to ask God for things. I pray to thank God for bringing me where I am."

"“You and your wife are in the prayers of me and our church,” he says to Rimney. “Despite of what you may think of me.” “You’re in my prayers, too,” says Rimney. “I’m always praying you stop being so sanctimonious and miraculously get less full of shit.”"

"It was quite incomprehensible to me — this was before I began going to school — why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me good-night, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: "O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.""

"Prayer is the expression of desire; its value comes from our inward aspirations, from their tenor and their strength. Take away desire, the prayer ceases; increase or diminish its intensity, the prayer soars upward or has no wings. Inversely, take away the expression while leaving the desire, and the prayer in many ways remains intact. Has a child who says nothing but looks longingly at a toy in a shop-window, and then at his smiling mother, not formulated the most moving prayer? And even if he had not seen the toy, is not the desire for play, innate in the child as is the thirst for movement, in the eyes of his parents a standing prayer which they grant?"

"Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe."

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

"All his mind is bent to holiness, To number Ave-Maries on his beads."

"Rather let my head Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any Save to the God of heaven and to my king."

"Go with me, like good angels, to my end; And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me, Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, And lift my soul to heaven."

"My prayers Are not words duly hallow'd nor my wishes More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes Are all I can return."

""Amen" Stuck in my throat."

"When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects; Heaven hath my empty words."

"His worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass."

"Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent."

"If you bethink yourself of any crime Unreconcil'd as yet to heaven and grace, Solicit for it straight."

"I find that prayers don’t work when you need them most. Unless you answer them for yourself."

"If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?"

"Prayer is not used to inform, for God is omniscient; not to move compassion, for God is without passions; not to show gratitude, for God knows our hearts. May not a man, that has true notions, be a pious man, though he be silent?"

"For Adoration, incense comes From bezoar, and Arabian gums, And from the civet’s fur: But as for prayer, or e’er it faints, Far better is the breath of saints Than galbanum or myrrh."

"Children are the keys of Paradise … They alone are good and wise, Because their thoughts, their very lives, are prayer."

"The first things that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the spirit him who prayers."

"At the highest level of consciousness, an individual is alone. Such solitude can seem strange, unusual, even difficult. Foolish people try to escape it by means of various dissipations in order to get away from this high point, to some lower point, but wise people remain at this high point, with the help of prayer."

"Not prayer without faith, nor faith without prayer, but prayer in faith, is the cost of spiritual gifts and graces."

"It is best to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain."

"School children and students who love God should never say: “For my part I like mathematics”; “I like French”; “I like Greek.” They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer."

"MENDEL: Once you’re on your knees, you can’t stand up straight again."

"True prayer is waiting for God to come when and how He wants to."

"Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!"

"God, though this life is but a wraith, Although we know not what we use, Although we grope with little faith, Give me the heart to fight—and lose."

"From compromise and things half done, Keep me with stern and stubborn pride; And when, at last, the fight is won, God, keep me still unsatisfied."

"We ask for the aid of thy Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray, what we should ask for, and how to ask that we may receive."

"Prayer ardent opens heaven."

"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen."

"Yet then from all my grief, O Lord, Thy mercy set me free, Whilst in the confidence of pray'r My soul took hold on thee."

"And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe, O never, never turn away thine ear! Forlorn, in this bleak wilderness below, Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!"

"She knows omnipotence has heard her prayer And cries, "It shall be done—sometime, somewhere.""

"Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!"