Status Updates From Guidelines for Prayer (Dese...

“…the growth of your communion with God, rooted in prayer, depends on the depth and maturity of your awareness of the burdens of other people, having for ourselves a great share in them.”

“To be taken up with the self and its demands is a flaw in love and consequently in prayer.”

The constant looking up to Christ in prayer impresses in your inner being the mystical and invisible image of Christ-that is, His attributes, His exquisite sweetness, and the "light of His face" (cf. Ps. 4:7).

“God is always ready to accept you back. He incessantly calls you: "I have stretched out My hands all day long" (Isa. 65:2)…

Thus, your being with God and in His presence is, as it were, a call for the exiled creation to return to the bosom of its Creator, like the return of Adam to paradise.”

“Prayer is a precious gift granted to you to bring you to the presence of God the Father through the mediation of Jesus Christ. In prayer there is a true condescension on the part of God to stay with you, on account of the Father's love for His Son Jesus Christ, who becomes present with you in His humility, according to His promise.”

“Here appears the secret behind Christ's beseeching you to pray: the value of prayer consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, without whom we are worth nothing whatsoever.”

“[The gift of prayer] is the Holy Spirit, which God longs to endow you with, not at random, but in return for prayer and insistence in supplication.”

“Watchfulness of heart during the fulfillment of your daily tasks—whether at home, in school, in the factory, in the shop, or in the office compensates for you not being able to stand in prayer in your room…Vigilance of the heart means yearning for the Lord Jesus from time to time throughout the whole day and holding secret conversations with Him through unspoken words of love.”