Essence of Prayer (Hiddenspring)

Theoretical knowledge is not enough. We suffer from the same inbuilt blindness and resistance to recognition as they did.

When we find ourselves dissatisfied or anxious about our prayer it is worth asking ourselves the question: `What do I really want?' and trying to listen honestly to the answer. We can be fairly certain that it will be some kind of ego-satisfaction.

Religious people, on the whole, think that by generous ascetic and spiritual effort they can come eventually to an experience of union with God. This is not so. Only One has attained the Father and we can attain him only insofar as we allow ourselves to be caught up in Jesus, carried along by him. In practice this means renouncingany spiritual achi

To acknowledge that we have absolute need of the mediator, Jesus, means a practical acceptance of the fact that, to attain to God, we must die with Jesus: not of ourselves, or by ourselves, but `in him'. I must enter into his death. This death is a death to my self-centredness and self-possession. It is an ecstasy: a going right out of myself to be

Holding up the cross, bidding us gaze into that bleeding, humiliated face, the Holy Spirit's focus is not first and foremost on suffering, or even on sin and its consequences, but on a love that is absolute, `out

On our side prayer is simply being there: open, exposed, inviting God to do all God wants. Prayer is not our activity, our getting in touch with God, our coming to grips with or making ourselves desirable to God. We can do none of these things, nor do we need to, for God is there ready to do everything for us, loving us unconditionally.

Christian prayer is nothing other than being present to God so that God can give to us. The only thing that matters is that we believe this and stay there with Him, regardless of how we feel or don't feel.

All that is most important about us happens at a level below consciousness. So real prayer, prayer in its very essence, escapes our direct consciousness.

Without realizing it, we can call `faith' that assent we give to our own manageable ideas of God. True faith takes us into the unknown. It calls for blind trust; it calls for profound humility and surrender.