Lord, Teach Us to Pray

"As Christians, we look to Jesus to teach us how to pray. . . . As a Jew, he certainly prayed the Psalms, as did all his people. . . . A Rabbi told me that traditionally, devout Jews constantly recite the Psalms in order to make the Word become part of them, instantly available for application to life's circumstances."

                                                                                      M. Basil  Pennington

                                                                                      Poetry As Prayer: The Psalms 

Dom Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O.

          

Faith

Faith is the basis of all worship; only the truly faithful can pray each day.

And what is the basis of faith? "He renews each day the work of Creation."

The faithful one sees that every day is a new creation, that all the worlds are new, that we ourselves have just been born.

How could we not want to sing the praise of the Creator?

If we do not have the faith that God creates anew each day, prayer becomes an old, unwanted habit. How difficult it is to say the same words day after day!

Thus scripture says: "Cast us not into old age!" - may the word never become old for us.

(Source: Your Word is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer Edited by Arthur Green & Barry W. Holtz, Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993).

The Power and Mystery of Prayer

What a great wonder that we should be able to draw so near to God in prayer.

How many walls there are between man and God!

Even though God fills all the world, He is so very hidden!

Yet a single word of prayer can topple all the walls and bring you close to God.

Source: Your Word is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer edited and translated by Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz(Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993)