“Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you will spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in Love
and it will decide everything.”
- Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Former Superior General of the Society of Jesus
1 “‘Great is the mystery of the faith!’ The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles’ Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.”
-Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2558, Opening Paragraph of Part Four: Christian Prayer
2 “...human life without prayer, which opens our existence to the mystery of GOD, lacks sense and direction.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 4, 2011
3 “The human being...prays because he cannot fail to wonder about the meaning of his life, which remains obscure and discomforting if it is not put in relation to the mystery of GOD and his plan for the world.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 4, 2011
4 “...man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with GOD.”
- CCC 44
5 “Man is made to live in communion with GOD in whom he finds happiness: ‘When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or trials; enitrely full of you, my life will be complete.’ (St Augustine)”
- CCC 45
6 “However much he is deluded that he is self-sufficient, [man] experiences his own insuffiency. He needs to open himself to something more, to something or to someone that can give him what he lacks, he must come out of himself towards the One who is able to fill the breadth and depth of his desire.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 11, 2011
7 “Man is in search of God. In the act of creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence. “Crowned with glory and honor,” man is, after the angels, capable of acknowledging “how majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth.” Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence. All religions bear witness to men’s essential search for God.”
- CCC 2566
8 “The desire for GOD is written in the human heart, because man is created by GOD and for GOD; and GOD never ceases to draw man to Himself. Only in GOD will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”
-CCC 27
9 “Man bears within him a thirst for the infinite, a longing for eternity, a quest for beauty, a desire for love... man bears within him the desire for GOD.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 11, 2011
10 “St Thomas Aquinas...defines prayer as ‘an expression of man’s desire for GOD.’ This attraction to GOD, which GOD himself has placed in man, is the soul of prayer, that then takes on a great many forms...”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 11, 2011
11 “You have made us for yourself, O LORD, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
- St Augustine, Confessions
12 “ ‘If you knew the gift of God!’ (Jn 4) The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.”
- CCC 2560
13 “God calls man first. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response.”
- CCC 2567
14 “In the first place it should be known that if a person is seeking GOD, his Beloved is seeking him much more.”
-St John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love
15 “The desire for GOD is the preparation for union with Him.”
- St John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love
16 “In the measure you desire Him, you will find Him.”
- St Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection
17 “The word of God...is not inimical (harmful or hostile) to us; it does not stifle our authentic desires, but rather illuminates them, purifies them and brings them to fulfillment.”
- Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 23
18 “Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. ‘By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]’”.
-Pope Benedict XVI, Spes Salvi, 32-33: ‘Prayer as a School of Hope’
19 “I saw that he alone... could fulfill my immense desires... he would not inspire longings I feel unless he wanted to grant them. ... God cannot inspire unrealizable desire”
- St Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
20 “...humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. “Man is a beggar before God.”
- CCC 2559
21 “It is necessary to learn how to pray, as it were acquiring this art ever anew; even those who are very advanced in spiritual life always feel the need to learn from Jesus, to learn how to pray authentically.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 4, 2011
22 “...the experience of prayer is a challenge to everyone, a ‘grace’ to invoke, a gift of the One to whom we turn.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 11, 2011
23 “Until we’re convinced that prayer is the best way to spend our time, we will not find the time to pray.”
-Fr Hilary Ottensmeyer, OSB