We learn the language of prayer by immersing ourselves in the language that God uses to reveal Himself to us.

I had escaped the snare of certitude that I welcomed so avidly at first and entered, via the name of Jesus, the wide and comprehensive company of Jesus.

My feelings are important for many things. They are essential and valuable. They keep me aware of much that is true and real. But they tell me next to nothing about God or my relation to God. My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about Him or my neighbors.

There is nothing quite as destructive to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the use of language that dismisses the way Jesus talks and prays and takes up instead the rhetoric of smiling salesmanship or vicious invective.

There is nothing more common than for people who want to talk about God to lose interest in the people they are talking to.

We need alert listeners to give dignity to those stretches in our lives when we are not aware of participating in anything we think might be embraced by the kingdom of God.

Spontaneities offer one kind of pleasure and taste of sanctity, repetitions another equally pleasurable and holy.

The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot

Action without prayer thins out into something very exterior. A prayerless life can result in effective action and accomplish magnificent things, but if there is no developed interiority, the action never enters into the depth and intimacy of relationships.