There are some people who, in order not to pray, use as an excuse the fact that life is so hectic that it prevents them from praying. This cannot be. Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were a prayer.
It is not necessary to always be meditating, nor to consciously experience the sensation that we are talking to God, no matter how nice this would be. What matters is being with him, living in him, in his will. To love with a pure heart, to love everybody, especially to love the poor, is a twenty-four-hour prayer.
The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence. Silence will teach us a lot. It will teach us to speak with Christ and to speak joyfully to our brothers and sisters.
Prayer makes your heart bigger, until it is capable of containing the gift of God himself.
Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.
Praying the Our Father and living it will lead us to saintliness. The Our Father contains everything: God, ourselves, our neighbors . . .
Prayer begets faith, faith begets love, and love begets service on behalf of the poor.
This is a prayer that the
Missionaries of Charity pray everyday.
Cardinal Newman wrote it:
Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance
wherever I am.
Fill my heart with your Spirit and your life.
Penetrate my being and take such hold of me
that my life becomes a radiation
of your own life.
Give your light through me and remain in me
in such a way that every soul
I come in contact with
can feel your presence in me.
May people not see me, but see you in me.
Remain in me, so that I shine with your light,
and may others be illuminated by my light.
All light will come from you, Oh Jesus,
Not even the smallest ray of light will be mine.
You will illuminate others through me.
Place on my lips your greatest praise,
illuminating others around me.
May I preach you with actions
more than with words, with the example of my actions,
with the visible light of the love
that comes from you to my heart. Amen.