November 20

“Where you cannot pray as you would, pray as you can.”

GOULBURN

“Nor is it in this only that your progress in spiritual life consists, that you have the grace of comfort; but rather that with humility, self-denial, and patience, you endure the withdrawing thereof; provided you do not then become listless in the exercise of prayer, nor suffer the rest of your accustomed duties to be at all neglected.
“Rather do you cheerfully perform what lies in you, according to the best of your power and understanding; and do not wholly neglect yourself because of the dryness or anxiety of mind which you feel.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“Our prayers must centre, not in self, but in God. When we look for sensations of fervour, and peace, and joy in prayer, we are seeking self, not God. . . .
“It is necessary that we should pray; it is not necessary that we should feel happy in praying.
“Our prayers are not heard for their fervour but for Christ’s sake.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

November 19

“And when the petty troubles of life, the small difficulties that sting like gnats, the intrusions, the quarrels, the slight derangements of health, have disturbed our temper, and we are in danger of being =false to that divine charity which is the dew of life, one prayer will sweep us back to Palestine, and standing among the circle of the Apostles we shall listen to His voice: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ ‘Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.’ Prayer, continually lived in, makes the Presence of a holy and loving God the air which life breathes.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“If we with earnest effort could succeed
To make our life one long connected prayer,
As lives of some perhaps have been and are,
If, never leaving Thee, we had no need
Our wandering spirits back again to lead
Into Thy presence, but continued there,
Like angels standing on the highest stair
Of the sapphire throne, this were to pray indeed.
But if distractions manifold prevail,
And if in this we must confess we fail,
Grant us to keep at least a prompt desire,
Continual readiness for prayer and praise,
An altar heaped and waiting to take fire
With the least spark, and leap into a blaze.”

TRENCH

November 18

“Prayer, . . . not the continual invocation of God in words, but the perpetual and acknowledged recognition in our practice of His wishes, His ways, and His thoughts.”

GEORGE DAWSON

“Think not that my graces slumber
While I toil throughout the day
For all honest work is worship,
And to labour is to pray.”

W. A. BUTLER

“’What a blessed thing active prayer is,’ he said once to a friend. . . . ‘I mean by active prayer, doing everything in God’s presence and for His service.’”

From Life of S. Francis de Sales

November 17

“Prayer is surely not asking God to love people and do them good because we love them better than He does; but offering ourselves as sacrifices to Him, that He may fill us with His love, and send us on His errands.”

F. D. MAURICE

“Perfect prayer consists not in the multitude of words, but in the strength of the desire which raises the soul towards God. Every Christian ought to contribute towards the salvation of souls, according as they are inspired by a holy desire. Everything which is said and done for the salvation of humanity is a continual prayer, but a prayer which does not exempt us from the use of mental and vocal prayer at certain times. All that is done for the love of God and our neighbour, all, it may be added, which is done for ourselves also, with a just and right aim, may be called prayer, for those never cease to pray who never cease to do good. Love for our fellow-creatures is a constant prayer.”

From Life of Catherine of Siena

November 16

“Your intention should be to unite your will to the Will of God, and not to draw God’s Will to yours.”

SCUPOLI

“Our resignation to the Will of God may be said to be perfect when our will is lost and resolved up in His; when we rest in His will as our end, as being itself most just, right and good. And where is the impossibility of such an affection to what is just and right and good, - such a loyalty of heart to the Governor of the Universe as shall prevail over all sinister desires of our own.”

BUTLER

“When you say ‘Lead us not into temptation’, you must in good earnest mean to avoid in your daily conduct those temptations which you have already suffered from. When you say, ‘Deliver us from evil’, you must mean to struggle against that evil in your hearts which you are conscious of and which you pray to be forgiven.”

J. H. NEWMAN

November 15

“Importunity is the essence of successful prayer . . . and importunity means, not dreaminess, but sustained work. It is through prayer especially that ‘the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force’.
“It was a saying of the late Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, that ‘No-one was likely to do much good in prayer who did not begin by looking upon it in the light of a work, to be prepared for and persevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which are, in our opinions, at once most interesting and most necessary.’”

Canon LIDDON

“I would, with much solicitude, urge the habit of stated prayer. The heart is so apt to slide from under its intentions, if not compacted by the regularity of habit, that it is hardly safe to trust them; every hour brings its hindrances, and so often in the shpe of all but needful business, that ‘the path to the bush’ will, in most cases, be overgrown, if not trodden at the stated periods.”

ANN TAYLOR

November 14

“Men ought always to pray and not to faint.”

LUKE xviii, I

“Be not afraid to pray – to pray is right.
Pray, if you can, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
Far is the time, remote from human sight,
When war and discord on the earth shall cease;
Yet every prayer for universal peace
Avails the blessed time to expedite,
Whatever is good to wish, that ask of Heaven,
Though it be that you can not hope to see;
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish you dare not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.”

HARTLEY COLERIDGE