November 25

“No soul can preserve the bloom and delicacy of its existence without lonely musing and silent prayer; and the greatness of this necessity is in proportion to the greatness of the soul. There were many times during our Lord’s ministry when, even from the loneliness of desert places, He dismissed His most faithful and most beloved, that He might be yet more alone.”

Archdeacon FARRAR

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

PSALM 121

“He prayeth well who loveth well,
Both man and bird and beast.

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”

COLERIDGE

November 24

“Prayer is not only – perhaps in some of the holiest souls is not even chiefly – a petition for something that we want and do not possess. In the larger sense of the word, as the spiritual language of the soul, prayer is intercourse with God, often seeking no end beyond the pleasure of such intercourse. It is praise. . . . When we seek the company of our friends . . . it is a pleasure to be with them, to be talking to them at all about anything; to be in possession of their sympathies and to be showing our delight at it; to be assuring them of their place in our hearts and thoughts. So it is with the soul, when dealing with the Friend of friends – with God.”

Canon LIDDON

“Frequent intercourse even with an earthly friend, if he be of a strong, marked character, quickly makes itself seen in its influence upon us. We grow more and more like those with whom we associate, and especially if we admire and look up to them we unconsciously imitate them. It is no less so with our intercourse with God. The more time we spend in His presence, seeking His face and communing with Him in prayer, the more surely will godly graces and tempers spring up within us and bear fruit in our lives.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

November 22

“Every moment of deepening communion with His Father has its corresponding moment of sympathy with His brother-men. . . . Everywhere the solitary completes itself in the social. Solitude shapes and colours the precious forms of character which then the furnace of society burns to solidity, and brilliance, and permanence.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in thy presence will prevail to make,
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take.
What parchèd grounds refresh as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear;
We kneel – how weak! We rise – how full of power!
Why therefore should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others – that we are not always strong,
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or thoughtless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
And joy, and strength, and courage are with Thee?”

TRENCH

November 21

“And then let us abandon ourselves entirely to the will of God, and, without losing courage, let us wait in patience the return of His consolations, following the path of prayer and of good works. Let us offer our heart to God, dry as it is; it will be as well-pleasing to Him as if it were melting with love, if only it is sincerely determined to love God. It is a mistake to think that to serve God without feeling any pleasure in it is not pleasing Him; fresh roses are the most beautiful, but they have the most strength and fragrance when they are dry; so though what we do for God is more agreeable to us when it is done with a lively tenderness of heart, because we judge of the pleasure that we feel, yet the fragrance of our actions is greater before God when they are done in a state of spiritual dryness. For then our will gives itself to the service of God in spite of all the repugnances which it has to overcome, and consequently it must have more strength and constancy than in a time of deeply felt devotion.”

St FRANCIS DE SALES

“Let it make no difference to you whether you are cold or warm, if you are doing your duty.”

MARCUS AURELIUS

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

November 13

“Prayer has the power of sanctifying life, because it brings God into life. Twice in the day it has been for ages the habit of the race to use this talisman, once for the sanctification of the day; once for the sanctification of the night. The morning prayer chimes in with the joy of the creation, with the quick world, as it awakes and sings. Such a prayer is the guard of life. It makes us conscious of our Father’s presence, so that we hear His voice in the hour of our folly and our sin. ‘My child, this morning you called Me to your side, do not drive Me away. Bridle that passionate temper, restrain that excitement which is sweeping you beyond the power of will; keep back that foolish word which will sting your neighbour’s heart; do not do that dishonesty; be not guilty of that cowardice. I am by your side.’”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“With the practice of prayer I should earnestly recommend the use of some book of devotion, like Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying – some book which will make us acquainted with the feelings, and reflections, and resolutions of good men, who have gone through the very self-same struggle with Adversity.”

Dr ARNOLD

November 12

“We need to ‘watch unto prayer.’ Watching unto prayer implies that we are storing up matter for our prayers; so watching our steps and words, and thoughts, so taking account of our hours as they pass, so marking the defects and failures of our common life, as to know what to pray about, and what to pray for, and what to pray against, when the time comes.”

J. HAMPDEN GURNEY

“Is it not true that most people fail much in prayer, because they will not take the trouble to prepare for prayer? With a written list of the subjects we select for our prayers, a few collects or prayers from books of devotion carefully selected and marked, and a fixed time allotted to our prayers, we shall find we can do much better than we generally do now.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW