Because, you know, in a way it does. Certainly we can live without prayer, but as for me, life without talking to God and doing my best to listen to Him just doesn’t quite measure up. I’ve been reading through Pope Benedict’s The Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine, the collation of his addresses on the early Fathers of the Church and came across a quote so good that I’m not going to wait until I write up a review of the book for it. In his address on St. Gregory Nazianzen, we find:
Gregory teaches us first and foremost the importance and necessity of prayer. He says: “It is necessary to remember God more often than one breathes” (Orationes 27, 4: PG 250, 78), because prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with our thirst. God is thirsting for us to thirst for him (cf. Orationes 40, 27: SC 358, 260). In prayer, we must turn our hearts to God, to consign ourselves to him as an offering to be purified and transformed. In prayer we see all things in the light of Christ; we let our masks fall and immerse ourselves in the truth and in listening to God, feeding the fire of love.
I just love those twin images – “let our masks fall” and “feeding the fire of love.” It’s like drawing a picture with words.
