On Prayer

“No real definition of prayer can be given, for it is a mysterious life with God, a participation in the center of his being and in his divine, triune love. Certainly those forms which are furthest from the center are, in their isolation, also the most clearly delineated; thus they are to some extent amenable to description and definition. In order to understand the real nature of prayer, however, one must begin with that prayer in which man is most perfectly joined to God, i.e., full contemplation, wherein he is completely conformed to the will of God by God himself, wherein God places man in the state which he desires for him, wherein man has become an untarnished mirror of the divine will, a clear response to divine revelation. At this point the word of God has become so powerful that it requires no other words for its expression. God reveals, and man no longer needs to translate what has been revealed into alien images; he is absorbed in being part of what belongs to God. Just as a child at play, completely caught up in what he is doing, must first build a bridge from his world to the outside world if he has to explain his game to the uninitiated, so it is with the person who has been perfected in prayer when he is called upon to explain to others what he does.” – Adrienn von Speyr