Why Pray?
Practices of Prayer and Practices of Care
We pray for Christian Spirituality
Christian Spirituality means that through, and with, the grace of God we have the desire and capacity to grow in union with God, to experience through community, to deepen a life of conversion, with discipleship as its goal. Or Love God, Love Others. Go make Disciples. Restore all things to Christ.
Spiritual practices touch us and change us in a way that brings meaning to our everyday lives. We seek a way of life that comes from our heart and deepens our relationship with God and others.
Why Pray?
We pray because we must.
We pray for others because our love alone, is not enough to protect them. We pray for a good life for them. We pray to put their souls in God’s keeping.
We pray for those we dislike, and shift focus from them to us. What is it that permits others power over us? Praying for our enemy’s sheds light into the dark corners of ourselves. We hear new voices. We see ourselves differently, in a way that we may not have seen without them.
We pray for the dead who loved us, who delighted in us, who accepted us. We pray for their joy, their salvation, their resurrected life. Curiously, contemplating death, opens us up to the devotion of life. We give over control and unravel the cares of this world.
We pray for those suffering or will suffer. Such prayers open the ’unlived’ parts of ourselves. When we pray for others we are changed ourselves. We open up. We begin to see things from God’s point of view and his connectedness to everything.
We pray because we must.