5674 Prayer in spirit and in truth....

May 12, 1953: Book 62

Your prayers should not be lip prayers, for these do not reach the ear of the heavenly father, Who wants to be called upon in spirit and in truth. You should speak to Him as a child speaks to its father, you should come to Him in complete trust and humility and present your requests to Him, you should converse in the most simple manner, for He only hears what your heart speaks to Him.... For this reason it can never be in His will that you make use of learned formal prayers which are only spoken by your mouth, which have no deep meaning and therefore no value, which take up your time which you can and should use far better. The prayer which is sent up to the heavenly father in spirit and in truth can only consist of a short call, of a heartfelt thought which establishes the child's connection with the father, for He truly knows about all needs and only wants the child to turn to Him in order to grant him help, in order to be able to fulfil his silent, heartfelt prayer.... Prayer is greatly abused, and that is why it so often remains ineffective. Being allowed to pray to God is a grace which cannot be valued highly enough.... that God gives the human being the opportunity to make contact with Him, that He graciously inclines His ear to His creations which are still far away from Him.... It is a grace that people can already reduce the distance from themselves to God through prayer, because through prayer they express the will to enter into contact with Him.... Yet it is only too understandable that only a prayer in spirit and in truth establishes this connection, that lip prayers have no strength, even if the intellect is also active and thus the content of the prayer is mentally pursued.... which, however, is all too often impossible with formal prayers of a special kind.... But the heart remains uninvolved, because the heart would resist in the realization of the lack of content of such prayers. The heart forms other words, it speaks naturally and unadorned with God, Whom it recognizes as a loving father and Whom it asks for help, if it needs help. Prayers of praise also only consist of a heartfelt and exultant feeling of gratitude which lifts itself up to the heavenly father.... You humans should consider that God is a spirit of utmost perfection, that He can only be worshipped in spirit and that no deception, no appearance can exist before Him, that it would therefore be completely useless to form other words in prayer than the heart feels them. You should indeed pray without ceasing.... but this is the only way to understand these words, that the human being should constantly maintain contact with God, that he should transfer his entire world of thoughts into the spiritual kingdom, that spiritual transformation should be his first concern.... that he should not only turn to God for help in cases of adversity but completely hand himself over to Him and commend himself to His grace.... For only through constant contact with God can the human being mature and finally reach the aim of a union with Him and become blessed....

Amen

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