Pray Without Ceasing

There is a different kind of prayer without ceasing; it is longing. Whatever you may be doing, if you long for the day of everlasting rest do not cease praying. If you do not wish to cease praying, then do not cease your longing. Your persistent longing is your persistent voice. But when love grows cold, the heart grows silent. Burning love is the outcry of the heart! If you are filled with longing all the time, you will keep crying out, and if your love perseveres, your cry will be heard without fail. — Saint Augustine, Source: Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms

What would it look like if we could follow the Apostle Paul’s advice to pray without ceasing. A Russian peasant took up that challenge. His adventures are chronicled in The Way of the Pilgrim. It is worth reading many times.

There is nothing like the stress of moving compounded by the stress of uncertainty due to covid-19 and whether our moving van will be able to come Monday and load up.

This certainly is one way to test the discipline to pray without ceasing.

A scoffer would reply that every waking thought cannot be prayer. But a scoffer does not understand prayer—beyond words it’s an attitude and, well, a longing deep in the heart. Spiritual writers over these many centuries have taught that peeling potatoes can be prayer.

Besides, a discipline does not imply perfection. God is perfect. We just practice our disciplines in order to walk more closely with God and let some of that perfection rub off on us.

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