Fullest flowering of thought, love, and desire....prayer, says Evelyn Underhill

What is prayer?

The part of our conscious life which is deliberately oriented toward and exclusively responds to spiritual reality.

• He is not far from us, for in him we live and move and have our being.


• It is ascent.


• It is an ascending or getting up of the desire of the heart into God by withdrawing from earthly thoughts.

What are the two worlds?

• God and our neighbour.


• This world and that.


• Outward adoration and homeward charity.

Three faculties in prayer

• thinking


• feeling


• willing or acting

Sometimes we are mentally dull, sometimes we are emotionally flat. "On such occasions it is notoriously useless to try and beat ourselves up to a froth: to make ourselves think more deeeply or make ourselves care more intensely. If the worth of our prayer life depended upon the maintenance of a constant high level of feeling or understanding, we would be in a dangerous place.

The determined fixing of our will upon God, and pressing toward him steadily and without deflection; this is the very centre and the art of prayer.

Even when our heart is cold and our mind is dim, prayer is still possible to us. "Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."

God's spirit in us - let us think, act and live AS IF that were true. Let us rest in him, abide in him, delight in him. It is humility and love that are essential for successful prayer.