Prayer is not an activity that competes with other activities; it is the basis of every activity. Work is prayer. Writing is prayer. Gardening is prayer.
Since the intention of prayer or meditation practice is to come face to face with Mystery, the unity of prayer and action is essential. Prayer purifies intentions. With prayer, no other teacher is needed. Prayer is your teacher. The inner monastery of the heart protects the silence and solitude necessary to listen for God’s direct speech. This is prayer: being led into the silence where God speaks, filling you with love, unfiltered.
The monk advocates various forms of ceaseless pray and meditation as necessary to the mystical growth of the soul. The order of the monastic day is built to harness the monk’s divergent interests into an outpouring of devotion. The main purpose for living this way is to allow one’s whole being to be transfigured by the Divine. Prayer can be thought of as the method the monk uses to consent to be transfigured, because prayer becomes, in essence, a vow: “I vow to be with you, always. I consent to be transfigured in you.”
Excerpt, Beverly Lanzetta, The Monk Within: Embracing a Sacred Way of Life, page 350
Rev. Neema Caughran
Faith Leaders in Action, Pueblo