Nov. 20, 2015 Friday: 33rd Week in Ordinary Time
Nov. 20, 2015 Friday: 33rd Week in Ordinary Time
In one house, I noticed a sign in the sala, “This house is not just a house, it is a home of prayer.” True enough, the entire family was a prayerful one which I would call a family of prayers. What further struck me was an unsolicited comment of one of the neighbors, “You know, Father, I never heard a quarrel in that house!”
As a Christian, I always believed that prayer does not merely involve the acts or activities in praying, i.e. words of prayer, kneeling, standing. There is something more. I believe that prayer is an experience of God through the acts or activities of prayer. Many people have shared to me about their own experience in the activity, like inner peace and tranquility, enlightenment, feelings of affirmation. Many of them truly recognize that these sense experiences are signs of the presence of God in the person who prays.
When the Lord Jesus drove out the merchants in the temple area, He wanted to emphasize the respect and adoration due to God who is present in a house of prayer. More profoundly, each person who prays with a sincere devotion becomes the temple or house of God. Prayer is the channel by which a person becomes connected to God and in which God is able to enter the life of the person. I love to pray because it is in prayer that I experience a personal God. (Fr. Fred Saniel, SVD Bible Diary 2006)
In one house, I noticed a sign in the sala, “This house is not just a house, it is a home of prayer.” True enough, the entire family was a prayerful one which I would call a family of prayers. What further struck me was an unsolicited comment of one of the neighbors, “You know, Father, I never heard a quarrel in that house!”
As a Christian, I always believed that prayer does not merely involve the acts or activities in praying, i.e. words of prayer, kneeling, standing. There is something more. I believe that prayer is an experience of God through the acts or activities of prayer. Many people have shared to me about their own experience in the activity, like inner peace and tranquility, enlightenment, feelings of affirmation. Many of them truly recognize that these sense experiences are signs of the presence of God in the person who prays.
When the Lord Jesus drove out the merchants in the temple area, He wanted to emphasize the respect and adoration due to God who is present in a house of prayer. More profoundly, each person who prays with a sincere devotion becomes the temple or house of God. Prayer is the channel by which a person becomes connected to God and in which God is able to enter the life of the person. I love to pray because it is in prayer that I experience a personal God. (Fr. Fred Saniel, SVD Bible Diary 2006)
