Taking prayer seriously …

… The prayer that we breathe – Catholic World Report.

Prayer, then, is both a battle of faith and the triumph of perseverance. We usually don’t think of prayer in these terms because, I think, we often envision prayer as having to be serene and peaceful, a smooth path of communication between God and ourselves. Yet, on the other hand, we all know that prayer often is a battle; it is a struggle against our natural inclination to not pray if we “don’t feel like it.” And prayer can also reveal to us the grim reality of spiritual warfare. This battle, the Catechism insightfully points out, shows us that “Christian prayer is neither an escape from reality nor a divorce from life.”