4 Quotes from Jacques Philippe on Prayer

Do you struggle to maintain a healthy prayer life? 

Prayer is one of the most important but most challenging parts of being a person of faith.  While some people very naturally bring God into their days and pray constantly, many people don’t even know where to start.  It can feel awkward or unnatural to invoke the Lord in daily life, and that discomfort can seem overwhelming and discouraging.  

One of our best-selling authors, Jacques Philippe, writes short, profound titles that help and guide readers in their spiritual lives.  HisTime for God, 9 Days to Rediscover the Joy of Prayer,andThirsting for Prayer, to name a few, offer simple and straightforward guidance on maintaining a prayerful connection with Jesus. Read on for 4 quotes from Jacques Philippe on prayer to help you in your spiritual journey! 

Here are some of our favorite Jacques Philippe quotes on prayer:

1. “Time spent faithfully persevering every day, even if poor quality-distracted prayer … will be infinitely more fruitful than the occasional long spells of prayer.” Time for God 
2. “Observe this beautiful fact: By bringing us into communion with God, prayer makes us share in God’s creativity. Contemplation nourishes our creative faculties and our inventiveness, particularly in the realm of beauty. Contemporary art is cruelly lacking in inspiration and very often produces nothing but painful ugliness, when people are so thirsty for beauty. Only a renewal of faith and prayer will enable artists to rediscover the sources of true creativity, so that they will once again be able to provide people with the beauty they so badly need, as was done by Fra Angelico, Rembrandt, or Johann Sebastian Bach. 5.” Thirsting for Prayer
3. “Here is a point worth underlining: Mental prayer should not be treated as something exceptional, done at a time snatched with difficulty from other activities, but should become a habit, part of the normal rhythm of our lives, so that its place is never questioned, even for a single day. This will foster fidelity to mental prayer, which is essential. Life is shaped by rhythms: the rhythm of heartbeat and breathing, the rhythm of day and night, of meals, of weeks, and so on. Mental prayer should become a daily event as vital to us as the basic rhythms of existence. It should become the breathing of our souls.” Time for God
4. “When a person is faithful to his or her times of prayer, day after day, week after week, it’s like someone with a well in the garden that’s choked with rubbish—branches, leaves, stones, mud—but underneath is water, clean and pure. In spending time in prayer, you’re setting to work patiently to unblock the well. What comes up at the start is the mud and dirt: our wretchedness, worries, fears, guilt, self-blame—the things we normally avoid. Plenty of people run away from themselves. There’s a real fear of silence today! But those who have the courage to go forward into the desert end up finding an oasis.” The Way of Trust and Love

We hope you enjoyed these quotes about prayer from Jacques Philippe.  For more guidance and powerful spiritual reading check out Jacques Philippe’s at home retreat guidehere!