This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Prayer is a way of increasing our sensitivity to the spiritual aspects of life. From this point of view, it is very much like exercise. A man’s muscles become responsive by training... The soul is stretched and enlarged by prayer just as the body is stretched and enlarged by physical exercise... Prayer is a way of aspiration. It is a way of lifting ourselves, of getting a higher look, of transcending self. For when a man looks at life only from inside himself, or only from within the walls of his home, or profession, seeing the world as though it were all in terms of his special interests, then he is “too full of himself to have any room for God.” But in prayer, he... relates his own little life and his own little needs and life of humanity. He lifts himself up by prayer, and achieves a high spiritual stature.
Aspiration | Body | God | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Looks | Man | Prayer | Self | Soul | Training | World |
Charity is incumbent on each person every day. Charity is assisting anyone, moving and carrying their wares, saying a good word. Every step one takes walking to prayer is charity; showing the way is charity.
William McGill, fully James McGill
The value of consistent prayer is not that he will hear us… but that we will finally hear Him.
What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?
Confidence | God | Little | Prayer | God |
“Liturgy” turns into “contemplation” as soon as our prayer ceases to be a search for God and turns into a celebration, by interior experience, of the fact that we have found Him.
Contemplation | Experience | God | Prayer | Search | God |
Prayer is the best means to uplift our consciousness from the imprisonment of personal gratification to the oneness and union with all beings. Prayer consecrates all our actions, removes ignorance, and leads us to an expanded vision of who we really are and feel the richness of life.
Consciousness | Ignorance | Life | Life | Means | Oneness | Prayer | Vision |
A good man never dies - in worthy deed and prayer and helpful hands, and honest eyes, if smiles or tears be there; who lives for you and me - live for the world he tries to help - he lives eternally. A good man never dies. Who lives bravely take his share of toil and stress and, for his weaker fellows’ sake, makes every burden less - he may, at last, seem worn - lie fallen - hands and eyes folded - yet, though we mourn and mourn, a good man never dies.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
When we dispute over dogmas we are divided. But when we take to the religious life of prayer and contemplation, we are brought together. The deeper the prayers, the more is the individual lost in the apprehension of the Supreme.
Contemplation | Dispute | Individual | Life | Life | Prayer |
There is no prayer so blessed as the prayer which asks for nothing.
John Sergieff of Cronstadt, aka Saint John of Kronstadt, born John Iliytch Sergieff
Prayer breathes hope, and prayer without hope is a sinful prayer.
Our motive for prayer must be the divine will, not our own.
Without faith a prayer has only form. Without faith a prayer has no heart or flame.
If by prayer I mean the power of words to persuade God to do things, then prayer is futile and foolish. One might utter the words of the most devout prayer that was ever breathed and yet not be praying at all. It is the attitude of the personality which is the prayer, not the words.