Our Passion for Prayer

"Lord, teach us to pray" (Lk 11:1). When on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, the apostles addressed Jesus with these words, they were not asking an ordinary question. With spontaneous trust, they were expressing one of the deepest needs of the human heart.

To tell the truth, today's world does not make much room for that need. The hectic pace of daily activity, combined with the noisy and often frivolous invasive means of communication, is certainly not something conducive to the interior recollection required for prayer . . .

Because they are creatures and of themselves incomplete and needy, human beings spontaneously turn to him who is the source of every gift, to praise him and make intercession. In him they seek to fulfill the tormenting desire that inflames their hearts. St. Augustine understood this quite well when he noted "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."