The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
Phillips BrooksRead
A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Prayer is essentially a heartfelt wish directed towards God.
In this quote, Phillips Brooks simplifies the concept of prayer to its core essence, asserting that at its heart, prayer is about expressing one's deepest desires in a spiritual context. This perspective encourages people to understand prayer not as a formal ritual, but as a genuine communication of hopes and needs directed toward a higher power, thus bridging personal aspirations with divine will.
Themes
PrayerWishGodSpiritualityCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
Including this quote in a sermon to highlight the essence of prayer.
More from Phillips Brooks
All quotes βWe never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.
Phillips BrooksRead
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
Phillips BrooksRead
To believe in the God over us and around us and not in the God within us - that would be a powerless and fruitless faith.
Phillips BrooksRead
To say, 'well done' to any bit of good work is to take hold of the powers which have made the effort and strengthen them beyond our knowledge.
Phillips BrooksRead
Think of life as a voyage. The truest liver of the truest life is like a voyager who, as he sails, is not indifferent to all the beauty of the sea around him.
Phillips BrooksRead
Similar quotes
To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously.
Pope John Paul IiRead
When you forget that you need Allah, He puts you in a situation that causes you to call upon him. And that's for your own good.
Omar SuleimanRead
In the most intimate, hidden and innermost ground of the soul, God is always essentially, actively, and substantially present. Here the soul possesses everything by grace which God possesses by nature.
Johannes TaulerRead
He who prays five times a day is in the protection of God, and he who is protected by God cannot be harmed by anyone.
Abu BakrRead
The words were unexpected, but so incisively true. So much of prayer is like that - an encounter with a truth that has sunk to the bottom of the heart, that wants to be found, wants to be spoken, wants to be elevated into the realm of sacredness.
Sue Monk KiddRead
The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
Thomas MertonRead