Prayer is God Breathing in Us

Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio writes:

[The Life of St. Francis] indicates to us that if we persevere in prayer we will find God in the center of our lives and the bitter will become sweet…however, if we stay on the plain of mediocrity then the bitter may remain bitter.

To trust in the power of God’s grace through darkness, isolation, bitterness, and rejection is to be on the way to becoming prayer because it is the way to freedom in God.

For prayer, that deep relationship of God breathing in us, requires change and conversion. And where there is change, there is the letting go of the old and the giving birth to the new. To pray is to be open to the new, to the future in God.

The way to life passes through change and ultimately the change from death to life. Prayer is the way to life because in prayer we are invited to change and to grow in love.

 

Source: Ilia Delio, Franciscan Prayer (Franciscan Media: 2004), p. 28.