What could it be to pray unceasingly ? Does it mean that we murmur words throughout day and night? Or does it mean that we cannot have any space for non-God thoughts in our mind? I had been thinking of this mystical statement from St. Paul often. Recently I ran into it again, when reading Rev. Henri Nouwen . This is it: To pray unceasingly , as St. Paul asks us to do, would be completely impossible if it meant to think constantly about God... To pray, I think does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. .... Although it is important and even indispensible for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts- beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful of joyful – can be thought in the presence of God. Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centred monologue to a God-centred dialogue.
To pray unceasingly is to lead all our thoughts out of their fearful isolation into a fearless conversation with God.
To pray unceasingly is to lead all our thoughts out of their fearful isolation into a fearless conversation with God.
