"...training in holiness calls for a life distinguished above all in the art of prayer...we well know that we cannot take prayer for granted. We have to learn to pray: as it were learning this art ever anew from the lips of the Divine Master Himself, like the first disciples: Lord teach us to pray!" (Luke 11:1)
The great mystical tradition of the Church...has much to say in this regard. It shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the Divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch and resting filially within the Father's heart.
2nd Week of Advent
The Art of Prayer
Sunday December 7, 2025 - Marcel Dion
For the first 41 years of my life I don’t think I ever seriously gave a thought to what distinguished my life. Following my conversion, I expect it would have vaguely been something related to God. But reading Novo Millennio Ineunte changed that and irrevocably shaped my life. I find the vision of normative Christian life that St John Paul II invites us to, so compelling, so complete. It’s also rather challenging, don’t you find? He raises the bar for all of us and confronts that subtle and insidious temptation we all face, to weary of the battle and begin settling for the “same old, some old” as Linda and I call it!
Who even thinks of prayer as an art form? Evidently, mystics do! St John Paul II’s vision awoke in me a desire, not only to get serious about committing to daily personal prayer, but a desire to get good at prayer.
I’m still far from the goal, but at least now I have a goal, a goal that I know conforms to God’s will for my life! And so now I can confidently pray that Jesus would wholly possess my life, that I become more and more sensitive to the touches of the Holy Spirit, and that God’s grace will draw me into the very depth of the Father’s heart where I might truly rest as His beloved son.