A Stark Reality with Prayer

"The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray… The 'spiritual battle' of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2725)

"There is no life without prayer. Without prayer there is only madness and horror. The [Christian] soul consists in the gift of prayer." Vasilii Rosanov [Fr. Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980) p.140]

"To pray, as Abba Agathon reminds us, is the hardest of all tasks. If we do not find prayer difficult, perhaps it is because we have not really started to pray." (Ibid., p.151)