Glossary of Christian Terms
Sanctification
Prayer
- St. Teresa of Avila on prayer
- Defines and discusses the Christian practices of recollection, meditation, and contemplation. Contemplation is regarded as supernatural or mystical prayer; in other words it's a gift from God. Rapture or ecstatic prayer and union with God are included in her discussion of the more profound forms of contemplative prayer.
- St. John of Chrysostom on the Lord's prayer.
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St. John Chrysostom lived from 347 to 407. As one of the great Church Fathers who lived before the schism of 1054 sundered East from West, he is revered as a Doctor of the Church within both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. He is generally believed to be the greatest preacher who has ever lived.
His nineteenth homily is a commentary on the Lord's prayer. In his commentary, St. John Chrysostom enjoins us to shut the doors of the mind, then withdrawing the mind from the earth, we are to send it heaven-wards. In our supplications that God attend to our bodily needs, we become aware that even in things that are bodily, that which is spiritual abounds. When faced with evil, we stand up against it nobly, knowing that our strength to do so comes from God; however knowing that in ourselves we are entirely weak, we don't seek out such confrontations but wait meekly on the Lord. In purifying (not destroying) our passions we make this very earth a heaven, and through gentleness and forgiving others we conform ourselves to the Father's likeness. By our sanctification we come to glorify, or hallow, the Father's name in our very persons.
- Brother Lawrence on recollective prayer:
- I've re-edited The Practice of the Presence of God in order to present the material according to thematic content. Brother Lawrence was a 17th century, Roman Catholic monk who discussed the practice of recollection and how this practice could permeate all aspects of living.