Item 1579 - The transcendent quality of prayer

This item is a one page article by Henri Nouwen entitled: The Transcendent Quality of Prayer, published in Faith/At/Work , March 1976, p.26. Nouwen begins the article by stating, ’Prayer reveals to us the real nature of things. It is the affirmation of life not as a possession to be grabbed and hoarded but as a gift to be shared’. Nouwen then goes on to speak of the difference between living as if people, things, ideas are to be grabbed and possessed or as if these things are received as a gift to be shared. He suggests that through prayer the latter becomes a reality to the life of the person who prays. Nouwen concludes the article in the following way, ‘Through prayer we discover that people are more than their character – that they are persons in the sense of per sonare - sounding through. When we become personas to each other, we sound through a peace greater than we ourselves can make and a love deeper and wider than we ourselves can contain. When we become persons we do indeed become transparent to each other and the Lord can speak through us to us’.