Michael Paterniti Quotes

I like the monastic life... in the prayer and the praising... this has charged me with new energy, spiritual energy. This is very important for my ministry outside the monastery.

I was in a convent for a year.

The 'Rule of St. Benedict' makes it possible for ordinary folk to live lives of quite extraordinary value. The weak have a place to do their best.

That's the great thing about entering a convent: There are things that you simply can't do, so you don't have to worry about them.

I should have been a Trappist monk.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

All those who run away to ashrams, thinking they are doing something great are just performing daily chores there - cooking, gardening etc. After all, the place has to be run.

The night is given to us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power.

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is time alone with God.

Private place and plenty of time are the life of prayer.

The Simple Path Silence is Prayer Prayer is Faith Faith is Love Love is Service The Fruit of Service is Peace

Maybe, just maybe, I would like to become a real spiritual teacher, a working lama!

Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it.

You might get up in the morning and do your devotions and say a few prayers and there you go. You think you've done your connecting for the day. But you don't know how to wait before the Lord and really stop and hear from the Lord or dig deeper and walk throughout the day with the Lord. It's like sending a quick Tweet or checking your Facebook page real quick. "Hey Lord, what's going on?" But you're missing the intimacy of, "Be still and know that I am God."

There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.

God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.

Have a sense of piety ever on your mind, and be ever mindful that this is subject to no change, but will last you as long as life and support you in death. Elevate your soul by prayer and by contemplation without mystical enthusiasm.

The more we can give in our silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.

For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.

Testimony requires the nurturing by the prayer of faith, the hungering for the word of God in the scriptures, and the obedience to the truth.

Meditation is like the cloak of the good thief. You find a corner or somewhere where you can actually entertain your own self and your own soul, and understand what your work [is] here.

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.

The ancient spiritual tradition is that God gives himself fully to us in silence and solitude.

Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.