Prayer is communication with God in all its forms. This includes intimate as well as seemingly distant communication, from monologues to dialogues, from texts to touch, from speech to silent communion. Prayer establishes the bridge between God and humanity. It is as vital to our personal well-being to develop a flourishing prayer life, as it is to learn how to communicate love to human loved ones.
An analogy may be helpful here. There are two sides or hemispheres to the human brain. What connects them, so that they can communicate with each other, and work together for that person to be whole and healthy, is a band of neural fibers called the “corpus callosum.” If this band is damaged or destroyed, that person can no longer function fully as themselves.
To extend the analogy: let the left hemisphere represent our embodied being connected to the physical universe. And let the right hemisphere represent our spiritual being connected to the unseen kingdom of God. That means we have a “joint citizenship” in both this cosmos and heaven. This was already understood by St. Augustine back in the fifth century C E.
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