How Do You Pray? Quotes

“Every morning I say, “Thank YOU,” and I call a meeting with my committee of Angels. I assign them jobs: Dear Angel … Look after the young single mother in labor. Angel of strength … PLEASE comfort the young father who just found out he is HIV positive. Angels … One of you go to his wife, and make sure she does not get infected. Safety Angel … Please make sure my son wears his helmet on the motorbike. Angel of money … Make sure we can pay the bills for the clinic. Hand-washing Angels, Tooth-brushing Angels, Street-crossing Angels … Look after my grandchildren. Milk Angels … Help the mothers to breastfeed their babies. Angels of Midwives … Look after the birth-keepers. Angels of Peace … Please don’t give up!”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“When I feel perplexed by the sorrows throughout the world and how Earth is suffering because of our greed, hatred and ignorance, I pray not so much to fix the problems but to wake up the minds of those who are ignorant of how they contribute to the suffering in the world. I ask that I, too, wake up to my own ignorance.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“How would You have me see this day, be this day, and do this day?”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“Oh Lord, remove from me this veil of evil tendencies. I am not powerful, but I am connected to You who are almighty. Your light enters me and I receive your wisdom. Any wrath, greed, envy and attachments disappear in the light of your wisdom. On the very day that your sight falls upon me, my lower nature and my human limitations shall be transformed into divine nature. My transformation is in your hands alone. Have compassion for me, come to me wherever I may be and reach through this veil.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“Sometimes my prayers are imagined inwardly, and offered silently. Sometimes they are ritualized in creativity, by writing a poem, singing a song or making a drawing. Sometimes they are murmured under my breath, and sometimes they are cawed in a dialogue with the crows that live nearby, in a language that sounds to me like theirs.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“People say to me sometimes, “How come my prayer isn’t being answered?” and I tell them, “You hang up the phone too soon.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“I have a lot of liturgical texts that some people would see as obligations. And I see them as opportunities.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“Any poem you love can be a sanctuary. Literally. A poem can build a sacred space within you because it changes the physiological reality within your body. The sounds and silences of a poem affect your breathing, your pulse, even your brain waves and cerebrospinal fluid. And when you speak the poem aloud, the sound vibrates the crystals in your bones and fascia the way your voice vibrates in the nave of a cathedral, creating a special resonance that invites revelation.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity

“I discovered that there is a huge difference between memorizing and learning by heart.”
― Celeste Yacoboni, How Do You Pray?: Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists and Other Lovers of Humanity