We are pleased to share an excerpt from guest writer, Sara McLaughlin’s “Praying with St. Augustine” by Sophia Institute Press.
[From pages 19-20]
“St. Augustine clearly perceived the reciprocal relationship between prayer and faith. He once preached that faith was the ‘fountain of prayer. . . . So then that we may pray, let us believe; and that this same faith whereby we pray fail not, let us pray. Faith pours out prayer, and the pouring out of prayer obtains the strengthening of faith’ (Sermon 65 on the New Testament, no. 1). He also believed that prayer sparks our desire for God’s answer and readies us to receive His gifts.”
[From page 118]
. . . . “Hear me, my God; hearken, Light of my eyes, grant me my request; and grant me to ask such things as You delight to give. Let not my manifold offenses stop the current of Your grace, whose property it is to be a ‘God hearing prayer,’ and always to have mercy. But ‘according to the multitude of Your mercies do away my offenses, and think upon me, O Lord, for Your goodness.’ (Meditations 1.35).”
Author Bio – Sara McLaughlin
Sara Park McLaughlin, author of four nonfiction books, taught freshman English at Texas Tech University for thirty-four years. Her book Meeting God in Silence (Tyndale 1993) was later translated into Korean and published in Seoul (Word of Life, 2000). She is a former award-winning newspaper columnist for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal and the Amarillo Globe-News and has published numerous scholarly articles about C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and her original theory of humor. Now retired and living in Wisconsin, she is enjoying writing a series entitled “Misunderstanding Catholicism” for her blog: www.medium.com/@sara.
