February 21
I will use one more quote from the "Efficacy of Prayer". I do this because Lewis states that we can't stay at the question "Does Prayer work?" Lewis continues to give us a more definite answer. "Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayers is corollary – not necessarily the most important one – from that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is." And just in case we fall into the temptation to place people on different levels of prayer and influence (Mr. So and So is a prayer warrior, when he prays you know God will answer) Lewis leaves us with this statement – "When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore." CS Lewis, "The Efficacy of Prayer"
February 20
This quote I found in an essay entitled "The Efficacy of Prayer". It builds on the quotation from February 12. Lewis is introducing the concept of prayer and its efficacy. He states, "Now even if all the things that people prayed for happened, which they do not, this would not prove what Christians mean by the efficacy of prayer. For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them." CS Lewis, "The Efficacy of Prayer"
February 19
"No man who says I'm as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy do, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept." ~CS Lewis, The Screwtape Proposes a Toast, p291
February 18
"Of course we have all been taught what to do with suffering – offer it in Christ to God as our little, little share of Christ's suffering – but it is hard to do. I am afraid I can better imagine, than really enter into, this. I suppose that if one loves a person enough one would actually wish to share every part of his life; and I suppose the great saints thus really want to share the divine sufferings and that is how they can actually desire pain." ~CS Lewis, Letters to an American Lady, p53
