(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Prayer is Answering the Word of God
Isidore said:
`Anyone who wants to be always united to God must pray often and read the Bible often. For in prayer it is we who are speaking to God, but in the readings it is God speaking to us.
`All spiritual progress is based on reading and meditation. What we do not know, we learn in the reading; what we have learned, we preserve by meditation.
`Reading the Bible provides us with a two-fold advantage. It instructs our minds, and introduces us to the love of God by taking our attention off vanities.
`None can understand the meaning of the Bible if they do not acquire familiarity with it through the habit of Bible reading.'(Isidore lived between 560-636 AD)Augustine said:
`Nourish your soul with Bible reading. It will prepare a spiritual feast for you.'
(Augustine lived 354-430 AD)Jerome said:
`Anyone who is assiduous in reading the Word of God becomes weary while reading, but afterwards is happy because the bitter seeds of the reading produce sweet fruits in the soul.
`Let us study while we are on earth that Reality which will stay in our minds also when we are in heaven.'(Jerome lived between 347-420 AD)(Translation by Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, MI - Spencer, MASS, 1994)