Evelyn Underhill Quotes about Prayer

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.

Evelyn Underhill

Christian, Prayer, Responsibility

Evelyn Underhill (2015). “The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed”, p.100, Aeterna Press

On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.

Evelyn Underhill

Prayer, Effort, Done

Christianity is a religion which concerns us as we are here and now, creatures of body and soul. We do not "follow the footsteps of his most holy life" by the exercise of a trained religious imagination, but by treading the firm, rough earth, up hill and down dale.

Evelyn Underhill

Christian, Religious, Prayer

Evelyn Underhill (1956). “The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed. The Mystery of Sacrifice, a Meditation on the Liturgy”

Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.

Evelyn Underhill

God, Prayer, Live Life

Evelyn Underhill (1990). “Lent With Evelyn Underhill”, p.74, Church Publishing, Inc.

The life of prayer is so great and various there is something in it for everyone. It is like a garden which grows everything, from alpines to potatoes.

Evelyn Underhill

Prayer, Garden, Potatoes

Evelyn Underhill (1960). “The Mount of Purification”

As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.

Evelyn Underhill

Religious, Prayer, Feet

Evelyn Underhill (2002). “Worship”, p.9, Wipf and Stock Publishers

If we ask of the saints how they achieved spiritual effectiveness, they are only able to reply that, insofar as they did it themselves, they did it by love and prayer.

Evelyn Underhill

Spiritual, Prayer, Effectiveness