“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”

“Pope John Paul II was always a teacher. He taught us many things: how to pray, how to have patience, how to be loving. And I realized something about his last moments… that he was teaching us all how to die.”

“Luke tells us that as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” This disciple had heard Jesus preach, but did not feel like saying, “Lord, teach us to preach.” He could learn to preach by studying the methods of the Master. But there was something about the praying of Jesus that made the disciple feel that he did not know how to pray; that he had never prayed, and that he could not learn by listening even to the Master as He prayed. There is a profound something about prayer which never lies upon the surface. To learn it, one must go to the depths of the soul, and climb to the heights of God.”

“I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany.”

“He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.”

“Were we praying, Forgive our oppressors for what they have done? Or, Forgive us for what has been done to us? Or, Forgive You for Your inscrutability?”