Author: arampone

Discourse on the Psalms 

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By Saint Augustine 

“The desire of one’s heart constitutes one’s prayer. There is a hidden anguish which is inaudible to us… If your desire lies open to the one who is your God and who sees your secret, God will answer you. For the desire of your heart is itself your prayer. And if the desire is constant, so is your prayer.

The Apostle Paul had purpose in saying: ‘Pray without ceasing.’ Are we then ceaselessly to bend our knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.

Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart.

Whatever else you may be doing, if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, your prayer will be ceaseless. Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, do not cease to desire. The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer… If your love is without ceasing, you are crying out always; if you always cry out, you are always desiring; and if you desire, you are calling to mind your eternal rest in the Lord… If the desire is there, then the groaning is there as well. Even if people fail to hear it, it never ceases to sound in the hearing of God.”

Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa (died 430 AD).

Praise is the Harvest of Love

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By Abraham Joshua Heschel

“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe.

The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith. To be overtaken with the awe of God is not to entertain a feeling, but to share in a spirit that permeates all being… We praise with the pebbles on the road which are like petrified amazement, with all the flowers and trees which look as if hypnotized in silent devotion.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century.

Listen to Your Life  

arampone Prayers and Meditations

By Frederick Buechner

Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery it is.
In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness:
Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
Because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner was an American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian.

When You Say Kaddish 

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By Lynda Sexson

“When I die, if you need to weep, cry for someone walking on the street beside you.

And when you need me, put your arms around others and give them what you need to give me.

You can love me most by letting hands touch hands and souls touch souls. You can love me most by sharing your simchas and multiplying your mitzvot. You can love me most by letting me live in your eyes and not in your mind.

And when you say Kaddish for me, remember what our Torah teaches: Love doesn’t die, people do. So when all that’s left of me is love, give me away.

Memory is an imaginal constellation of past and present that generates a new experience. Memory is not the storing of the past, but the storying of the present.”

From Ordinarily Sacred (1992): University of Virginia Press.