Laurence Freeman OSB: I've called this retreat or we've taken the theme of 'the inner room'. And of course, this is taken from one of the sayings of Jesus about prayer in Matthew in Chapter six, especially where he gives his essential teaching on prayer during the sermon on the Mount. Remember, the first thing he says about prayer is what prayer is not. He says... "Prayer is not about what you do on the street corner when you're dressed up and attracting people's attention." So that's the first thing Jesus says about prayer is not to confuse it with that feeling of satisfaction you get when the ego is stroked and people think specially or more highly of you. And then he focuses in a series of short, very memorable, expressions on what prayer is, or not so much on what prayer is in an abstract sense. But how we enter into prayer, how we discover prayer as pure reality as pure experience.
