The Seven Steps of Agape Prayer

What is agape? How does it help us be what we were created to be? Can it fulfill our spiritual development? We can bring God’s gift of agape fully into a person’s consciousness in a powerful, liberating way. Seven steps are shown to enter into the spreading of the spiritual power of agape to a mentor, friends, family, groups, communities, enemies, and all of Creation. This prayer practice led me to the living meaning of Romans 5:5, “Hope does not disappoint us because God’s agape has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” As I began to put into practice the deeply spiritual meaning of that verse, I began to sense the gift of agape as a divine blessing. And as people use agape in the way it was intended to be used, we take part in the expansion of that blessing. So when we share agape with those around us, we are sharing divine blessing with them. It is that shift in perspective—to consider agape to be a spiritual power conveying divine blessing—that led me to this prayer practice. We are able to learn from agape working in our life. And that means learning in the deep, spiritual, transformative way. So as agape influences our deep understanding of life and then influences our way of relating to others, we are slowly transformed. We find a new perspective on what works best in relationships. In a similar way, as I look at the period of massive change of our age and as I see so many people struggling to find hope, I agree with St. Paul that there is hope in the spreading awareness of spiritual agape. That spread helps reduce the violence and destructiveness we hear about around the world. And so a new era of history is dawning.