Prayer in Guardian letters recently

, 16 March), it is fair to say that prayer, so understood, doesn’t work.

I wonder if there is a study to measure the effect that prayer has on the person praying? Prayer, for many of us, is not magic, not seeking the intervention of a lofty god whose reluctant arms need to be twisted. It is, rather, a participation in and a growing in compassion. It is we who are changed, through contemplation and stillness, centred on divine love.