I wonder

Have Christians always practiced prayer?

“From the beginning two things have been the necessary form and mystery of Christian spirituality.  Two things, even before the closing events of resurrection, ascension, and commission, wove disparate and often renegade believers into an inspirited body of the whole, connected to God and each other.  Like a double helix rendered elegant by complexity and splendid by authority, the amalgam of gospel and shared meal and the discipline of fixed hour prayer were and have remained the chain of golden connection typing Christian to Christ and Christian to Christian across history, across geography, and across idiosyncrasies of faith. The former is known as the food and sustenance of the Church, the latter as its work.”  (from the Introduction to “The Divine Hours, by Phyllis Tickle)