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PRAYER

 

If prayer is a colloquy, a discourse or a conversation of the soul with God, by it, then, we speak to God and He again speaks to us.  [Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 1]

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Prayer, according to most of the Fathers, is nothing other than a raising of the mind to heavenly things; others say it is a petition; but the two opinions are not at all opposed for while raising our mind to God, we can ask Him for what seems necessary.  (Sermons on Prayer: The Goal of Prayer)

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In prayer we approach God and place ourselves in His presence for two reasons:  The first is to render to God the honour and praise we owe Him, and this can be done without His speaking to us or our speaking to Him.  We can fulfil this duty by acknowledging that He is our God and we, His lowly creatures (cf. Ps. 95:6-7), and by remaining before Him, prostrate in spirit, awaiting His orders.  …  This aim we have in presenting ourselves before God simply to demonstrate and prove our willingness and gratitude to be in His service is excellent, very holy and very pure, and, therefore, a mark of great perfection.  The second reason why we present ourselves before God is to speak to Him and to hear Him speak to us through inspirations and the inner stirrings of our heart.  Ordinarily, we take great delight in doing this because it is very beneficial for us to speak to such a great Lord; and when He answers us, He pours out much balm and precious ointment, and in this way fills our soul with tremendous consolation.  [Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour]

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When you come before the Lord, talk to Him if you can; if you can’t, just stay there, let yourself be seen, and don’t try to be too hard to do anything else. [Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour]

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Prayer must be loved, but it must be loved for the love of God. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 44)

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There is much to fear in exalted methods of prayer, but one can walk securely in the more common. (Letters to Persons in Religion, V, 6)

 

Recollection of the mind

Meditation produces good movements in the will or loving part of our soul. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 6)

 

If you have the gift for mental prayer, always reserve for that the principal place above private vocal prayers. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 1)

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If in prayer the Holy Spirit gives you the affection before the consideration, you should not make the consideration, since it is only made to stir up the affection. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II. Chapter 8)

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Spend an hour in meditation every day. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 1)

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Consider what God is doing and what you are doing. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 12)

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If while saying your private vocal prayers, you feel your heart drawn to interior prayer, do not resist the attrac­tion. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 1)

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The desire we have to obtain divine love makes us meditate, but love obtained makes us contemplate. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 3)

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In striving to raise our reasonings too high in divine things by curiosity we grow empty in our thoughts, and instead of arriving at the knowledge of truth, we fall into the folly of our vanity. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4, Chapter 7)

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It is better to sleep upon the sacred breast than to watch elsewhere, wherever it be. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 8)

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The grace of meditation cannot be gained by any effort of the mind; but there must be a gentle and humble per­severance. (Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 9)

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Holy Church does not teach us to pray for ourselves in particular, but always for ourselves and for our Christian brethren. (Letters to Persons in the World, III, 11)

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Always say we and us, as our Lord has taught us in the Pater Noster, in which there is no mine, or my, or me. (Spiritual Conferences, 18)

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Let all meditations on "the last four things" end always with hope and con­fidence. (Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 6)

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Your way is good and there is nothing to object to, save that you go on consider­ing your steps too much, for fear of falling. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 16)

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If it please God to give us affections without reasonings and considerations, it is for us a great grace. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 9)

 

Recollection of the heart

Recollection of the heart is not made by the preparation of love, but by love itself. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 7)

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The chief exercise of prayer is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of our heart. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 1)

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Always distinguish clearly between the workings of the higher part of your soul and those of the lower. (Spiritual Conferences, 14)

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The sacred gift of prayer is already in the right hand of the Saviour; as soon as ever you shall have emptied yourself of self, He will pour it into your heart. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 19)

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He who in praying to God notices that he is praying, is not perfectly attentive to prayer. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 10)

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The best prayer is that which keeps us so well employed in God that we think not of ourselves or of what we are doing. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 9)

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If you reflect and bring your eyes back­ward upon yourself to see how you look when you look upon God, it is not now He that you behold but your own be­havior — yourself.  (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 10)

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There are souls who cannot pause and fix their thoughts on any special mystery, being attracted to a certain simplicity which keeps them in perfect tranquility before God, with no other consideration than the knowledge that they are before Him and that He is their only Good. (Spiritual Conferences, 18)

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In prayer of quiet, the contentment of the will is to admit no other contentment but that of being without contentment for the love of the good pleasure of its God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 11)

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The height of love's ecstasy is to have our will not in its own contentment but in God's. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 11)

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What good does a soul get from being ravished unto God by prayer, if in its con­versation and life it is ravished away by earthly, low and natural affections? (Letters to Persons in the World, VI, 57)

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When we see a soul that has raptures in prayer and yet no ecstasy in her life, these raptures are exceedingly doubtful and dangerous. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 7)

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There was never a saint but has had the ecstasy of life and operation. (Letters to Persons in the World, VI, 57)

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He who in his rapture has more light in the understanding to admire God, than heat in the will to love Him, is to stand upon his guard. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 6)

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If the ecstasy of love be more beautiful than good, more bright than warm, more speculative than affective, it is deserving of suspicion. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 6)

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The secret of secrets in prayer is to follow attractions in simplicity of heart. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 9)

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Think no more about the unity which God has made in you, nor your heart, nor your soul, nor anything whatsoever. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 6)

 

Distractions

The smallest distraction does not with­draw your soul from God, for nothing withdraws us from God but sin. (Spiritual Conferences, 9)

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Wolves and bears are certainly more dangerous than flies, but they do not cause us so much annoyance, nor do they exercise our patience so much. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 8)

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Flies do not trouble us with their strength, but by their number. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 10)

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We fight the monsters of Africa in imagination, and from lack of attention we allow ourselves in reality to be killed by the little serpents that lie in our way. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 37)

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We want our prayer to be steeped in orange-flower water, and we would be virtuous in eating sugar. (Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 8)

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Do not permit your spirit to consider its miseries, let God work; He will make something good of it. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 10)

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The very solicitude we have not to be distracted causes oftentimes a very great distraction. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 10)

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Accustom yourself to know how to pass from prayer to all sorts of actions which your vocation justly and lawfully requires of you. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 8)

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It is quite certain that our prayer will be none the less pleasing to God, nor less useful to ourselves for having been made with difficulty. (Spiritual Conferences, 18)

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When your heart is wandering and dis­tracted, bring it back gently and quietly to its point, restore it tenderly to its Master's side. (Letters to Persons in Religion, V, 13)

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We must be resolutely determined never to give up prayer for any difficulty that we may encounter in it. (Spiritual Conferences, 18)

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If you did nothing the whole of your hour but bring back your heart patiently and put it near your Lord again, and every time you put it back it turned away again, your hour would be well employed. (Letters to Persons in Religion, V, 13)

 

Spiritual Dryness

There is a difference between possess­ing the presence of God and having the feeling of His presence. (Spiritual Conferences, 9)

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If God has stripped you of the sense of His presence, it is in order that even His presence may no longer occupy your heart, but Himself. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 5)

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One single act done with dryness of spirit is worth more than many done with sensible devotion. (Spiritual Conferences, 7)

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He is always the same God, as worthy to be served in dryness as in consolation. (Spiritual Conferences, 3)

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There is a great difference between being occupied with God who gives us the contentment, and being busied with the contentment which God gives us. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 10)

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It is the supreme point of holy religion to be content with naked, dry, insensible acts, exercised by the superior will alone. (Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 8)

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Look at the bees upon the thyme; they find there a very bitter juice, but in suck­ing it, they convert it into honey. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part I, Chapter 2)

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What does it matter whether God speaks to us amid thorns or amid flowers? (Letters to Persons in the World, VI, 13)

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How long must we be like adolescents who like candy and cakes better than real nourishing food? (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, III, 9)

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It is far better to eat bread without sugar than sugar without bread. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, XV, 1)

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Of all the efforts of perfect love, that which is made by acquiescence of spirit in spiritual dryness is the purest and noblest. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 3)

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The love that desires to walk to God's will through consolations walks ever in fear of taking the wrong path; but the love that strikes straight through dryness toward the will of God walks in assurance. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 2)

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God's shadow is more healthful than His sun. (Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 21)

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I do not say that we may not entertain wishes for deliverance from spiritual dryness, but I do say that we must not set our hearts upon it. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 4)

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God only abases us to lift us up. (Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 7)

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When all fails us, when our spiritual pains have come to their extremity, this word, this disposition — O Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit — can never fail us. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 12)

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Do you think our Lady was less the Mother of our Lord when, overwhelmed with affliction, she breathed out that word, Yes, my Son, because so it has pleased Thee — than when with exalted voice she sang her Magnificat? (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 23)

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You must choose: is it better that there should be thorns in your garden in order to have roses, or that there should be no roses in order to have no thorns? (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 15)

 

Perseverance

Do not leave out your prayer unless for causes which it is impossible to control. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 16)

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There is nothing which so purges our understanding of its ignorance and our will of its depraved inclinations as prayer. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 1)

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We have never done; we must always begin again and again with a good heart. (Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 16)

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All your happiness depends on per­severance. (Spiritual Conferences, 20)

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That mortal who does not desire to love the divine Goodness more loves Him not enough; sufficiency in this divine ex­ercise is not sufficient. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13)

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Perseverance is the most desirable gift we can hope for in this life. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 4)

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Though perseverance does not come from our power, yet it comes within our power. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 4)

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To remain at a standstill is impossible; he that gains not, loses; he that ascends not, descends. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 1)

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Do you not know that you are upon the way, and the way is not made to sit down but to go in? (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 1)

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If one does not ascend the ladder he must descend; if one does not conquer he will be conquered. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, I, 7)

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Let us a thousand times a day turn our eyes upon this loving will of God and make ours melt into it. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 4)

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All our childishness proceeds from no fault but this, that we forget that every day we should consider we begin our course of perfection. (Letters to Persons in Religion, II, 16)

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Throughout the day say plenty of ejaculatory prayers, and especially those of the hours when they strike. (Letters to Persons in the World, III, 2)

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We dare not assure ourselves when we have done a good action that we have done it perfectly. (Spiritual Conferences, 8)

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The three best and most assured marks of lawful inspirations are perseverance, against inconstancy and levity; peace and gentleness of heart, against disquietude and solicitude; humble obedience, against obstinacy and extravagance. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 13)

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Our little fits of anger, of sadness, these little shiverings of the heart, are remains of our maladies, which the sovereign Physician leaves in us in order that we may fear to relapse. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 9)

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He greatly deceives himself who thinks that prayer perfects one without perse­verance and obedience. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 44)

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Hear Mass in your heart when you cannot hear it elsewhere. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 28)

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Enlarge your heart by a frequent pro­testation that you will never give in. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 11)

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Holy love may be lost in a moment. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4, Chapter 4)

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