Talking With God
Two main points of attention are necessary to maintain a constant spirit of prayer that unites us with God. We must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.
In order to cherish it, we should follow a regular course of reading; we must have appointed times of secret prayer and frequently recall our minds consciously to God during the day. We should make use of quiet days or retreats when we feel the need of them or when they are advised by those more experienced than we whose counsel we seek, and when our other responsiblities allow for them.
We should be afraid of all things that have a tendency to make us lose this state of prayer and be very careful to avoid them. Thus we should avoid those worldy activities and associates which turn our minds in the wrong direction, and those pleasures which excite the passions. We should avoid everything calculated to awaken the love of the world and those old inclinations that have caused us so much trouble.
A necessary foundation to prayer is meditating and thinking on the great truths which God has revealed. We should be familiar with all the mysteries of Jesus Christ and the truths of his gospel. Our souls should be colored by them and penetrated by them as wool is by dye. These truths should become so familiar to us that we acquire the habit of forming no judgment except in their light, that they may be our only guide in what we do, as the rays of the sun are our only light in what we see.
It is when these truths are inwardly incorporated in us that our praying begins to be real and fruitful. Up to that point prayer was but as shadow. We thought we had penetrated to the inmost depths of the gospel, when in truth we had barely set foot upon its border. All our most tender and ardent feelings, our firmest resolutions, our clearest and most distant visions were, in reality, but the rough and shapeless mass from which God would hew his likeness in us.
Our union with God must be the result of our faithfulness in doing and enduring all that he wills for us.
Our meditations should become deeper and more inward every day. I say deeper, because by frequent and humble meditation upon God's truth, we penetrate further and further in search of new treasures; and more inward, because as we seek more and more to enter into these truths, they penetrate into the very substance of our souls. Then it will be that a simple word will go further than a whole sermon.
Growth in prayer is indicated by a growth in simplicity and steadiness in our attitude. Our conversation with God resembles that with a friend. At first there are a thousand things to be told, and just as many to be asked. After a time, however, these diminish, while the pleasure of being together does not. Everything has been said, but the satisfaction of seeing each other, of feeling that one is near the other, can be felt without conversation. The silence is eloquent and mutually understood. Each feels that the other is in perfect harmony with him, and that their two hearts are continuously being poured into each other, becoming one.
To be faithful in prayer it is indispensable that we arrange all the activities of the day with a regularity that nothing can disturb.