Place for Prayer

227. Keep yourself apart for one thing only, that which brings everything with it ; solitude, accompanied by prayer and spiritual reading : and there abide, for getting all things, if there be no obligation upon you to remember them. You will please God more by keeping watch over, and perfecting, yourself, than if you gained everything : for what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, if he loses his own soul ?

228. Pure spirituality gives no heed to matters which do not concern it, or to human respect ; but alone and apart from all created forms, communicates interiorly in sweet tranquillity with God ; for the knowledge of Him lies in a divine silence.

229. For the purposes of prayer that place is to be chosen in which sense and spirit may be least hindered from rising upwards unto God.

230. The place of prayer must not be pleasant and delectable to the senses — some people seek such a place — lest the issue should be recreation of sense, and not recollection of spirit.

231. He who goes on a pilgrimage will do well tc do so when others do not, though it be an unusual season. When pilgrims are many, I would advise staying at home, for in general men return more dissipated than they were before they went. They who become pilgrims for recreation, rather than devotion, are many in number.