Prayer

The Christian’s treasure is not upon earth, but in Heaven, and our thoughts should be where our treasure is.

Man has a beautiful office, — that of praying and of loving. To pray, to love, — behold man’s happiness upon earth !

Prayer is a foretaste of Heaven, a product of paradise. It always brings sweetness to the soul.

Troubles melt away before prayer as snow before the sun.

Man has two cries, the cry of the angel and that of the beast. The cry of the angel is prayer, the cry of the beast is sin.

They who pray not are bent to earth, like the mole striving to dig a hole in which to conceal itself. They are wholly terrestrial, wholly animal, and think only of the things of time.

What sweet satisfaction do we not experience in forgetting self to seek God !

Were Heaven but one day without adoration, it would no longer be Heaven ; and if the damned could adore, Hell would no longer be Hell, despite all its torments.

Alas ! poor reprobates ! they had a heart with which to love God, a tongue wherewith to bless Him — such was their destiny, and yet they are condemned to curse Him during all eternity ! If they had the hope of only once being able to pray, for even a moment, they would so impatiently await this moment, that the hope would be an alleviation of their torments.

Our tongue should be employed only in praying, our heart in loving, our eyes in weeping.

It is always springtime in the heart united to God.

Prayer is an embalmed dew ; but we must pray with a pure heart in order to perceive this dew.

A savory sweetness exudes from prayer, even as the juice from a very ripe grape.

Prayer disengages our soul from matter and elevates it on high even as the fire inflates balloons.

When we pray, let us open our heart to God as the fish spreads out its fins, when it sees the coming wave.

Unhappily, our hearts are not sufficiently free nor pure of all terrestrial affection. A very dry, clean sponge, soaked in a liquid will become thoroughly saturated therewith, while if not dry and clean, it lacks the power of absorption. Even so is it with the heart : when not free and disengaged from things of earth, vainly do we steep it in prayer, it absorbs nothing therefrom.

Heaven dissolves and melts away in the souls of the saints. They bathe themselves and are drowned in its overflowing waters.

As the disciples upon Tabor saw no longer any one save Jesus, so interior souls see on the Tabor of their hearts none but Him. These are two friends that never weary of each other.

The interior life is a bath of love in which the soul immerses itself.

God holds the interior man as a mother holds the head of her child in her hands, to cover it with kisses and caresses.

Union with Jesus Christ, union with the Cross — behold salvation !

To be loved by God, to be united to God, to live in God’s presence, to live for God — oh ! beautiful life and beautiful death !