"When the soul is purged of the evil humors of sin, it experiences a ravenous hunger for spiritual things, and sets to work as one famished at all manner of spiritual exercises: mortification, penitence, humility, charity, prayer. Doubtless such an appetite is a good sign, but it behooves you to reflect whether you are able [...]
"The greatest devotion is called for at the moment of receiving this sacrament, because it is then that the effect of the sacrament is bestowed, and such devotion is hindered more by what goes before it than by what comes after it. And therefore it was ordained that men should fast before receiving the sacrament [...]
"There are some poor women who imagine that the more they speak the better they pray. They have scarcely begun their beads than they look to see how soon they will be finished. That is not as it should be, my children. One has no need of much speaking to pray well. One knows the [...]
"If the piety of our days is so languishing, so shallow, it is because people attach themselves too much to its practices, neglecting the principle. They warm the sentiments, they set the imagination boiling. They do not force themselves to reflect sufficiently, to study, to fathom, and so they fall into the piety of routine." [...]
"Without prayer, they who receive Our Lord in Communion will never know how to converse with Him. Our Lord will not penetrate into their understanding, which is not open to Him. He will remain, as it were, in the antechamber. He will not enter into the depths of their heart. Their soul will not be [...]
"The two actions must be joined and never separated, filling our soul with love by prayer, and purifying ourselves exteriorly by mortification. It is easy to say, 'I love God,' but if this word is not followed by mortification, it is vain and unfounded. Self-love has quickly taken the place of the love of God." [...]
"When I became aware of God’s great plans for me, I was frightened at their greatness and felt myself quite incapable of fulfilling them, and I began to avoid interior conversations with Him, filling up the time with vocal prayer. I did this out of humility, but I soon recognized it was not true humility, [...]
"Prayer ought to be not only the grace of our sanctification, but its principal exercise, the virtue of virtues. By it you will have the virtues of your state, because, being a virtue which has God for immediate object, it attracts the other virtues after it and makes use of them to exercise itself." [...]
"Ah! why do we not place our perfection in prayer? Why do we not direct our studies, our virtues, to increase the state and the practice of prayer in ourselves? We employ our time and our graces in correcting some defects; but even should we not leave a single one, we must not pause there, [...]
"Intelligent silence is the mother of prayer, freedom from bondage, custodian of zeal, a guard on our thoughts, a watch on our enemies, a prison of mourning, a friend of tears, a sure recollection of death, a painter of punishment, a concern with judgment, servant of anguish, foe of license, a companion of stillness, the [...]