Prayer is more perfect when it is interior, when a soul prays in the spirit of God. These are deep words, I know, but God can make even stones like me speak when he wishes. Let the immense Good rest in your soul. God in you and you in God. A divine work. I do not know how to say it, but God feeds on your spirit and your spirit feeds on the Spirit of God. My food is Christ and I am his.
–Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775)
Contemplating ourselves brings fear and humility; contemplating God brings us hope and love.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Realize above all that you are in God’s presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor. Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.
— Saint Romuald of Ravenna (951-1027)
In prayer the stilled voice learns to hold its peace, to listen with the heart to silence that is joy, is adoration. The self is shattered, all words torn apart in this strange patterned time of contemplation that, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me, and then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
–Madeline L’Engle (1918-2007)
We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of action.
–Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540-604)
In the Passion and death of Christ our sins were consumed by fire. If we accept that in faith, and if we accept the whole Christ in faith-filled surrender, which means, however, that we choose and walk the path of the imitation of Christ, then he will lead us “through his Passion and cross to the glory of his Resurrection.” This is exactly what is experienced in contemplation: passing through the expiatory flames to the bliss of the union of love. This explains its twofold character. It is death and resurrection.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
