When you get no consolation in prayer, when you feel you are getting nowhere, that may be the best prayer you have ever said, because you are doing it not for your sake, but for God’s. Always seek the God of consolation; never seek the consolations of God. It is always that way round.
–Basil Hume (1923-1999)
The only “failure” in prayer is when we neglect it. The only “success” in prayer is the sense of God’s presence, or a deep peace and sense of well-being, a marvelous moment of inner freedom. When that comes, it is a special gift from God. We have no claim on it; we cannot demand it. Our part is to turn to him as best we can, trying to raise our minds and hearts to him.
–Basil Hume (1923-1999)
Those who pray but accumulate sorrows and grudges inside them are likened to people who draw water from the well and empty it into a leaking container.
–Saint Nilus of Sinai (d. 430)
Do not be sorrowed if you do not immediately receive from God that which you asked for, because He desires to benefit you even more, through your patient perseverance in prayer. What is there indeed more superior to associating with God and conversing with Him?
–Saint Nilus of Sinai (d. 430)
A bound person cannot run. Nor can the mind, which works like a slave for a certain passion, be able to offer a true prayer, because it is dragged around and wanders here and there on account of impassioned thoughts and cannot remain undisturbed. You will not be able to pray clearly if you are preoccupied with material things and are agitated by incessant cares, because prayer implies riddance of every care.
–Saint Nilus of Sinai (d. 430)
Sometimes we try hard to practice pure prayer, and cannot; but it happens also that we do not compel ourselves, yet the soul prays with purity. The first results from our infirmity, the second, from grace from above, which thus calls us to seek purity of soul and teaches us, in each case, not to ascribe it to ourselves if our prayer is pure, but to recognize in this a gift of the Giver. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought.” [Romans 8:26] When we try to make our prayer pure and cannot, but are enveloped in darkness, let us moisten our cheeks with tears and implore God to disperse the night of the battle and to let light shine in the soul.
–Saint Nilus of Sinai (d. 430)
