Quotations from Prayer Issue
Saints and Mystics

Prayer is naught else but a yearning of soul...when it is practised with the whole heart, it has great power.
Mechthild of Magdeburg

God aspires us into Himself in contemplation, and then we must be wholly His; but afterwards the Spirit of God expires us without, for the practice of love and good works.
-- Jan Van Ruysbroek

Dog-tiredness is such a lovely prayer, really, if only we would recognize it as such. Sometimes I hear, "I'm so dog-tired when I get to chapel, I can't pray." But what does it matter? We don't matter. Our Lord can pray just as well through a dog-tired body and mind as through a wellÄrested one, better perhaps. It is the same with pain and suffering of all kinds.
-- Mother Maribel of Wantage,

To pray is to work, to work is to pray.
-- Ancient motto of the Benedictine Order 

O God, Founder of the universe, help me that I may pray aright, that I may act as one worthy to be heard by you and, finally, set me free.
-- St. Augustine, The Soliloquies

As for prayer, don't burden yourself with making considerations; neither your mind or mine is good at that. Follow your own way of speaking to our Lord sincerely, lovingly, confidently and simply, as your heart dictates.
-- Jane de Chantal, Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction

 If the only prayer you say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice
-- Meister Eckart

In this temple of God, in this divine dwelling place, God alone rejoices with the soul in the deepest silence. There is no reason for the intellect to stir or seek anything, for the Lord who created it wishes to give it repose here.
-- Teresa of Avila, "The Seventh Dwelling Place," The Interior Castle

Those who would storm the heavenly heights by fireceness and ascetic practices deceive themselves badly. Such people carry grim hearts within themselves; they lack true humility which alone leads to the soul of God.
-- Mechthild of Magdeburg

Therefore we pray to him urgently that he may do what is pleasing to him, as if he were to say: "How could you please me more than by entreating me, urgently, wisely and sincerely, to do the thing that I want to have done?" And so the soul by prayer is made of one accord with God.
-- Julian of Norwich, Showings

O God, Founder of the universe, help me that I may pray aright, that I may act as one worthy to be heard by you and, finally, set me free.
-- St. Augustine, The Soliloquies

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of attention counts much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.
-- Simone Well, Waiting For God

Short prayer pierces heaven
-- The Cloud of Unknowing

I am never alone. Christ is always present, always praying in me and I pray in him.
-- Elizabeth of the Trinity