#interior prayer

[littleflowerofchrist]

"We should, during our work and other actions, even during our reading, even spiritual reading, during outward devotions and vocal prayers, stop for an instant as often as we can, to adore God in the depths of our hearts, savor him rapidly and as it were by stealth, praise him, ask him for help, offer him our hearts and thank him. What could be more pleasing to God than for us to leave aside created things a thousand times a day, to recollect ourselves and adore him interiorly? For being with God, it is not necessary to be always at church. We may make an oratory of our heart, wherein to retire from time to time, to converse with him. Everyone is capable of such familiar conversation with God."

-Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (17th century Carmelite friar), as quoted by Jacques Phillippe on page 99-100, "section 1. Outside the time of prayer", and Part IV "Practical Advice for Personal Prayer" of his book Thirsting for Prayer

[wildandwasteless-blog]

A Pilgrim's Prayer

"Remembering what my grandfather had bidden us, we often fasted, every morning we said the Acathist of Our Lady, and at night we each made a thousand prostrations to avoid falling into temptation. Thus we lived quietly enough for two years. But this is what is so surprising--although we had no understanding of interior prayer offered in the heart and indeed had never heard of it, but prayed with the tongue only, and made our prostrations without thought like buffoons turning somersaults, yet in spit of all this the wish for prayer was there, and the long prayers we said without understanding did not seem tiring; indeed we liked them. Clearly it is true, as a certain teacher once told me, that a secret prayer lies hidden within the human heart. The man himself does not know it, yet working mysteriously within his soul, it urges him to prayer according to each man's knowledge and power...."

"'One must learn to call upon the name of God, more even than breathing--at all times, in all places, in every kind of occupation. The Apostle says, 'Pray without ceasing.' That is, he teaches men to have the remembrance of God in all times and places and circumstances. If you are making something, you must call to mind the Creator of all things; if you see the light, remember the Giver of it; if you see the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, wonder and praise the Maker of them. If you put on your clothes recall Whose gift they are and thank Him Who provides for your life. In short, let every action be a cause of your remembering and praising God, and lo! you will be praying without ceasing and therein your soul will always rejoice.' There, you see, this way of ceaseless prayer is simple and easy and within the reach of everybody so long as he has some amount of human feeling."--Anonymous Russian Orthodox Sojourner, The Way of a Pilgrim, p. 63 & 76