Once the intellect has arrived at true and pure prayer it is likely that the demons . . . will offer it an illusory vision of God beneath a form pleasing to the senses, so as to make it believe that it has fully attained the goal of its prayer. Now all of that, as an admirable gnostic said, is the work of the passion of vainglory and of a demon whose assaults make the brain reel.
EVAGRIUS OF PONTUS On Prayer, 73 (Philokalia I, 183)
I have seen impure souls who threw themselves headlong into physical eros to a frenzied degree. It was their very experience of that eros that led them to interior conversion. They concentrated their eros on the Lord. Rising above fear they tried to love God with an insatiable desire. That is why, when Christ spoke of the woman who had been a sinner, he did not say that she had been afraid, but that she had loved much and had easily been able to surmount love by love.
JOHN CLIMACUS The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 5th Step
‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17.21). From this we learn that by a heart made pure . . . we see in our own beauty the image of the Godhead . . . You have in you the ability to see God. He who formed you put in your being an immense power. When God created you he enclosed in you the image of his perfection, as the mark of a seal is impressed on wax.
GREGORY OF NYSSA Homilies on the Beatitudes, 6
Keep yourself carefully from setting your thoughts upon what happens in the community, and still more from speaking of it except to the proper person at the proper time. Nor should you ever be shocked or marvel at what you see or hear, but should try to keep your soul forgetful of it all. For if you want to ponder on all that happens you would always discover something amiss even if you lived among angels.
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
What God demands of us is not this or that; He demands everything.
PIERRE REVERDY TO JACQUES MARITAIN
If we are rushed for time, sow time and we will reap time. Go to church and spend a quiet hour in prayer. You will have more time than ever and your work will get done.
DOROTHY DAY 15 Days of Prayer With Dorothy Day