Oftentimes it’s enough merely to meet one day a true man or woman of prayer for an irresistible desire to pray to emerge in oneself. There are many today, it seems, who carry this wound in their hearts, this obscure but insistent longing. Let us call it an attraction for prayer. It is an initial call of the Spirit in the heart of a believer that moves him to abandon himself to the mysterious current whose meaning and orientation are barely glimpsed. This attraction brings with it a certain facility for recollection, a spontaneous stripping-off of all that could distract from its activity, which takes place entirely in the interior depths.
ANDRÉ LOUF In the School of Contemplation, Ch. 10, pg. 146
