Chapter 42

Above All, Care for Prayer-filled Feelings

Is your prayer in its proper place? Prayer always serves as the expression of our relationship to God. When prayer is good—warm, fervent, attentive—then our relationship to God is good. Then everything is good. Strive to strengthen your prayer if it has grown weak. With the prayer word, above all care for prayer-filled feelings: faith, hope, thanksgiving, contrition, offering yourself to God’s will, and all the others.

When a prayer-filled feeling visits you, dwell on it and warm it as long as it remains in your soul. Call another when one departs. Do this the whole day. This will be unceasing prayer. Feeling sometimes comes by itself, and sometimes you must call it forth. How? By meditation on God, or reflection on all the mysteries of faith, especially the economy of salvation—and the end of all things. Walk through all these subjects often in thought—and something will surely fall into your soul. That is feeling. God bless you, Lord!

(Letter 1025, vol. 6, p. 177–178)