Chapter 22

On the Importance of Church Services

You must stand through all church services. And I tell you, there is no better way to open prayer of the mind in the heart than to be in church, at the church services. In the church services is a prayerful spirit. Whoever stands through a service with attention to all that is read and sung cannot help but warm to a prayerful disposition. If this happens today, tomorrow, and the day after, and so on, then finally a prayerful flame will kindle in the heart. But when God grants this, then you will run to church as to a royal feast, and nothing will hold you back. Only try to pay attention to the church hymns and readings, for without attention nothing will happen.

(Letter 241. Vol. 2, p. 58)