Chapter 114

What to Do After Prayer

When you finish your prayer, do not immediately move to some task, but stand for a moment and think: what have you done and what does this oblige you to do, preserving after prayer especially what affected you deeply. The very nature of prayer is such that if you pray well, as you should, — you will not want to busy yourself with tasks soon: whoever tastes sweetness will not want bitterness; and tasting this sweetness of prayer is the goal of prayer, and through this tasting of prayerful sweetness in prayer the spirit of prayer is cultivated.

Fulfilling these few rules, you will soon see the fruits of your prayerful labor. Every prayer will leave a trace of prayer in your soul, its continuous repetition in the same manner will root it, and patience in this labor will engraft the spirit of prayer.

This is the first — initial — way of cultivating the spirit of prayer in us! This is the fitting performance of our prayers. But this is not yet everything; here only the beginning of the teaching of prayer is laid. One must go further.

(Letter 227. Vol. 2, pp. 36–37)