"Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [. . .] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness."
"We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God's Book tells us to "try." Now count the times it tells us to "trust."
"It is true, as John Bunyan said, that God infinitely prefers a heart without words to words without a heart when we pray."
"What our Heavenly Father wants us to do about our spiritual failures is like what our earthly father wants us to do about our earthly failures. When we fall off the horse, or the bike, or the high road to Heaven, we must simply climb on again as soon as we are aware of the fact that we have fallen off, rather than sitting there stewing in self-pity or self-hatred."
"Our conversation with God should be utterly free and familiar, because God is the only person who will never, ever misunderstand us and never, ever reject us (hate us, ignore us, or be indifferent to us). These are the tow reasons we hid from other people, even our friends, even our parents, and the tow reasons we should never hide from God."
"Prayer is essentially the practice of the presence of God, and that is the road to Heaven. There is no alternative. God is the only game in town. All other roads are dead ends. Since we must give our all to the one true God, we must not give any part to idols, to the many false gods that now bite away at our lives."
"The practice of the presence of God, though we begin it at special times of prayer, is designed to spill out and over and into all times."
"You do not have to wait until you become a saint. [Prayer] is the way to become a saint."
"One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world."
"The single most important piece of advice about prayer is one word: Begin!"
"Léon Bloy wrote: 'Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint"
"One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility."
"When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out!"
"There is something in us that fears prayer as a maggot fears light. We must do violence to this voice, for it is not ourselves. It is our Enemy."
"Prayer is easier than we think. we want to think it is too hard or too high and holy for us, because that gives us an excuse for not doing it. This is false humility. We can all do it, even the most sinful, shallow, silly, and stupid of us."
"We must pray in order to grow, and we must grow because Infinite Love will not, cannot, settle for less than the greatest joy of which his beloved creature is capable."
"God makes it easy to begin: just do it! God also makes it easy to progress in prayer, for he rewards our efforts with peace and joy. And he makes it easiest of all at the end, for it gradually becomes more natural and delightful."
"High and holy ambition--to be a saint--is not opposed to holy humility--total reliance on God's grace. Exactly the opposite. Ambition without humility is ambition that fails. It is pride, which goes before a fall (Prov 16:18). Humility without ambition is false humility."
"We pray to obey God, not to 'play God'. We pray, not to change God's mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let God command us. We pray to 'let God be God'. Prayer is our obedience to God even when it asks God for things, for God has commanded us to ask (Mt. 7:7)."
"Feelings, like waves, look more substantial than they are."
"Feelings are wonderful decorations, but they are not a foundation to build on."
"Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time."