How Pure and Sincere Prayer Is Gained

So, in order that prayer may be offered with the earnestness and purity it ought to have, we must by all means keep these rules. First, all anxiety about the things of the flesh must be entirely got rid of. Next, we must leave no room not merely for the care but even for the memory of any business affairs. In the same way we must also lay aside all backbiting, empty and endless chatter, and buffoonery. Above all, anger and troubling gloom must be entirely destroyed, and the deadly taint of fleshly lust and greed must be torn up by the roots. So when these faults, and others like them that are also visible to human eyes, have been entirely removed and cut off, and when the purification and cleansing we spoke of has first taken place, which is brought about by pure simplicity and innocence, then first the secure foundations of a deep humility must be laid, able to support a tower that will reach the sky. Next the spiritual structure of the virtues must be built on them, and the soul kept free from all talk and from wandering thoughts, so that little by little it may begin to rise to the contemplation of God and to spiritual insight. [a]

For whatever our mind has been thinking about before the hour of prayer is sure to come back to us while we are praying, through the working of memory. So whatever we want to find ourselves to be while we are praying, that we ought to prepare ourselves to be before the time of prayer. For the mind in prayer is shaped by its previous condition. When we apply ourselves to prayer, the images of the same deeds and words and thoughts will dance before our eyes. They will make us angry, as in our earlier condition, or gloomy; or they will call back our former lust and business; or they will make us shake with foolish laughter, which I am ashamed to speak of, at some silly joke; or smile at some action; or fly back to our earlier conversation. So if we do not want anything to haunt us while we are praying, we should take care before our prayer to shut it out from the shrine of our heart. In this way we may fulfill the apostle’s command: “Pray without ceasing,” and, “In every place lifting up holy hands without anger or arguing.” For otherwise we will not be able to carry out that charge, unless our mind, cleansed from all stains of sin and given over to virtue as to its natural good, feeds on the continual contemplation of Almighty God.