Zenit: Interview With Author Father Jacques Philippe

Interior Prayer: Founded on Loving Much


Interview With Author Father Jacques Philippe



By Carrie Gress

ROME, JULY 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Interior prayer is not a technique, but an attitude of love that makes our sacramental life more fruitful, says author Father Jacques Philippe.

Father Philippe, of the Community of the Beatitudes, is the author of "Time for God" published by Scepter Publishing, which is also available in French and Spanish.

In this interview with ZENIT, Father Philippe discusses the simple precepts of interior prayer, common misconceptions and the fruit that can be expected when added to the sacramental life.

Q: You describe mental prayer or interior prayer as something that does not involve technique. How, then, does it work?

Father Philippe: It would be better to say interior prayer instead of mental prayer, because in our modern culture, the word "mental" is associated with thoughts -- as something cerebral -- whereas this form of prayer is more an affair of the heart, instead of reflection. St. Teresa of Avila said that it is not an act of thinking much, but of loving much.

Interior prayer is not a question of technique. It is not a process that can be controlled because it is a meeting with God, who infinitely surpasses anything we can achieve through our own efforts.

What must be essentially understood is that there is no method, but an interior attitude. For interior prayer, there are three principles: a true desire for God; the confidence that God will allow us find that which we are looking for; and finally, humility: To accept our poverty and to wait for the goodness and love of God in all things.

Q: What is the fruit of interior prayer? And why is it important? Isn't adherence to the sacraments enough?

Father Philippe: Interior prayer permits the sacramental life to be more fruitful, more alive, more intense. It is important because it is there that we see and endlessly deepen the most essential dimension of Christian life: the personal relationship of trust and love that is established between God and each of his children, the reciprocal exchange where we give ourselves to God and where God gives himself to us. According to Pope John Paul II in "Novo Millenio Ineunte," this reciprocity is "the very substance and soul of the Christian life, and the condition of all true pastoral life."

Q: How does mental prayer differ from those who would wish to compare it to yoga or Buddhist practices?

Father Philippe: The fundamental difference is that it is a question of living and deepening the relationship of one person to another with God, and it is not solely to acquire the power to practice an interior or psychic state. The possibility of this interpersonal relationship is not founded on initiative or skill, but on God's desire to reveal himself and to communicate through love. Moreover, God acts within the Holy Trinity revealed in the New Testament: Through Jesus and thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, we can enter into communion with the Father.

Q: You describe mental prayer as "just spending time" with God, like two people in love would, but this can often feel like nothing is happening. Could something be happening interiorly despite the feeling that there isn't? Or even during times when one is distracted?

Father Philippe: The life of prayer is much deeper than the intelligence or the senses can perceive. Even when prayer is poor and distracted, provided that it is made with sincerity and faith, God can communicate secretly with the soul. He puts into it the treasures of light and the power of peace that is often made manifest at other times in life instead of just during prayer itself. And if one perseveres despite times of aridity, there will always be moments when God visits and makes his presence felt.

Q: In today's world, many people just don't seem to have time to spend half an hour or an hour in silent prayer. How can it be fit in? Does it always have to be practiced in a church?

Father Philippe: When one activity is considered vital, we find time to do it. The fundamental question is "what are our priorities?" We must be convinced that God will give us a hundred-fold the time that we devote to him in prayer. If we give part of our time to God with fidelity and perseverance, even just a quarter of an hour ever day, our life will be more peaceful and more fruitful.

We can pray at a church, as there is a lot of grace when praying in the presence of the Holy Sacrament, but we can also pray in a corner of our room in front of an icon, out in nature, or even on the bus or the subway.

Q: Many people only want to pray when they have an interior prompting to do so. Why is this not helpful both in prayer and in arriving at true interior freedom?

Father Philippe: All love relationships need, in order to grow, a choice for fidelity. If a husband loves his wife only when he feels the spirit to do so, the relationship will remain superficial, on only an emotional level. Fidelity and perseverance allow love to move beyond merely the sentimental and to become something very beautiful and rich, a life shared, a mutual gift of persons, one to another.

In every love relationship there are times of crisis and difficulty, but if we persevere with fidelity, the love will become stronger and truer.

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On the Net:

"Time for God": www.scepterpublishers.org/product-exec/product_id/174/nm/Time_for_God

St. Francis de Sales: Of Dryness and Spiritual Barrenness

From Introduction to a Devout Life

Chapter XIV --Of Dryness and Spiritual Barrenness.

SO much for what is to be done in times of spiritual consolations. But these bright days will not last for ever, and sometimes you will be so devoid of all devout feelings, that it will seem to you that your soul is a desert land, fruitless, sterile, wherein you can find no path leading to God, no drop of the waters of Grace to soften the dryness which threatens to choke it entirely. Verily, at such a time the soul is greatly to be pitied, above all, when this trouble presses heavily, for then, like David, its meat are tears day and night, while the Enemy strives to drive it to despair, crying out, "Where is now thy God? how thinkest thou to find Him, or how wilt thou ever find again the joy of His Holy Grace?"

What will you do then, my child? Look well whence the trial comes, for we are often ourselves the cause of our own dryness and barrenness. A mother refuses sugar to her sickly child, and so God deprives us of consolations when they do but feed self-complacency or presumption. "It is good for me that I have been in trouble, for before I was troubled I went wrong." 1 So if we neglect to gather up and use the treasures of God's Love in due time, He withdraws them as a punishment of our sloth. The Israelite who neglected to gather his store of manna in the early morning, found none after sunrise, for it was all melted. Sometimes, too, we are like the Bride of the Canticles, slumbering on a bed of sensual satisfaction and perishable delight, so that when the Bridegroom knocks at the door of our heart, and calls us to our spiritual duties, we dally with Him, loath to quit our idle and delusive pleasures, and then He "withdraws Himself, and is gone," and "when I sought Him, I could not find Him; I called Him, but He gave me no answer." 2 Of a truth we deserved as much for having been so disloyal as to have rejected Him for the things of this world. If we are content with the fleshpots of Egypt we shall never receive heavenly manna. Bees abhor all artificial scents, and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit is incompatible with the world's artificial pleasures.

Again, any duplicity or unreality in confession or spiritual intercourse with your director tends to dryness and barrenness, for, if you lie to God's Holy Spirit, you can scarcely wonder that He refuses you His comfort. If you do not choose to be simple and honest as a little child, you will not win the child's sweetmeats.

Or you have satiated yourself with worldly delights; and so no wonder that spiritual pleasures are repulsive to you. "To the overfed dove even cherries are bitter," says an old proverb; and Our Lady in her song of praise says, "He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away." They who abound in earthly pleasures are incapable of appreciating such as are spiritual.

If you have carefully stored up the fruits of past consolations, you will receive more; "to him that hath yet more shall be given," but from him who has not kept that which he had, who has lost it through carelessness, that which he hath shall be taken away, in other words, he will not receive the grace destined for him. Rain refreshes living plants, but it only brings rottenness and decay to those which are already dead. There are many such causes whereby we lose the consolations of religion, and fall into dryness and deadness of spirit, so that it is well to examine our conscience, and see if we can trace any of these or similar faults. But always remember that this examination must not be made anxiously, or in an over-exacting spirit. Thus if, after an honest investigation of our own conduct, we find the cause of our wrongdoing, we must thank God, for an evil is half cured when we have found out its cause. But if, on the contrary, you do not find any particular thing which has led to this dryness, do not trifle away your time in a further uneasy search, but, without more ado, and in all simplicity, do as follows:--

1. Humble yourself profoundly before God, acknowledging your nothingness and misery. Alas, what am I when left to myself! no better, Lord, than a parched ground, whose cracks and crevices on every side testify its need of the gracious rain of Heaven, while, nevertheless, the world's blasts wither it more and more to dust.

2. Call upon God, and ask for His Gladness. "O give me the comfort of Thy help again! My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." "Depart, O ye unfruitful wind, which parcheth up my soul, and come, O gracious south wind, blow upon my garden." Such loving desires will fill you with the perfume of holiness.

3. Go to your confessor, open your heart thoroughly, let him see every corner of your soul, and take all his advice with the utmost simplicity and humility, for God loves obedience, and He often makes the counsel we take, specially that of the guides of souls, to be more useful than would seem likely; just as He caused the waters of Jordan, commended by Elijah to Naaman, to cure his leprosy in spite of the improbability to human reason.

4. But, after all, nothing is so useful, so fruitful amid this dryness and barrenness, as not to yield to a passionate desire of being delivered from it. I do not say that one may not desire to be set free, but only that one ought not to desire it over-eagerly, but to leave all to the sole Mercy of God's special Providence, in order that, so long as He pleases, He may keep us amid these thorns and longings. Let us say to God at such seasons, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; "--but let us add heartily, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done," and there let us abide as trustingly as we are able. When God sees us to be filled with such pious indifference, He will comfort us with His grace and favour, as when He beheld Abraham ready to offer up his son Isaac, and comforted him with His blessing. In every sort of affliction, then, whether bodily or spiritual, in every manner of distraction or loss of sensible devotion, let us say with our whole heart, and in the deepest submission, "The Lord gave me all my blessings, the Lord taketh them away, blessed be the Name of the Lord." If we persevere in this humility, He will restore to us His mercies as he did to Job, who ever spake thus amid all his troubles.

5. And lastly, my daughter, amid all our dryness let us never grow discouraged, but go steadily on, patiently waiting the return of better things; let us never be misled to give up any devout practices because of it, but rather if possible, let us increase our good works, and if we cannot offer liquid preserves to our Bridegroom, let us at least offer Him dried fruit--it is all one to Him, so long as the heart we offer be fully resolved to love Him. In fine weather bees make more honey and breed fewer grubs, because they spend so much time in gathering the sweet juices of the flowers that they neglect the multiplication of their race. But in a cold, cloudy spring they have a fuller hive and less honey. And so sometimes, my daughter, in the glowing springtide of spiritual consolations, the soul spends so much time in storing them up, that amid such abundance it performs fewer good works; while, on the contrary, when amid spiritual dryness and bitterness, and devoid of all that is attractive in devotion, it multiplies its substantial good works, and abounds in the hidden virtues of patience, humility, self-abnegation, resignation and unselfishness.

Some people, especially women, fall into the great mistake of imagining that when we offer a dry, distasteful service to God, devoid of all sentiment and emotion, it is unacceptable to His Divine Majesty; whereas, on the contrary, our actions are like roses, which, though they may be more beautiful when fresh, have a sweeter and stronger scent when they are dried. Good works, done with pleasurable interest, are pleasanter to us who think of nothing save our own satisfaction, but when they are done amid dryness and deadness they are more precious in God's Sight. Yes indeed, my daughter, for in seasons of dryness our will forcibly carries us on in God's Service, and so it is stronger and more vigorous than at a softer time. There is not much to boast of in serving our Prince in the comfort of a time of peace, but to serve Him amid the toils and hardness of war, amid trial and persecution, is a real proof of faithfulness and perseverance. The blessed Angela di Foligni said, that the most acceptable prayer to God is what is made forcibly and in spite of ourselves; that is to say, prayer made not to please ourselves or our own taste, but solely to please God;--carried on, as it were, in spite of inclination, the will triumphing over all our drynesses and repugnances. And so of all good works;--the more contradictions, exterior or interior, against which we contend in their fulfilment, the more precious they are in God's Sight; the less of self-pleasing in striving after any virtue, the more Divine Love shines forth in all its purity.

A child is easily moved to fondle its mother when she gives it sweet things, but if he kisses her in return for wormwood or camomile it is a proof of very real affection on his part.

Earthen Vessels

Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer according to the Holy Fathers
by Gabriel Bunge, O.S.B.

Bl. Columba Marmion on Prayer

"Prayer"

Lectio Divina

Fr. Adam Ryan's essay
O. Carm intro
OSB intro
"Accepting the Embrace of God: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina," by Luke Dysinger

Society of St. John guide
Despite the failings of various members of the Society (and the fact that it was suppressed in Scranton), I find this brief guide to be good in so far as it presents the basics.

The Point About Prayer

The Point About Prayer
by Dom Hubert van Zeller, O.S.B.

People are apt to make two mistakes about prayer: they either imagine it to be so easy that they can manage it at once, or else so difficult that it is not worth while going on with. The answer is that because it is open to all it can't be very difficult, and because it is part of the burden of religion it can't be very easy. Whether we find it difficult or easy we have got to do it, so the more we get ourselves used to the practice and the less we worry about our reactions to it the better. But taken all in all it is perhaps more satisfactory to think that prayer is going to be easy than to think it is going to be difficult, because it means that we shall at least start off:

If we look only at the difficulties we are handicapped by discouragement before we begin. And right the way through this business of prayer there is nothing that acts as a more formidable obstacle than discouragement. So it will be mainly about this that the following paragraphs are concerned.

St. Paul's "Pray without ceasing" should provide the answer to those who are weighed down by the sense of their insufficiency. The saint is not exhorting to the almost impossible. He is telling every one-even the people who feel they are no use at it and that for them it is a complete waste of time-that their whole life can become a prayer. "You must make a habit of prayer," St. Paul is telling us, "and to make a habit of anything you must repeat and extend the act." First easy acts, then difficult ones. It is like learning a language: easy to make oneself understood, difficult to become really fluent. The way to become fluent is to practice often. Prayer is learned by repeated acts.

There is no short cut to a habit. A resolution to go on once one has begun is not a short cut. It is a good start but it is not a short cut. A method learned from a book is not a short cut. It may be a further step towards acquiring the habit, but it is not a short cut. A book of meditations is not a short cut. It is a guide to fall back upon when the habit is wearing thin, but it is not a short cut. In other words there is no substitute for the work of cultivating the habit of prayer. You have to do the thing before you can live the thing. And in order to do the thing properly you not only have to be faithful to your purpose but you have to be ruthless in the treatment of your feelings. You must not allow yourself to judge of the success or failure of your effort by whether you feel the presence or absence of devotion. What we feel, after all, is only the result of the effect of conditions on matter. The whole point about prayer is the effect it has on God. Our feelings will give us no true estimate of this.

Though there may be difficulty connected with forming the habit of prayer, there is no habit so easily drawn upon once it is there. So habitual can prayer become that the natural movement of the mind is towards God instead of towards creatures. I say "natural" movement and not "automatic" movement, because for prayer to have any value it must be non-mechanical. There is all the difference in the world between an instinctive direction of the soul and a purely routine action.

St. Anthony may have said that a man's prayer is still imperfect while he remembers that he prays, but he would never have said that the perfect man need not remember to pray. We don't begin our prayer, however brief and spontaneous, without some sort of desire to do so. Intention is necessary even if attention escapes us. Desire for God is the condition of prayer, and very often recollection is nothing else than that. Awareness of God's presence is not always prayer-the sinner can be aware of God's presence and rebel against it-but the desire for God's glory always is. And to become a man of prayer it is necessary so to extend this desire that it becomes habitual.

"Am I to believe then," it might be asked, "that as long as I have the general intention of praising God, I can have as many distractions as I like?" "As many as you get," would be the answer, "not as many as you like." Once we start liking a distraction enough to follow it up, it is a distraction in the fully guilty sense. But if we haven't been made aware of the fact that it is going on, if we had no intention of pursuing it once we knew it was there, if we have no intention of letting go the thought of God, if in other words we have no affection for the wretched thing even though we can't help being interested in it while it is there, then, though we may spend half an hour in thinking all round it, there is nothing in the least bit wrong in having had it. Fortunately this is a fact, which has been stressed by present-day writers, and most people are prepared to believe it.

That people are less prepared to believe is that not only is a prayer not wasted when it is distracted but that it may be, on account of the distractions, a better prayer. It is better for the humiliation which its obvious insufficiency occasions. If there is one disposition more necessary than the determination to go on with it, it is the disposition of feeling that you are so bad at it that it hardly seems worthwhile if you do. If you persevere in the prayer of stupidity, unable to fix your mind on holy things for the entire time of your prayer, and feeling throughout that you are the last person who should be attempting this sort of thing, and that though you seem to be at the mercy of distractions which you can't for the life of you remember afterwards but which you hate having, then you are doing what countless people have done before you and exactly what God wants you to be doing at the present moment.

The worry about being distracted can itself become such a distraction that the whole business is complicated far more than it need be. This is not to suggest that distractions should be admitted on the grounds that the effort to get rid of them is more distracting than the distractions themselves, it is merely to point out that the whole of the soul's energy in prayer should not be expended in driving away these maddening cross-currents of thought: love is the occupation of the soul, not struggle. Banishing distractions can become the preoccupation. The same situation can arise outside prayer time as regards bad thoughts: we can become obsessed with the necessity of suppressing them and so become involved in the thoughts themselves. In the case of distractions, as in the case of bad thoughts, the safest thing is to turn calmly towards God in the depths of the soul, and to tell Him that whatever is going on near the surface is no concern of ours . . . we despise and repudiate the disturbance, and we are not going to let ourselves get worked up about it. In this way we by-pass the unruly elements, delaying at them only for as long a time as it takes to assure ourselves that they are powerless to delay us.

If we can habituate ourselves to the knowledge that what goes on without our consent in the sensitive part of the soul is no obstacle to progress, the spiritual life loses many of its problems. What we have to do is to make ourselves responsible for the citadel of the soul, asking God to see to the dispositions for us, and not to work ourselves into a nervous state about what is going on in the outskirts. Serious rebellions seldom start in the suburbs. The only distractions which we have reason to fear are those that we have admitted to the mind.

Condensed from We Die Standing Up by Dom Hubert Van Zeller, O.S.B. © 1949 Sheed & Ward, NY

Archbishop Bruno Forte: A Letter on Prayer

Bruno Forte

A Letter On Prayer

You ask me: why pray? And I reply: to live.

Yes: really to live, you have to pray. Why? Because to live is to love: a life without love is not a life. It is empty loneliness, a sad prison. Only someone who loves is truly alive: and we only love when we are loved, when we are touched and transformed by love. Like the trees which bear no fruit unless bathed by the rays of the sun, so our human heart will not open itself out to true, full life unless touched by love.

Now, love is born from encounter and it finds life in encountering the love of God, the greatest and truest of all possible loves, the love, indeed, beyond all our definitions and capacities. When we pray, we let God love us, and we are born into love, ever anew. Thus it is that when we pray we live, in time and in eternity.

And when we do not pray? Ah, then we run the risk of dying inside, because sooner or later we will find no air to breathe, no warmth to make us live, no light to see by, no food to help us grow, and no joy to give meaning to our lives.

You object: but I don’t know how to pray! You ask: how should I pray? And I reply: start by giving God just a little of your time. At the outset, it won’t be so important for this to be a lot of time, but rather that you give it to Him faithfully. Decide upon a time to give the Lord every day, and give it to Him faithfully, every day, whether you feel like it or not.

Look for a quiet place, where - if possible - there is some sign which reminds you of God’s presence (a cross, an icon, the Bible, the Tabernacle with His eucharistic Presence….). Recollect yourself in silence: invoke the Holy Spirit, so that it is He who cries out within you "Abbà, Father!". Bring your heart to God, even if it is in tumult: do not be afraid of telling Him everything, not only your difficulties and pain, your sin and unbelief, but also your rebellion and your protest, if that’s what you are feeling inside.

Put everything in God’s hands: remember that God is a loving Father and Mother; that he bears all, forgives all, enlightens all and saves all. Listen to His Silence: don’t expect to find answers straightaway. Persevere. Like the prophet Elijah, walk through the desert to the mountain of God: and when you have drawn near Him, do not seek him in the wind, in the earthquake or in the fire, in signs of might and greatness, but in the voice of gentle silence (cf. 1 Kings 19, 12). Don’t presume to possess God, but let Him be the One to visit your life and your heart, to touch your soul, and to let you contemplate Him even if only once He has passed by.

Listen to the voice of His Silence. Listen to His Word of life: open the Bible, meditate upon it with love, let Jesus’ words speak to the heart of your heart; read the Psalms, where you will find word to say everything you want to express to God; listen to the apostles and prophets; fall in love with the stories of the Patriarchs and of the chosen people and of the early Church, where you will find the experience of lives lived out in God’s covenant. And once you have listened to God’s Word, walk still further in the paths of silence, and let the Spirit be the One to unite you to Christ, the Father’s eternal Word. Let God the Father be the One to mould you with both His hands – the Word and the Holy Spirit.

At the beginning, you may feel that the time for all this is too long, that it drags on: persevere with humility, giving God all the time you can manage, but never less than what you decided to give Him every day. You will begin to see that from day to day your faithfulness will have its reward, and you will become aware that the taste for prayer will grow in you, and what at first seemed unattainable, will become ever easier and more beautiful. Then you will understand that what matters is not getting answers, but placing yourself at God’s disposal: and you will see how whatever you bring to prayer will little by little be transfigured.

So it will be that when you go to pray with your heart in tumult, if you persevere, you will realize that after having prayed at length you will not have found answers to your questions, but the questions themselves will have melted like snow in the sun, and a great peace will enter your heart: the peace of being in God’s hands and of letting yourself be led docilely by Him, to wherever He has prepared for you. And so, your heart made new will be able to sing the new song, and the Magnificat of Mary will break out spontaneously on your lips and will be sung by the silent eloquence of your works.

Know, though, that there will be no lack of difficulties in all this: at times, you will not be able to quieten the din within and around you; at times you will feel tired or even nauseated by the idea of praying; at times, your feelings will be in agitation, and anything will seem preferable to remaining in prayer before God, "wasting" your time. Finally, you will experience the temptations of the Evil One, who will do everything possible to separate you from the Lord by taking you from prayer. Fear not: these same trials which you now bear were borne by the saints before you, and often theirs were much heavier than yours. Just go on having faith. Persevere, resist, and remember that the only thing that we can really give God is the proof of our fidelity. With perseverance you will save your prayer, and your life.

The "dark night" will come, when everything about the things of God will seem arid and even absurd to you: fear not. That is the hour when the one struggling with you is God Himself: remove every fault from you with the humble and sincere confession of your sins and sacramental forgiveness; give God even more of your time; and allow the night of the senses and of the spirit to become for you the hour of your sharing in the passion of the Lord. At this point, it will be Jesus Himself who carries your cross and leads you with Him towards the joy of Easter. Do not wonder, then, that you may even find this night loveable, because you will find it transformed for you into a night of love, flooded with the joy of the presence of the Beloved, full of the sweet perfume of Christ, bright with the light of Easter.

So do not be afraid, then, of trials and difficulties in prayer: only remember that God is faithful and that He will never send you a trial without providing you with the way through it, and He will never expose you to a temptation without giving you the strength to bear and conquer it.

Let God love you: like a drop of water that evaporates under the rays of the sun and rises skyward and returns to the earth as fruitful rain and soothing dew, so let your whole being be worked by God, moulded by the love of the Three, absorbed into Them and given back to history as a fruitful gift. Let prayer make you grow in freedom from all fear, in the courage and audacity of love, in fidelity to the persons God has entrusted to you and to the situations in which he has placed you, without seeking escapes or cheap consolations. Learn by praying to live with the patience of waiting on the times of God, which are not our times, and to follow the ways of God, which so often are not our ways.

A special gift which faithfulness to prayer will give you is the love for others and the sense of the Church: the more you pray, the more you will feel mercy for all, the more you will want to help the suffering, the more you will hunger and thirst for justice for all, especially for the poorest and weakest, the more you will accept to bear the sins of others to complete in yourself what is lacking in the passion of Christ, for the benefit of His body, the Church.

As you pray you will sense how beautiful it is to be in Peter’s boat, in solidarity with all, docile to the guidance of the pastors, sustained by the prayers of all, ready to serve others with generosity, asking nothing in return. As you pray you will sense how there grows in you the passion for the unity of the body of Christ and of the whole human family. Prayer is the school of love, because it is in prayer that you can discover how you are infinitely loved and be born ever anew in the generosity which takes the initiative of forgiving and of giving without calculation, beyond every measure of tiredness.

By praying we learn to pray and we taste the fruits of the Spirit which make life true and beautiful: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal 5,22). By praying we become love, and life takes on the meaning and beauty for which God intended it. When we pray we become ever more aware of the urgent need to bring the Gospel to all, to the furthest ends of the world. When we pray we discover the infinite gifts of the Beloved and we learn ever anew to give Him thanks in all things. When we pray, we live. When we pray, we love. When we pray, we praise. And praise is the greatest joy and peace of our restless hearts, in time and for eternity.

So if I were to wish you the most beautiful of all gifts, if I were to ask God to grant it to you, I would not hesitate to ask Him to give you the gift of prayer. Indeed, I do ask Him: and you too, do not hesitate to ask God to give it to me. And to you. The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. And may you also be in Them: because when you pray you will enter the heart of God, hidden with Christ in Him, enfolded for eternity in the faithful, ever new love of the Three.

For now you know: those who pray with Jesus and in Him, who pray to Jesus or to the Father of Jesus or invoke His Spirit, do not pray to a distant, vague God, but pray in God, pray in the Spirit, through the Son to the Father. And from the Father, through Jesus, in the divine breath of the Spirit, they will receive every perfect gift, conformable to them and prepared and desired for them from eternity. This is the gift that awaits us. And it awaits you.