Prayer is not another that unites with God. Prayer is a sweet friendship, a surprising familiarity, it is a sweet conversation of a child with his father.  But the one who prays more want to pray more.

We have a small heart, but the prayer enlarges it and makes it capable of loving God. They are lot large nor beautiful prayers that the good God sees, rather, those that come from the foundation of the heart, with great respect and a great desire to please God.

Private prayer is like the straw that is gathered here and there in a field. If fire starts, the flames burns a little, but if the straw is bundled, the flames becomes abundant a shoots toward Heaven: so it is with communal prayer.

The man is poor who needs to ask all from God. The man has a beautiful function, that of praying and loving…Here is the happiness of the man on the Earth!

Let’s go, my soul, to conversion with the good God! Working with Him, on the road with Him, battling and suffering with HIm. You will work, but He will bless your work; you will walk, but He will bless  your steps; you will suffer, He will bless your tears. How great, how noble, how much is all that the consoler is doing in union and under the watch of the good God, and thinking that He sees all, knows all.

From the Homilies of St. John Vianney.

translated from Spanish