Contemplative prayer

1560–1575 · Teresa of Avila, The Relations (Manifestations of Her Spiritual State) 8

Out of this recollection grow a certain quietude and inward peace most full of comfort; for the soul is in such a state that it does not seem to it that it wants anything; for even speaking wearies it,—I mean by this, vocal prayer and meditation; it would do nothing but love. This lasts some time, and even a long time.

1560–1575 · Teresa of Avila, The Relations (Manifestations of Her Spiritual State) 8

When all the faculties of the soul are in union, it is a very different state of things; for they can then do nothing whatever, because the understanding is as it were surprised. The will loves more than the understanding knows; but the understanding does not know that the will loves, nor what it is doing, so as to be able in any way to speak of it. As to the memory, the soul, I think, has none then, nor any power of thinking, nor are the senses awake, but rather as lost, so that the soul may be the more occupied with the object of its fruition: so it seems to me.

1562–1565 · Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus 17.6

It differs from the prayer of quiet, of which I have spoken, though it does seem as if it were all one with it. In that prayer, the soul, which would willingly neither stir nor move, is delighting in the holy repose of Mary; but in this prayer it can be like Martha also. Accordingly, the soul is, as it were, living the active and contemplative life at once, and is able to apply itself to works of charity and the affairs of its state, and to spiritual reading. Still, those who arrive at this state, are not wholly masters of themselves, and are well aware that the better part of the soul is elsewhere. It is as if we were speaking to one person, and another speaking to us at the same time, while we ourselves are not perfectly attentive either to the one or the other.

1562–1565 · Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus 9.6

And now to go back to what I was saying of the torture which my thoughts inflicted upon me. This method of praying, in which the understanding makes no reflections, hath this property: the soul must gain much, or lose. I mean, that those who advance without meditation, make great progress, because it is done by love. But to attain to this involves great labour, except to those persons whom it is our Lord's good pleasure to lead quickly to the prayer of quiet.

1562–1565 · Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus 15.9

What the soul has to do at those seasons wherein it is raised to the prayer of quiet is nothing more than to be gentle and without noise. By noise, I mean going about with the understanding in search of words and reflections whereby to give God thanks for this grace, and heaping up its sins and imperfections together to show that it does not deserve it.

1562–1565 · Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus 22.10

Blessed is he who truly loves Him, and who always has Him near him! Let us consider the glorious St. Paul, who seems as if Jesus was never absent from his lips, as if he had Him deep down in his heart. After I had heard this of some great Saints given to contemplation, I considered the matter carefully; and I see that they walked in no other way. St. Francis with the stigmata proves it, St. Antony of Padua with the Infant Jesus; St. Bernard rejoiced in the Sacred Humanity; so did St. Catherine of Siena, and many others, as your reverence knows better than I do.

1562–1565 · Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus 13.19

We set ourselves to meditate upon some mystery of the Passion: let us say, our Lord at the pillar. The understanding goeth about seeking for the sources out of which came the great dolours and the bitter anguish which His Majesty endured in that desolation. It considers that mystery in many lights, which the intellect, if it be skilled in its work, or furnished with learning, may there obtain. This is a method of prayer which should be to everyone the beginning, the middle, and the end: a most excellent and safe way, until our Lord shall guide them to other supernatural ways.

1577 · Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle 4.3.3

To seek God within ourselves avails us far more than to look for Him amongst creatures; Saint Augustine tells us how he found the Almighty within his own soul, after having long sought for Him elsewhere. This recollection helps us greatly when God bestows it upon us. But do not fancy you can gain it by thinking of God dwelling within you, or by imagining Him as present in your soul: this is a good practice and an excellent kind of meditation, for it is founded on the fact that God resides within us; it is not, however, the prayer of recollection, for by the divine assistance every one can practise it, but what I mean is quite a different thing. Sometimes, before they have begun to think of God, the powers of the soul find themselves within the castle. I know not by what means they entered, nor how they heard the Shepherd’s pipe; the ears perceived no sound but the soul is keenly conscious of a delicious sense of recollection experienced by those who enjoy this favour, which I cannot describe more clearly.

1577 · Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle 6.7.9

Some people (many of whom have spoken to me on the subject) after our Lord has once raised them to perfect contemplation, wish to enjoy it continually. This is impossible; still, the grace of this state remains in their souls in such a way that they cannot reason as before on the mysteries of the Passion and the Life of Christ. I cannot account for it but it is very usual for the mind thus to remain less apt for meditation. I think it must be because, as the one end of meditation is to seek God, after He has once been found and the soul is accustomed to seek Him again by means of the will, it no longer wearies itself by searching for Him with the intellect.

1577 · Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle 6.7.15

I am certain that this way of king is most helpful to the soul and not the hindrance it would become were great efforts made to use the intellect. This, as I said, I believe cannot be done when a higher state of prayer is attained. It may be otherwise in some cases, for God leads souls in many different ways. Let not those be blamed, however, who are unable to discourse much in prayer, nor should they be judged incapable of enjoying the great graces contained in the mysteries of Jesus Christ, our only Good, which no one, however spiritual he may be, can persuade me it is well to omit contemplating. 16. There are souls who, having made a beginning, or advanced half-way, when they begin to experience the prayer of quiet and to taste the sweetness and consolations God gives, think it is a great thing to enjoy these spiritual pleasures continually. Let them, as I advised elsewhere, cease to give themselves up so much to this absorption.

1616 · Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God Book VI. Of the Exercises of Holy Love in Prayer, Chapter X. Of Various Degrees of This Repose, and How It Is to Be Preserved

The soul, then, to whom God gives holy, loving quiet in prayer, must abstain as far as she is able from looking upon herself or her repose, which to be preserved must not be curiously observed; for he who loves it too much loses it, and the right rule of loving it properly is not to love it too anxiously. And as a child who, to see where his feet are, has taken his head from his mother's breast, immediately returns to it, because he dearly loves it; so if we perceive ourselves distracted, through a curiosity to know what we are doing in prayer, we must replace our hearts in the sweet and peaceable attention to God's presence from whence we strayed.

1657 · Augustine Baker, Holy Wisdom (Sancta Sophia) The Third Treatise. Of Prayer, Fourth Section. Of Contemplation, Chapter I. Of Contemplation in General

In the second place, there is a mystic contemplation which is, indeed, truly and properly such, by which a soul without discoursings and curious speculations, without any perceptible use of the internal senses or sensible images, by a pure, simple, and reposeful operation of the mind, in the obscurity of faith, simply regards God as infinite and incomprehensible verity, and with the whole bent of the will rests in Him as (her) infinite, universal, and incomprehensible good. This is true contemplation indeed, and as rest is the end of motion, so is this the end of all other both internal and external exercises; for therefore, by long discourse and much practise of affection, the soul inquires and tends to a worthy object that she may quietly contemplate it, and (if it deserve affection) repose with contentment in it.

c. 198–203 · Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 7.7

But if voice and expression are given us, for the sake of understanding, how can God not hear the soul itself, and the mind, since assuredly soul hears soul, and mind, mind? Whence God does not wait for loquacious tongues, as interpreters among men, but knows absolutely the thoughts of all; and what the voice intimates to us, that our thought, which even before the creation He knew would come into our mind, speaks to God. Prayer, then, may be uttered without the voice, by concentrating the whole spiritual nature within on expression by the mind, in un-distracted turning towards God.

1605–1610 · Johann Arndt, True Christianity 2.34

But alas! the concerns of this lower world have so great an influence upon our minds, distracting our thoughts, and withholding us from devout retirement, that we must endeavor to purify our minds from all thoughts of the creature, according to a devout writer, who advises us, “to lay aside all thoughts of this or that thing, time or place, and bring all the powers of our souls into profound repose.” And in this sabbath or rest of the soul, in this quiet cessation from the cares and labors of corrupt nature, when we pray, God descends with his living word, and the soul of man perceives and tastes the truth and love of God; of which, before this patient preparation, it was wholly ignorant and insensible.

1605–1610 · Johann Arndt, True Christianity 2.20

Rom. 8:15. By this internal prayer, we are led on gradually to that which is supernatural; which, according to Tauler, “consists in a true union with God by faith; when our created spirit dissolves, as it were, and sinks away in the uncreated Spirit of God. It is then that all is transacted in a moment, which in words or deeds has been done by all the saints from the beginning of the world.” For this reason this supernatural prayer is unspeakably more excellent than that which is chiefly external; for therein the soul is by true faith so replenished with the divine love, that it can think of nothing else but of God only. Or if another thought should enter inadvertently into the heart, it proves but an occasion of trouble and sorrow; and the soul cannot be at ease till the intruding thought has again vanished. A soul that has once arrived at this happy state gives but little or no employment to the tongue: it is silent before the Lord: it panteth and thirsteth after God (Ps. 42:1, 2): it longeth, yea, even fainteth for him (Ps. 63:1; 84:2).

1657 · Augustine Baker, Holy Wisdom (Sancta Sophia) The Third Treatise. Of Prayer, Third Section. Of the Exercises of Immediate Forced Acts of Will, Being the Second Degree, Chapter VII. Of the Prayer of Interior Silence

Now though no distinct reflecting or otherwise express acts either of the understanding or will are admitted into this exercise, yet the soul is far from that mere cessation or nonactuation professed by the frantic illuminates; for here the soul is in a case like to a tender mother with unspeakable satisfaction regarding her most amiable child: she all the while says nothing, neither thinks any express distinct thought of which she can give any account, yet both her mind and will also are busy, yea, the mind in one simple regard has the virtue of many long discourses, and the will in one quiet continued application has the quintessence of a thousand distinct affections. In like manner, a soul does actually regard God, and being in His presence she does really with adoration, humility, resignation, and love behave herself towards Him; and what need is there that she should tell Him that she does acknowledge His presence, or that she does adore, love, and resign herself to Him? She rather chooses the Psalmist’s way of praising and serving God, who (instead of the Latin interpretation, Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion, Psalm lxiv.), in the Hebrew expression followed by the Septuagint, saith, Domine tibi silentium laus est,—‘Silence is praise to Thee, O Lord;’ and, indeed, the most effectual becoming praise of all other it is, proceeding out of a deep sense of His incomprehensible perfections and majesty, whom the Seraphim contemplate by covering their faces, and glorify most perfectly in that profound and awful half-hour’s silence mentioned in the Apocalypse.

1685 · Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer 4

First, as soon as the soul by faith places itself in the Presence of God, and becomes recollected before Him, let it remain thus for a little time in a profound and respectful silence. But if, at the beginning, in forming the act of faith, it feels some little pleasing sense of the Divine Presence; let it remain there without being troubled for a subject, and proceed no farther, but carefully cherish this sensation while it continues: as soon as it abates, the will may be excited by some tender affection; and if by the first moving thereof, it finds itself reinstated in sweet peace, let it there remain: the smothered fire must be gently fanned; but as soon as it is kindled, we must cease that effort, lest we extinguish it by our own activity. I would warmly recommend it to all, never to finish prayer, without remaining some little time after in a respectful silence. It is also of the greatest importance for the soul to go to prayer with courage, and such a pure and disinterested love, as seeks nothing from God, but the ability to please Him, and to do His will: for a servant who only proportions his diligence to his hope of reward, renders himself unworthy of all reward.

1685 · Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer 8

God engages some, for whole years, in the contemplation and enjoyment of a particular mystery; the simple view or contemplation of which gathers the soul inward, provided it be faithful: but as soon as God is pleased to withdraw this view from the soul, it should freely yield to the deprivation. Some are very uneasy at feeling their inability to meditate on certain mysteries; but this disquietude hath no just foundation, since an affectionate attachment to God includes every species of devotion: for whosoever, in repose and quiet, is united to God alone, is, indeed, most excellently and effectually applied to every divine mystery: the Love of God comprehends, in itself, the love of all that appertains to Him.

1685 · Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer 2

I have mentioned that our direct and principal exercise should consist in the contemplation of the Divine Presence: we should be also exceedingly watchful and diligent in recalling our dissipated senses, as the most easy method of overcoming distractions; for a direct contest and opposition only serves to irritate and augment them; whereas, by sinking down under a sense and perception of a present God, and by simply turning inwards, we wage insensibly a very advantageous, though indirect war with them. It is proper here to caution beginners against wandering from truth to truth, and from subject to subject: the right way to penetrate every divine truth, to enjoy its full relish, and to imprint it on the heart, is dwelling on it whilst its savour continues. Though recollection is difficult in the beginning, from the habit the soul has acquired of being always from home; yet, when by the violence it hath done itself, it becometh a little accustomed to it, it will soon be rendered perfectly easy, and become delightful. Such is the experimental taste and sense of His Presence, and such the efficacy of those graces, which that God bestows, Whose One Will towards His creatures is to communicate Himself unto them!

1685 · Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer 3

Again, we may look to Him as our Physician, and present to His healing influence all our maladies; but always without violence or perturbation, and from time to time with pauses of silence, that being intermingled with the action, the silence may be gradually extended, and our own exertion lessened; till at length, by continually yielding to God's operations, they gain the complete ascendancy; as shall be hereafter explained. When the Divine Presence is granted us, and we gradually relish silence and repose, this experimental feeling and taste of the Presence of God introduces the soul into the second degree of prayer, which, by proceeding in the manner I have described, is attainable as well by the illiterate as the learned: some favoured souls, indeed, are indulged with it, even from the beginning.

1685 · Miguel de Molinos, The Spiritual Guide The First Book, Chap. XIII

Thou oughtest to go to Prayer, that thou mayest deliver thy self wholly up into the hands of God, with perfect resignation, exerting an act of Faith, believing that thou art in the divine Presence, afterwards setling in that holy repose, with quietness, silence and tranquility; and endeavouring for a whole day, a whole year, and thy whole life to continue that first act of Contemplation, by faith and love.

1692–1694 · Brother Lawrence, Letters (The Practice of the Presence of God) 8

When the mind, for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection, at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth. I believe one remedy for this is, to confess our faults, and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer; many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering: hold yourself in prayer before God, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate: let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander, and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that; trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind, than to re-collect it; the will must bring it back in tranquillity; if you persevere in this manner, God will have pity on you. One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times: you should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.21

To pray according to your first method is to pray by formal, successive and perceptible acts; to pray according to the second method is to pray by implicit acts, experienced, but in no way expressed nor perceptible except confusedly. Or, in other words it is to pray by a simple but actual inclination of the heart; now this simple and real inclination of the heart contains all, and says all to God without, however, express words. The different names that are given to this method of prayer will make you understand it perfectly; it is called a loving waiting on God, a simple looking, or pure faith and simplicity tending to God; the prayer of surrender and abandonment to God, arising from the love of God, and producing an ever increasing love of God. By these examples you will see that this method is of more value than the other; you must, therefore, make it your principal exercise, without, however, neglecting the first at certain times as I told you above.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.16

The simple perception, or consideration of these mysteries, accompanied by holy affections, is already a very good method of prayer. When all the contemplation of the mind, and the affections of the heart are gathered into one point, for instance—the Deity, the prayer is much simplified, is better and more divine; but you must not imagine that this method will always continue: usually it is not a permanent state, but a fugitive grace. When it has passed, you must return to the simple contemplation of the mystery with some affections of the heart, gentle, peaceful, without effort or too much examination.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.10

Let us be thoroughly persuaded that we can find God everywhere without the least effort; because He is truly present to those who seek Him with all their hearts, although they may not be always aware of His presence. Therefore whenever you are no longer occupied with created things so that you have ceased to think any more about them, know that your soul is then occupied by God, and in God without your knowledge. And this is the reason: God, being that hidden and invisible object to which tend all the desires of a right heart; from the moment it turns its desires away from creatures, they then find their natural centre, which is God; and by continually dwelling in this centre they gradually increase until they become very distinctly felt and produce strong outbursts of love. Therefore the true presence of God is, to speak plainly, but a kind of forgetfulness of creatures with an interior desire to find God.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.16

4th. This attraction to and taste for mental prayer, and this profound peace and silence full of admiration and love are marked effects of the prayer of recollection. But to remain in a kind of inactivity, like an empty space, or a mere instrument waiting for the master-hand of the worker, is another operation of grace. In this state you have only to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Wait patiently in silence and resignation, as the holy king, David, said, “Like a servant waits with her eyes fixed on her mistress to forestall and accomplish her commands at the least sign from her”; if nothing is said, still wait in the same interior spirit of submission and abandonment. Should grace inspire particular and formal acts, perform them quietly, following step by step the impulse given for that purpose, and stop directly it ceases, to resume once more the same silent attention.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.12

During the day try to keep yourself united to God, either by frequent aspirations towards Him, or by the simple glance of pure faith; or better still, by a certain calm in the depths of your soul and of your whole being in God, accompanied by a complete detachment from all the exterior objects of this world. God Himself will show you which of these three ways will best suit you to unite yourself to Him, by the attraction to it, the taste for it, and the facility in the practice of it which He will give you, for this union is in proportion to the degree of to which the soul is raised.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.9

I have always thought, with him, that no one ought to meddle with the prayer of recollection unless he be called to it, and also that this grace cannot be merited by good works, nor can anyone succeed in it by any effort of his own. I have only added, with Fr. Surin and other authors, that one can, indirectly and beforehand, dispose oneself to receive this great gift of heaven by removing obstacles, first by a great purity of conscience, secondly by purity of heart, thirdly of spirit, and fourthly of intention which will carry a soul very far on the road to it; and that having so far disposed oneself, one ought by short and frequent pauses, as if waiting to listen, give free course to the interior spirit.

1830 · Philaret of Moscow, The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church 2.393

Has not such prayer a name of its own? It is called spiritual, or prayer of the heart and mind, in one word, inward prayer; while, on the other hand, prayer expressed in words, and accompanied by other marks of devotion, is called oral or outward prayer.

1847 · Henry Edward Manning, Sermons, Volume 3 13

When we are overcome by a sense of what we are, and for shame or sorrow even fear to speak at all, we may place ourselves before Him, passively, and in silence, casting ourselves down under His feet, to be read, searched by His penetrating sight. Though unworthy to ask the least, yet we may make our requests known unto Him by silent humiliation, and by secret appeal to His perfect knowledge.

1259 · Bonaventure, The Mind's Road to God (Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum) 5.1

It happens that we may contemplate God not only outside of us but also within us and above us. [Thus we contemplate Him] outside through His traces, inside through His image, and above us through His light, which has signed upon our minds the light of eternal Truth, since the mind itself is immediately formed by Truth itself. Those who exercise themselves in the first manner have already entered into the atrium of the tabernacle; the second have entered into the sanctum; but the third have entered into the Holy of Holies with the High Priest, the Holy of Holies where above the ark are the Cherubim of glory overshadowing the propitiatory. By these modes we understand two ways or degrees of contemplation of the invisible and eternal things of God, of which one deals with God's essential attributes, the other with the properties of the Persons.

1370 · Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue (abridged, translated by Algar Thorold) 3.2

The moment she feels her mind disposed by My visitation, in the many ways I have told you, she should abandon vocal prayer; then, My visitation past, if there be time, she can resume the vocal prayers which she had resolved to say, but if she has not time to complete them, she ought not on that account to be troubled or suffer annoyance and confusion of mind; of course provided that it were not the Divine office which clerics and religious are bound and obliged to say under penalty of offending Me, for, they must, until death, say their office. But if they, at the hour appointed for saying it, should feel their minds drawn and raised by desire, they should so arrange as to say it before or after My visitation, so that the debt of rendering the office be not omitted. But, in any other case, vocal prayer should be immediately abandoned for the said cause. Vocal prayer, made in the way that I have told you, will enable the soul to arrive at perfection, and therefore she should not abandon it, but use it in the way that I have told you.

1608 · Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 2.1

If, while saying vocal prayers, your heart feels drawn to mental prayer, do not resist it, but calmly let your mind fall into that channel, without troubling because you have not finished your appointed vocal prayers. The mental prayer you have substituted for them is more acceptable to God, and more profitable to your soul.

1650 · Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest (abridged by Benjamin Fawcett) 14

We are also to take notice how heavenly contemplation is promoted by SOLILOQUY and PRAYER. Though consideration be the chief instrument in this work, yet, by itself, it is not so likely to affect the heart. In this respect contemplation is like preaching, where the mere explaining of truths and duties is seldom attended with much success as the lively application of them to the conscience; and especially when a divine blessing is earnestly sought to accompany such application.

1677 · Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man 3

This mental prayer is of all others the most effectual to purify the soul, and dispose it unto a holy and religious temper, and may be termed the great secret of devotion, and one of the most powerful instruments of the divine life; and, it may be, the apostle hath a peculiar respect unto it, when he saith, that “the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered,” or, as the original may bear, “that cannot be worded.” Yet I do not so recommend this sort of prayer, as to supersede the use of the other; for we have so many several things to pray for, and every petition of this nature requireth so much time, and so great an attention of spirit, that it were not easy therein to overtake them all: to say nothing, that the deep sighs and heavings of the heart, which are wont to accompany it, are something oppressive to nature, and make it hard to continue long in them. But certainly a few of these inward aspirations will do more than a great many fluent and melting expressions.

1682 · John Owen, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer 10

Besides, the Scripture doth not propose unto us any other kind of access unto God under the New Testament, nor any nearer approaches unto him, than what we have in and through the mediation of Christ, and by faith in him. But in this pretence there seems to be such an immediate enjoyment of God in his essence aimed at as is regardless of Christ, and leaves him quite behind. But God will not be all in all immediately unto the church, until the Lord Christ hath fully delivered up the mediatory kingdom unto him. And, indeed, the silence concerning Christ in the whole of what is ascribed unto this contemplative prayer, or rather the exclusion of him from any concernment in it as mediator, is sufficient with all considerate persons to evince that it hath not the least interest in the duty of prayer, name or thing.

c. 1740–1751 · Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters on the Practice of Abandonment to Divine Providence 2.11

With regard to the rest, there is nothing easier to recognise, and discover, than the deceits and illusions incident to the prayer of faith, and of simple recollection; and that by the infallible rule of Jesus Christ; the tree is known by its fruits. Therefore all prayer that produces reformation of the heart, amendment of life, the avoidance of vice, the practice of the evangelical virtues and the duties of one’s state, is a good prayer. Also all prayer which does not produce these fruits, or which produces their opposite, is a false prayer and produces the fruit of a bad tree, even were it accompanied by raptures, ecstasies and miracles. The paths that lead us to God are those of faith, charity and humility, therefore all that makes its walk in these paths is useful to us, and whatever leads us away from them is dangerous and hurtful. This is the safest and most infallible rule to prevent and reform all that is evil, all that is illusory, and it is within everyone’s power.

1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 6.9b

How seldom through the cloud-wrack beneath His feet do we see His face! This absorbed contemplation is the necessary preliminary of all real prayer, and there is a truth in the thought that such losing of self in gazing on God is the highest form of prayer. We should feel as some peasant come to court who stands on the threshold of the presence-chamber, and forgetting his grievances and his embassy, gazes entranced on the splendour and benignity of his sovereign.