Advanced Prayer

Anonymous Monk

"When you have reached the state of recollection*, do not worry about the next step, but just stop thinking your ‘good’ thoughts as well as your ‘bad’ ones. Do not pray with words unless you feel you have to, and even then, if you do, do not bother about there being many or few. Nor are you to pay any attention to their meaning, whatever it is you are praying, whether it is a collect, psalm, hymn, antiphon, or whatever, whether you are interceding generally or specifically, praying internally and mentally, or outwardly and vocally. See that nothing occupies your thoughts except an utter determination (naked intent) to reach out to God: no special thought about what God is or how he works, but only that he is, as he is. Let him be himself, please, and nothing else. You are not to go probing into him with your smart and subtle ideas. This understanding must be your foundation."

Book of Privy Counsel

(*Link to: More on: Recollection) (“Naked intent” means the will. To really get at what the author is telling us, it is imperative to 'locate' your will, the force of intention behind all action and deliberate movement of attention, that which we use to move toward or away from, or to hold ourselves still, not moving either way.)

[All this week, and part of next, the quotes will be on the subject of "recollection" and also contemplative prayer. If they are a little long, they are still worth reading, as they are of great value. Patricia]