We must also know, beloved brethren, that every secret converse, every good care o f the intellect directed toward God and every meditation upon spir­ itual things is delimited by prayer, is called by the name o f prayer, and under its name is comprehended; whether you speak o f various readings, or the cries of a mouth glorifying God, or sorrowing reflection on the Lord, or making bows with the body, or psalmody in verses, or all the other things from which the teaching of genuine prayer ensues. From genuine prayer the love of God is born, for love comes of prayer.

For our Lord came for this reason, that He might change and transform and renew and recreate the soul which had been overturned by the passions…mingling with it His own Spirit of divinity… to make new men, anointing them which His own light of knowledge, that He might put in them the new wine which is His Spirit

Those upon whom you shed a ray of your love could no longer bear to live among people. In search of their Beloved, they renounced every physical love, becoming foreigners to all. They gave up all the pleasures of this life, seeking the way of their Beloved in tears. They felt unworthy of his beauty; finding themselves on this blessed quest, they wept ...

My child, you will not have to evoke My presence painfully. I shall be faithful to the appointment which I have made with you. I shall do more than wait for you in this Galilee of memories. Now I go before you, I shall lead you there. When your heart is once again fixed on Galilee, the One who is guiding you will make Himself known to you, and He will speak to you...

Just as the root of the vine ministers and distributes to the branches the enjoyment of its own natural and inherent qualities, so the Only-begotten Word of God imparts to the Saints, as it were, an affinity to His own nature which is that of God the Father, by giving them the Spirit...

“This is how you pray continually- not by offering prayer in words, but by joining yourself to God through your whole way of life, so that your life becomes one continuous and uninterrupted prayer.” - St Basil the Great