Quotes & Themes – Recollection of the Heart
Recollection of the Heart
Recollection of the heart is not made by the preparation of love, but by love itself. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 7)
The chief exercise of prayer is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of our heart. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 1)
Always distinguish clearly between the workings of the higher part of your soul and those of the lower. (Spiritual Conferences, 14)
The sacred gift of prayer is already in the right hand of the Savior; as soon as ever you shall have emptied yourself of self, He will pour it into your heart. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III 19)
He who in praying to God notices that he is praying, is not perfectly attentive to prayer. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 10)
The best prayer is that which keeps us so well employed in God that we think not of ourselves or of what we are doing. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV 9)
If you reflect and bring your eyes backward upon yourself to see how you look when you look upon God, it is not now He that you behold but your own behavior—yourself. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 10)
There are souls who cannot pause and fix their thoughts on any special mystery, being attracted to a certain simplicity which keeps them in perfect tranquility before God, with no other consideration than the knowledge that they are before Him and that He is their only Good. (Spiritual Conferences, 18)
In prayer of quiet, the contentment of the will is to admit no other contentment but that of being without contentment for the love of the good pleasure of its God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 11)
The height of love’s ecstasy is to have our will not in its own contentment but in God’s. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 11)
What good does a soul get from being ravished unto God by prayer, if in its conversation and life it is ravished away by earthly, low and natural affections? (Letters to Persons in the World, VI 57)
When we see a soul that has raptures in prayer and yet no ecstasy in her life, these raptures are exceedingly doubtful and dangerous. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 7)
There was never a saint but has had the ecstasy of life and operation. (Letters to Persons in the World, VI 57)
He who in his rapture has more light in the understanding to admire God, than heat in the will to love Him, is to stand upon his guard. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 6)
If the ecstasy of love be more beautiful than good, more bright than warm, more speculative than affective, it is deserving of suspicion. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 6)
The secret of secrets in prayer is to follow attractions in simplicity of heart. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV 9)
Think no more about the unity which God has made in you, nor your heart, nor your soul, nor anything whatsoever. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III 6)
North American Salesian Network
The North American Salesian Network (NASN) is an organization of both lay and religious groups that live the Salesian teachings of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. NASN facilitates the sharing of Salesian resources, educational services, vocational efforts, and a variety of resources, bringing this optimistic, joy-filled spirituality to people throughout the world.