The heart should act more than the mind in the exercise of prayer

Source: Bouix 1862

By St. Peter of Alcantara.

Let those who apply themselves to this exercise try to avoid giving too much to the speculation of the understanding, and let them take care to treat this matter rather with the affections and feelings of the will than with the discourses and considerations of the mind. Those certainly mistake the path who, in prayer, set themselves to meditate on the divine mysteries as if they were studying them to preach them; for this serves rather to dissipate the spirit than to collect it, and to carry us outside ourselves than to enclose us within our soul. It happens from this that at the end of prayer they remain alone and without spirit of devotion, as easy and as prompt to all sorts of lightness as they were before; because indeed they have not prayed, they have spoken, they have studied, which is quite different.

Those who find themselves thus disposed should consider that in this exercise we approach God much more to listen than to speak. Therefore, if they want to succeed in this matter, let them present themselves to prayer with the interior dispositions of a simple and upright woman, ignorant but humble, and rather with a heart disposed and prepared to feel and love the things of God, than with an active mind avid to fathom them; for this is proper to those who study to know, and not to those who pray, and who think of God, to weep.