It is of so great importance to dwell a long time upon the affectionate motions of the will, that the masters of a spiritual life say, that prayer is then in its sovereign degree of perfection, when no longer recurring to meditation, in order to excite in us the love of God, our heart being penetrated with this love it sighs after it, enjoys it and reposes itself therein, as in the only end of its researches and desires.  It is this the spouse teaches us, by her own example in the Canticles, when she says, “I have found him whom my soul loves; I will hold him fast, and will not let him go” and what she imitates to others by these words, “I sleep, but my heart is awake.”  For in perfect prayer, one’s understanding (reasoning/discursive thought) is as if it were asleep, because all its functions are, in a manner suspended; but the will and heart are awake, and melt with tenderness for the heavenly spouse.  His sleep also of the spouse is so agreeable to her beloved, that “he conjures the daughters of Jerusalem not to disturb the repose of his spouse, and not to awake her until she awakes herself.”  So that meditation, and all those other functions of the mind in prayer, are all made use of, and directed to contemplation, and are so many steps to help us to ascend to it.  –St Alphonsus Rodriguez ‘The Practice of Christian & Religious Perfection’

Artist Marc Chagall—Musee Marc Chagall