Prayer is a privileged place for love to be exercised, and hence deepened and purified. It is a marvelously effective school of love. It is a school of patience, faithfulness, humility, and trust, and these attitudes are the most genuine expressions of true love. Prayer is a school of love of God, love of our neighbor and also (not least importantly) charity toward our own selves.

In seeking to situate love’s place in the prayer life one might say it is the goal of prayer and also that, together with faith and hope, it is the main means to prayer. That may seem like a paradox, but it applies to many things in the dynamism of the spiritual life. The movements of the soul are circular, says Pseudo-Dionysius, a sixth-century Greek father.

St. Teresa of Avila insists on this point in her teachings on prayer. It is not a question of thinking a lot but of loving a lot. Just as well, she adds, because not all souls are gifted with imagination, but all are gifted with the power to love. –Father Jacques Philippe ‘Thirsting For Prayer’