The soul is therefore, set towards God; in the midst of its desolation, it has no wish for creatures, it wants God; it does not rejoice in His presence, yet has no pleasure but there; in spite of its aridities and repugnances, it thirsts after solitude; the omission of prayer would produce remorse and create a frightful void; it wants everything when it has not God.

The mind is turned towards God by only a simple, vague, confused thought, by a general and unvarying remembrance of Him. “God is not represented to the soul under any form, no words can convey the idea which she forms of Him; He is not conceived precisely as great, nor as beautiful, nor as good, nor as powerful; her idea of Him is not this, and yet it is all this; or, better still, it is something above all this. God, God. God, is the only word which the soul can utter to express her thoughts about Him.” (Abbe Auguste Saudreau) Evidently the intellect is here not much engaged, a thousand distractions beset it; but the distractions once passed away, the occupations once ended, if we want to think of God, it is always the same simple and general thought that recurs to the mind, and we can find no other.  –“The Ways of Mental Prayer” by Dom Vitalis Lehodey