Pray Well

Luke 6:12-19 Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.

"It has been said that those who truly pray are like the columns of the world, the props and supports without which everything would collapse. St. John of the Cross beautifully taught that even if it seems that nothing is happening, a little of this pure love is more precious before God and the soul, and does greater good for the Church, than all other works together...

St. Teresa echoed the words of a very learned man, for whom the souls who do not have a life of prayer are like a 'paralyzed' or crippled body, which, although it has feet and hands, cannot use them. Prayer is necessary to love the Lord more and more, in order never to be separated from him; without it, the soul falls into lukewarmness, loses its joy and the strength to do good...

All the solemn moments in the life of the Lord were preceded by prayer. The Evangelist tells us that it was precisely during the prayer of Jesus that he manifested the mystery of his Father's love and revealed the communion of the three divine persons. It is in prayer that we learn the mystery of Christ. In prayer we perceive, in all their dimensions, the real needs of our brothers and sisters throughout the world; in prayer we find the strength to face whatever lies before us; in prayer we obtain the strength for the mission which Christ shares with us. (John Paul II)

The holy Cure d'Ars used to say that all the evils that oppress us on earth come precisely from not praying, or from not praying well.
--from In Conversation with God, vol. 4, pp.584-585.