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Germanus: If only we could keep as a lasting possession those spiritual
thoughts in the same way and with the same ease with which we generally
conceive their germs! for when they have been conceived in our hearts
either through the recollection of the Scriptures or by the memory of some
spiritual actions, or by gazing upon heavenly mysteries, they vanish all
too soon and disappear by a sort of unnoticed flight. And when our soul has
discovered some other occasions for spiritual emotions, different ones
again crowd in upon us, and those which we had grasped are scattered, and
lightly fly away so that the mind retaining no persistency, and keeping of
its own power no firm hand over holy thoughts, must be thought, even when
it does seem to retain them for a while, to have conceived them at random
and not of set purpose. For how can we think that their rise should be
ascribed to our own will, if they do not last and remain with us? But that
we may not owing to the consideration of this question wander any further
from the plan of the discourse we had commenced, or delay any longer the
explanation promised of the nature of prayer, we will keep this for its own
time, and ask to be informed at once of the character of prayer, especially
as the blessed Apostle exhorts us at no time to cease from it, saying "Pray
without ceasing." And so we want to be taught first of its character, i.e.,
how prayer ought always to be offered up, and then how we can secure this,
whatever it is, and practise it without ceasing. For that it cannot be done
by any light purpose of heart both daily experience and the explanation of
four holiness show us, as you have laid it down that the aim of a monk, and
the height of all perfection consist in the consummation of prayer.
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