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St. Catherine of Siena (b. 1347) compared prayer to filling a cup at the fountain of love.
Even simple folk know this…. If you have received my love sincerely without self-interest, you will drink your neighbor’s love sincerely. It is just like a vessel that you fill at the fountain. If you take it out of the fountain to drink, the vessel is soon empty. But if you hold your vessel in the fountain while you drink, it will not get empty: Indeed it will always be full.
—Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, Trans. Suzanne Noffke
Prayer itself is the key to perseverance. No amount of will or good intent can guard your heart and steady your courage like Prayer. However, Prayer cannot be an on and off matter. Prayer must be your priority. All your reading and good works must flow out of Prayer and back into Prayer. Your religion is sanctified only when wedded to Prayer, Prayer that leads to loving fellowship and union with the One. Otherwise, Prayer easily becomes another religious project, among other religious projects to please God and be right with God: thus, a Christian legalism. Prayer is to become the act, continual, of uninterrupted Sharing with God in the deepest part of the Self, where is what the Hindus call Atman, and can be called the Deepest Self. Here, in the Trinity, Prayer becomes life itself, for it flows from and to the Trinity.
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