A Short Method of Prayer Quotes

“Prayer is nothing else but the application of the heart to God, and the interior exercise of love.”
― Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, A Short Method of Prayer

“To pastors and teachers

Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.

Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms . . . you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language . . .

A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“Some persons, when they hear of the prayer of silence, falsely imagine that the soul remains stupid, dead, and inactive. But unquestionably, it acteth therein more nobly and more extensively than it had ever done before; for God himself is the mover, and the soul now acteth by the agency of His spirit.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“Now when the soul by its efforts to abandon outward objects and gather itself inwards, is brought into the influence of the central tendency, without any other exertion, it falls gradually by the weight of Divine Love into its proper centre; and the more passive and tranquil it remains, and the freer from self-motion and self-exertion, the more rapidly it advances, because the energy of the central attractive virtue is unobstructed and has full liberty for action.

All our care and attention should, therefore, be to acquire inward recollection: nor let us be discouraged by the pains and difficulties we encounter in this exercise, which will soon be recompensed on the part of our God by such abundant supplies of grace as will render the exercise perfectly easy, provided we be faithful in meekly withdrawing our hearts from outward distractions and occupations, and returning to our centre with affections full of tenderness and serenity.

When at any time the passions are turbulent, a gentle retreat inwards into a Present God easily deadens and pacifies them; and any other way of contending with them rather irritates than appeases them.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“Whatever truth you have chosen, read only a small portion of it, endeavouring to taste and digest it, to extract the essence and substance thereof, and proceed no farther while any savour or relish remains in the passage: when this subsides, pick up your book again and proceed as before, seldom reading more than half a page at a time, for it is not the quantity that is read, but the manner of reading, that yields us profit.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“We should accept indiscriminately all His dispensations, whether obscurity or illumination, fruitfulness or barrenness, weakness or strength, sweetness or bitterness, temptations, distractions, pain, weariness, or doubtings; and none of all these should, for one moment retard our course.”
― Madame Guyon, Madame Guyon: A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“the direct and principal exercise should be the sense of the presence of God, we must most faithfully recall the senses when they wander.”
― Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, A Short Method of Prayer

“There are two means by which we may be led into the higher forms of prayer. One is Meditation, the other is Meditative Reading.”
― Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, A Short Method of Prayer

“This prayer is not mental, but of the heart. It is not a prayer of thought alone, because the mind of man is so limited, that while it is occupied with one thing it cannot be thinking of another. But it is the PRAYER OF THE HEART, which cannot be interrupted by the occupations of the mind. Nothing can interrupt the prayer of the heart but unruly affections; and when once we have tasted of the love of God, it is impossible to find our delight in anything but Himself.”
― Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, A Short Method of Prayer

“To pastors and teachers

If all who laboured for the conversion of others were to introduce them immediately into Prayer and the Interior Life, and make it their main design to gain and win over the heart, numberless as well as permanent conversions would certainly ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labour which is confined to outward matters; such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leaving the soul to Christ by the occupation of the heart in him . . .

O when once the heart is gained, how easily is all moral evil corrected! It is, therefore, that God above all things requires the heart. It is the conquest of the heart alone that can extirpate those dreadful vices which are so predominant, such as drunkenness, blasphemy, lewdness,envy, and theft. Jesus Christ would become the universal and peaceful Sovereign, and the face of the church would be wholly renewed.

The decay of internal piety is unquestionably the source of the various errors that have arisen in the church, all which would would speedily be sapped and overthrown should inward religion be reestablished . . .

O how inexpressibly great is the loss sustained by mankind from the neglect of the Interior Life!”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“If while reading, you feel yourself recollected, lay aside the book and remain in stillness; at all times read but little, and cease to read when you're thus internally attracted.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of withdrawing from this sensation to form an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that it is requisite: but they are not aware that they lose thereby the genuine contrition, which is this Intuitive Love, infinitely surpassing any effect produced by self-exertion . . . Be not then troubled about other things when God acts so excellently in you and for you.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“We must, however, urge it as a matter of the highest import, to cease from self-action and self-exertion, that God himself may act alone: He saith by the mouth of his prophet David: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). But the creature is so infatuated with a love and attachment to its own workings, that it imagines nothing at all is done if it does not perceive and distinguish all its operations.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“Come, ye dull, ignorant, and illiterate, ye who think yourselves the most incapable of prayer! Ye are more peculiarly called and adapted thereto. Let all without exception come, for Jesus Christ hath called all.

Yet let not those come who are without a heart; they are not asked; for there must be a heart, that there may be love. But who is without a heart? Oh come, then, give this heart to God; and here learn how to make the donation.”
― Madame Guyon, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

“O Divine Shepherd! Thou feedest Thy sheep with Thine own hand, and Thou art their food from day to day.”
― Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, A Short Method of Prayer