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"In mental prayer the soul is purified from its sins, nourished with charity, confirmed in faith, and strengthened in hope; the mind expands, the affections dilate, the heart is purified, truth becomes evident; temptation is conquered, sadness dispeeled; the senses are renovated; drooping powers revive; tepidity ceases; the rust of vices disappears. Out of mental prayer issues forth, like living sparks, those desires of heaven which the soul conceives when inflamed with the fire of divine love. Sublime is the excellence of mental prayer, great are its privileges; to mental prayer heaven is opened; to mental prayer heavenly secrets are manifested and the ear of God [is] ever attentive." - St. Peter of Alcantara, Spiritual Director of St. Teresa
"What St. Teresa has done so brilliantly is to describe precisely how a person can indeed contact God through prayer. Despite her reputation as a soaring Spanish mystic, she was an eminently practical person, and that practicality shines through her teachings about prayer; she is an instructor who shows, in step-by-step fashion, how the individual can contact God and then sustain that relationship." - Peter Thomas Rohrbach
Imprimatur: Leo A. Pursley, D.D., Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Fort Wayne, Indiana, April 20, 1956
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