Essentially, prayer is attentiveness to God, and this has various degrees, from weak or faltering to total. This attentive attitude is itself the fruit of love; God's love becomes the dominant commitment of the will. The person has achieved purity of heart and spiritual wholeness. Joy takes hold of the heart, transmuting every moment into the irresistible attraction and power of divine love.
Quiet, contemplative prayer happens when we are still and open ourselves to the Spirit working secretly in us, when we heed the psalmist's plea: "be still and know that I am God." These are times when we trustingly sink into God's formless hands for cleansing, illumination, and communion. Sometimes spontaneous sounds and words come through us in such prayer, but more often we are in a state of quiet appreciation, simply hollowed out for God. At the gifted depth of this kind of prayer we pass beyond an image of God and beyond any image of self. We are left in a mutual raw presence. Here we realize that God and ourselves quite literally are more than we can imagine.