I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence, so we need to listen. For, it is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul — as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul — and it brings us closer to God.
The spirit of childhood is a spirit of simplicity and joy that goes together with the greatest intelligence and the most advanced knowledge. Here more than anywhere else the law of contrasts holds: one must be great to be secure enough to be truly childlike -- just as one must be strong to be infinitely gentle, and wise in order to permit oneself to be foolish. Spiritual childhood is a matter of trust and self-surrender into God's hands.