time thou mayest have heard me say, and it is the truth, that the talk of
so-called pious men and women, full of depraved expressions, ruins the
souls and the habits and practices of Religious. Beware that thou bind thy
heart to none but Christ crucified; for the hour would come when thou
wouldst wish to set it free and couldst not, which would be very hard for
thee. I say that the soul which has tasted of the food of angels has seen
in the light that this and the other things we were speaking of are an
obstacle between itself and its food, and therefore flees them with the
greatest zeal. I say that it loves and seeks what may increase and
preserve it. And because it has seen that this food is better enjoyed by
means of prayer offered in self-knowledge, therefore it exercises itself
therein continually by all the ways in which it can hold closer to God.

Prayer is of three sorts. The one is perpetual: it is the holy perpetual
desire, which prays in the sight of God, whatever thou art doing; for this
desire directs all thy works, spiritual and corporal, to His honour, and
therefore it is called perpetual. Of this it seems that Saint Paul the
glorious was talking when he said: Pray without ceasing. The other kind is
vocal prayer, when the offices or other prayers are said aloud. This is
ordained to reach the third--that is, mental prayer: your soul reaches
this when it uses vocal prayer in prudence and humility, so that while the
tongue speaks the heart is not far from God. But one must exert one's self
to hold and establish one's heart in the force of divine charity. And
whenever one felt one's mind to be visited by God, so that it was drawn to
think of its Creator in any wise, it ought to abandon vocal prayer, and to
fix its mind with the force of love upon that wherein it sees God visit
it; then, if it has time, when this has ceased, it ought to take up the
vocal prayer again, in order that the mind may always stay full and not
empty. And although many conflicts of diverse kinds should abound in
prayer, and darkness of mind with much confusion, the devil making the