118.  Action without prayer is useless in the sight of God; otherwise, a robot could do more than you.

119.  Prayer is of prime importance; secondly there is sacrifice; and only in third place do we have activity.

120.  Prayer is the foundation of the spiritual life.  When you are praying you are joined in communication with God, just as an electric light bulb glows by being connected with a generator.

121.  You believe that prayer is all powerful, don't you?  Then, consider Our Lord's words, "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Lk 1:9).  Can any insurance company give a more certain guarantee than these words of Our Lord?

122.  The secret of nurturing the Christian life is to pray.  Should there be someone who does not pray, even if he should perform a miracle, do not believe in him.

123.  Pray always and everywhere.  Jesus tell us, we "ought to pray continually" (Lk 18:1) and, "Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation: (Mt 26:41).

124.  "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).  These words of Our Lord are fulfilled especially in those many communities that pray whilst living thousands of miles from a priest.  They still organize themselves to pray together and to hold firmly to this practice in the midst of their difficulties and isolation.

125.  Are you surprised that many people lose the grace of God, lose their faith or turn against the Church?  Among the many causes there will always be one main cause and that is, that they have long since given up prayer.

126.  Do not neglect oral prayers.  When the apostles asked Our Lord, "Lord, teach us how to pray," (Lk 11:1), and Jesus replies, "This, then is to be your prayer, Our Father who art in heaven," (Mt 6:9).  He was actually teaching them oral prayer.

127.  Our Lord teaches you to recite prayers in order to help you to pray, but prayer itself is actually the meeting and conversation between the Father and child.  "When you are praying, go into your inner room and shut the door upon yourself, and so pray to your Father in secret; and then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Mt 6:6).  There is no need to be formal; simply pray from the heart, as a child to its father.

128.  The prayers of the liturgy are very pleasing to God, because they are the words of the bible, they are the prayers of the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ.  Use a missal, a book of the psalms or prayer book to help you to pray.

129.  It is not without foundation that I say, "Prayer is of prime importance."  Jesus told us, "Mary has chosen for herself the best part of all, that which shall never be taken away from her" (Lk 10:42).  As she sat at Our Lord's feet listening to his words and loving Him, Mary Magdalen had in Him all we now have in the Blessed Eucharist, the Sacred Scriptures and the whole of liturgical prayer. 

130.  You seek a friend to comfort you, once who will ease your loneliness.  Why not look for a friend who will never let you down, one who will stay with you continuously wherever you may be?

131.  A seemingly holy person who does not pray is not a genuine saint.  Wait and see, the veneer will crumble before long.

132.  If you wish to judge a person's apostolic effectiveness, look at his/her life of prayer.

133.  If you are not a person of prayer, nobody will believe that you work for God alone.

134.  Why are there crises in the Church?  It is because people do not take prayer seriously anymore.

135.  Who can describe the power of prayer?  It should be as fervent as the prayer of Our Blessed Mother Mary and the apostles in the upper room, as trusting as that of Jesus in the Garden of Olives, as resolute as when Moses stretched out his arms on the mountain and as confident of forgiveness as was the prayer of the good thief.

136.  "Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God," (Mt 4:4), that is, the Blessed Eucharist, the Sacred scriptures and liturgical prayer.  Without these, you will have no spiritual life.

137.  Prayer on the lips of an un-baptized person is genuine sign of the beginnings of faith.

138.  The spirit of prayer is like a furnace burning in your apostolic soul.  If you wish to feed that fire you must stir up those big logs of sacrifice and recollection and the little ones of frequent aspirations and secret acts of self-denial.

 139.  Even if you do not utter a word, God understands your heart completely.  Look at the example in the Gospel of the woman who was suffering from a issue of blood.  As soon as she touched the hem of Our Lord's garment, she received her answer immediately (Mt 9:21, Mk 5:28, Lk 8:44).

140.  As a sinner you dare not stand in the presence of God, but the words of the Church bid you to be reassured:  "Through Christ Our Lord."  How could you think that all the sufferings of Jesus and all the good works of his Blessed Mother and the saints would not be sufficient to encompass your little prayers?

141.  Do you think that children are not yet able to do anything for the Church or that the sick can no longer do anything for the Church?  No, not at all.  After the official prayer of the Church, the prayers of children and of the sick are most pleasing to God.  They should often be reminded of this.

142.  The time when you pray is a period of intimacy with God who is your father.  It is not like writhing an essay; it is a time for the heart, not for the head.  Do not wrack your brains or scratch your head as to how you should appear before God.

143.  There are many regions in the world without priests which have maintained the faith through many decades by means of the recitation of prayers in the families.

144.  Your prayers should encompass everybody; your heart should include the whole world.  But do not, as a consequence of this, forget the realities within yourself and around about you.

145.  Spiritual books have helped make saints of many people.  They are the oil which fuels the furnace of prayer.

146.  In a special way, those consecrated souls should declare on their identity cards:  "Occupation: Prayer".  The other occupations in the world are being fully attended to.  The world demands that you assume the role of representative and begs you:  "Pray for me!"

147.  It was not because she was lazy that Mary Magdalen sat quickly at the feet of Our Lord.  The Gospel does not canonize lazy people.  Mary choose the best part: she chose to listen to Our Lord, allowing his words to permeate her hear and soul, to effect a revolution within her, to operate in her and with her.  Can anything be more active than that renewal, that transformation? (Lk 10:42).