Spiritual exercise Quotes

“In many ways spiritual exercise is like physical exercise. If you stop exercising physically, your body may not show the results of inactivity for a while. But one day you wake up and find everything is sagging in all the wrong places.”

“If you knew particularly what to do, it were not a spiritual exercise.”

“The second cause whence these rebellions sometimes proceed is the devil, who, in order to disquiet and disturb the soul, at times when it is at prayer or is striving to pray, contrives to stir up these motions of impurity in its nature; and if the soul gives heed to any of these, they cause it great harm. For through fear of these not only do persons become lax in prayer—which is the aim of the devil when he begins to strive with them—but some give up prayer altogether, because they think that these things attack them more during that exercise than apart from it, which is true, since the devil attacks them then more than at other times, so that they may give up spiritual exercises.”

“Daily mediation is a healthy spiritual exercise.”

“Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in.”

“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.”

“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's smile at someone and receive a smile in return are to me continual spiritual exercises.”

“What if the thing that God wants us to receive most in our conversations with Him is not some alternate reality, but an assurance of a divine presence within, and a divine perspective on, our current reality – a presence and perspective that will ultimately change our response to our circumstances and lead us to be responsible within those circumstances? So prayer doesn’t just become some ‘spiritual exercise’ in order to exert our authority over the external world, it becomes a spiritually-physical relationship with a greater authority that brings transformation internally, leading to responsibility externally.”

“When it comes to ourselves, we often have a blind spot. That is, we fail to see ourselves as others see us. We fail to recognize our most obvious traits: our strengths, weaknesses, mannerisms.”

“Keep your prayer simple. Whatever confuses or complicates prayer is probably best forgotten.”