Storm of human passions, you that asphyxiate all good feelings of every incarnate spirit who only has a vague memory of them deep down in their consciences, who shall abate your fury?
It is prayer; prayer is the one that can protect people against that ocean of horrible monsters like pride, envy, rage, hypocrisy, lies, impurity, materialism and blasphemy! Prayer is the strongest levee you can build, made of rock and cement, bearing with you in the bloody fight against those monsters which will hopelessly fall over the cliff to the abyss!
Oh! Heartily prayer, unstoppable invocation of the Creator by its creature, if they only knew your strength, how many hearts would have reached out to you in their weaknesses! You are the precious antidote that cures the almost always fatal ulcers forced by matter onto the spirit, carrying in their veins the poison of brutality.
However, how small is the number of those who pray well! Do you really believe that you deserve a lot from God just because you spent a long time reciting formulas and reading books? Make no mistake! The real good prayer is the one that comes out of your heart. It is all clarity. It may even show some anguish or the desire for forgiveness and the good spirits take that prayer along and deposit it at the feet of our just and kind Father, and God feels that incense as a pleasant aroma.
God then sends back the large numbers of troops needed to fortify those who pray well against the spirit of evil. They become strong as immovable rocks; they break against the waves of human passions, and when they have found pleasure within these struggles, of which must be filled with merit, they build, like the halcyon, their nests amid the storms.
Fenelon
