Nothing is more difficult than prayer. In all other tasks of spiritual life, however exacting, one can sometimes rest, but there is no rest in prayer, up to the end of one's life.
Hope is rooted in emptiness, in poverty, in a waiting that belongs to the pure in heart. Hopeful silence is patient, thirsty, yet withal dynamic, for it desires to become One with God. In this kind of silence of hope lies our strength.
