Theologians are notorious (and not in a good way) for thinking new thoughts. Rather than thinking on my own about prayer, I thought I'd cobble together some of the Church's best wisdom on prayer. I haven't tried to track down source references, but I can if anyone is interested.
Two rules from John Chapman: "Two rules for praying: 'First: pray as you can, and don't try to pray as you can't. And second: the less you pray, the worse it goes.'"
The essence of prayer from John Climacus: "Hunger is the stuff of prayer."
The spiritual methods of prayer from Thomas Merton: "Concerning the influence of scientific method on monasticism: 'The idea was that if you set up the right conditions, a kind of laboratory for prayer, and if you carried out the experiment according to instructions, you would get the desired result. This concept has by now evolved into the simple pharmacology of contemplation: you take the right pill and you turn on. Hence the idea of discipline was corrupted into a kind of methodology, and ... instead of really praying and meditating, people became obsessed with their 'method' and observed themselves at prayer. This transformation of a discipline in a broad, human measure and in a theological climate of love and grace into a methodology of will and concentration has been fatal to Catholic contemplation."
Spiritual skill from Karl Barth: We encounter God "as those who are inept, inexperienced, unskilled, and immature. The invocation 'Our Father', and all the Christian life and ethos implicit in this invocation, can never at any stage or in any form be anything but the work of beginners. Spiritual life begins at the very point where spiritual skill ends."
Confidence in prayer from Isaac the Syrian: "Sit in the presence of the Lord every moment of your life, as you think of him and remember him in your heart. Otherwise, when you only see him after a period of time, you will lack freedom of converse with him, out of shame; for great freedom of converse is born out of constant association with him".
God's willingness from Julian of Norwich: "Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of God's willingness".
Doing God's will from John Chapman: "Remember that the proper result of contemplative prayer is simplicity in the whole life; so that a contemplative is always doing the same thing all day and all night. He is praying, or having breakfast, or talking, or working, or amusing himself; but he is principally conscious that he is doing God's Will; the different external activities seem to him a sort of varied outcome of one continuous internal intention (as if in a long walk: one goes up hill and down, in rain or sun or wind, but the act of walking remains the same all the time, the same movement of the legs, but sometimes easy, sometimes hard, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant)."
The whole person from Kallistos Ware: "A person is far more than the conscious mind; besides the brain and reasoning faculties there are the emotions and affections, the aesthetic sensitivity, together with the deep instinctive layers of the personality. All these have a function to perform in prayer, for the whole person is called to share in the total act of worship. Like a drop of ink that falls on blotting paper, the act of prayer should spread steadily outwards from the conscious and reasoning centre of the brain, until it embraces every part of ourselves".
Prayer & forgiveness from Evagrius Ponticus: "The one who stores up injuries and resentments and yet fancies that he prays might as well draw water from a well and pour it into a container that is full of holes".
Prayer & virtue from John Chrysostom: "As a queen entering a town is attended by all kinds of riches, so prayer, entering a soul, brings every virtue in its train".
Infinitesimal changes from Simone Weil: "The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. It is impossible to say it once through, giving the fullest possible attention to each word, without a change, infinitesimal perhaps but real, taking place in the soul".
Prayer is ... From George Herbert:
"Prayer the Church's banquet, Angel's age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth".
What the world needs from Kallistos Ware: "That is what the world needs above all else: not people who 'say prayers' with greater or lesser regularity, but people who are prayers".