Sitting there in silence, listening to the quiet, I was filled with a unique feeling of peace, an impression so intense that it seemed to expand into ineffable JOY. ...It went on, second after second, so pervasive that it seemed to fill my entire body. I relaxed into it luxuriated in it. Then with no warning, and surely without preparation or expectation, I knew what it was: for the seconds it lasted I felt, with a certainty I cannot account for, a sense of the presence of God.
Prayer unites the soul to God, for though the soul may be always like God in nature and in substance restored by grace, it is often unlike God in condition, through separation on our part. Then prayer is a witness that the soul wills as God wills, and it eases the conscience and fits us for grace.