The soul which advances in union with God is rendered more and more like God

"God is infinitely simple, and the soul, which advances in union with God, is rendered more and more like God in His simplicity. So we are not surprised that with a loving soul affective prayer becomes more and more simplified. In the beginning affective prayer may have much discursive prayer intermingled, 'My God, I love Thee because Thou hast given me the gift of faith, because Thou hast sent Thy Blessed Son to redeem me, because Thou art infinitely perfect in Thyself.' These prayers may be truly affective, springing from the heart more than from the intellect, and made with the most loving disposition. Yet the soul as she advances in love feels less and less the need for reasons and longs more and more to remain simply in love. The simple aspiration: 'My God, I love Thee,' suffices and the soul repeats it constantly, and is powerless at prayer to do anything else, or at least has no inclination to do so, or feels that she is profitably engaged only in praying thus.

Though the love of God is ordinarily the object of this prayer, it may be concerned with any truth of our holy faith or with any virtue. A person may have made long, deep reflections on all the truths connected with the beautiful character of our dear Saviour and may have so keen an appreciation of them that now he requires no more than the Holy Name of Jesus to hold him entranced, and he will repeat again and again that loving Name and make his whole prayer consist of It. We can speak in similar terms of the name of Mary.

We do not say that the whole time of prayer, the half-hour for example, can be thus spent, but an appreciable time can. Often there is an intermingling between his prayer and the prayer of obscure contemplation we describe later, and perhaps this may dispose of the difficulty of those who think that the simple prayer we have endeavoured to explain cannot be maintained without a more that ordinary help from God."

-- Way of Perfection for the Laity by Fr Kevin, ocd

Affective prayer

"We have already indicated that the real essence of the prayer of meditation consists in the affections of the will or the longings of the soul, which bring it into close touch with God, or in the acts of generosity proposed by the soul. We have stated that in order that we may be really practicing prayer we should even from the beginning elicit these affections as much as possible. As soon as the considerations enable us to elicit affections, we must no longer be occupied with considerations, and must only return to them when it is necessary to renew the strength of the will to elicit affections. It follows that when it becomes unnecessary to make any considerations, and affections can be made from the beginning of the prayer, we should give ourselves wholly to affections. When prayer is made thus, it is known as affective prayer.

It may be well to mention here that it does not necessarily follow that once a person begins to practice affective prayer he should never go back to meditation again. This would be a serious mistake. Whenever we find it helpful to utilize our intellect we must not hesitate to do so. In every stage of prayer a person should go back to previous stages when he finds it profitable to do so. The various stages of prayer must rather be regarded as a classification of degrees of superiority from an objective point of view, and there is no reason, why a person may not mingle various stages even in the one hour-hour of mental prayer. Moreover, while on the one hand no one should be hasty in advancing, but should as far it is given him by natural capacity and the grace of God practice as deeply as possible the lower stages of prayer; on the other hand he should be careful not to delay over these lower stages when it is no longer profitable to do so.

Affective prayer is a very important stage in the religious life. It helps consolidate the virtues and deepens the spirit of love in the heart. Aspirations made to permeate and sink into the soul must lead to close union with God. If they spring from the heart as it were naturally, they will be a very considerable help to recollection. What can better assist us to recall the presence of God, to keep constantly in mind that He is our loving Friend and that we are His children, that to repeat frequently during the day of affections with which we have been engaged during our mental prayer?

Our Holy Mother the Church shows her desire to cultivate this spirit among the faithful by attaching rich indulgences to so many of those aspirations. It is true that the use of these aspirations does not constitute mental prayer except we make them spring from our deep convictions and the feelings of our hearts, but we shall utilize them thus if we have acquired the spirit of mental prayer."

-- Way of Perfection for the Laity by Fr Kevin, ocd

We must undertake prayer with generosity and confidence

"We said that prayer will be fruitful only if one takes pains to perform it well. God, of course, will help us to do this, but in the begining it is we ourselves who must do the work. We must therefore undertake it with generosity and confidence. The greater the effort we make, the sooner we shall succeed. But we must be careful to avoid excesses. If we let the imagination work too much, we run the risk of falling into illusions. By wanting to meditate, to reflect and analyze too much, we run the danger of fatiguing the mind so as to make it incapable of any work requiring application. 'In any case, the important thing is not to do a lot of thinking, but to love much!' The affections themselves ought to be tempered so that the soul may not be drawn into an excess of sentiment. Medidation requires effort, but also moderation.

The Simplification of Prayer

When the soul has faithfully practised discursive prayer for a period of time, the acts which were so numerous at the beginning gradually become more simple. For souls given to the contemplative life, a life of solitude and recollection in prayer, a life ordinarily well nourished by instruction and reading, this simplification comes rather early.

First, the considerations entertained by the mind and discursive reasoning decrease. Once the soul is instructed and persuaded, it needs little reasoning to be enlightened and to make decisions. A few discursive moments, an idea or two recalling previous considerations, are enough to nourish the mind and move the will. The soul passes quickly to contemplation and acts of love. Prayer is then characterized by the affectionate colloquy , words of thanksgiving and praise, and acts of petition.

For this reason spiritual writers have called it affective prayer. Usually they consider this as a special type of prayer, or at least as the second defree in the life of prayer. But Carmelite authors, who regard prayer as esentially affective, see in this only the simplification of the same type of prayer. However, these affective acts, too, are reduced little by little. Immediately upon putting itself into the presence of God, the soul is recollected in Him or gazes with faith and love upon Christ, and without engaging in any reasoning processes, without any noise of words, the soul contemplates and loves. St Teresa treats of this type of prayer in her Way of Perfection under the name of prayer of actve recollection."

-- The Spirit and Prayer of Carmel by Fr François Jamart, ocd