When you are in prayer, do not ask to be entirely free of mental wandering, which is impossible, but seek to wander following something that is good. For even pure prayer consists in a wandering which follows something – but this wandering is excellent, seeing that the search for something good is excellent. Wandering is bad when someone is distracted by empty thoughts or by pondering on something bad, and so he thinks evil thoughts when he is praying to God.

Wandering is good when the mind wanders on God during the entire extent of a prayer, in God’s glory and majesty, stemming from a recollection of the scriptures, from an understanding of the divine utterances and holy words of the Spirit. For we do not consider as alien to purity of prayer and detrimental to recollection of thought in prayer any profitable recollection that may spring up from the writings of the Spirit, resulting in insights and spiritual understanding of the divine world during the time of prayer. For someone to examine and think in a recollected manner about the object of his supplication and the request of his prayer is an excellent kind of prayer, provided it is consonant with the intention of the Lord’s commandment. This kind of recollection of the mind is very good.

Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth.

Someone who is considered among men to be zealous for truth has not yet learned what truth is really like: once he has truly learned it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf.

The gift of God and of knowledge of him is not a cause for turmoil and clamor; rather this gift is entirely filled with a peace in which the Spirit, love, and humility reside.

The following is a sign of the coming of the Spirit: the person whom the Spirit has overshadowed is made perfect in these very virtues.

God is reality. The person whose mind has become aware of God does not even possess a tongue with which to speak, but God resides in his heart in great serenity. He experiences no stirring of zeal or argumentativeness, nor is he stirred by anger. He cannot even be aroused concerning the faith.

As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God. Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures.

Someone who bears a grudge while he prays is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest.

As the flame of a fire cannot be prevented from ascending upwards, so the prayers of the compassionate cannot be held back from ascending to heaven.

Source: St. Isaac of Syria, Heart of Compassion: Daily Readings with St. Isaac of Syria, ed. A. M. Allchin, (Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1989). Used by permission.