At this time (when we make our petitions and our supplications to God, and we speak with Him)

and his heart is abundantly filled with God. | From this he begins to understand incomprehensible things | for the Holy Spirit moves in each man according to his measure | and taking material from that which a man prays | He moves within him | so that during prayer his prayer is bereaved of movement | and his mind is confounded and swallowed up in awestruck wonder | and forgets the very desire of its own entreaty. | The mind’s movements are immersed in a profound drunkenness | and it is not in this world | at such a time there will be no distinction between soul and body | nor the remembrance of anything | even as the great and divine Gregory has said | ‘Prayer is the purity of the mind | and it is terminated only by the light of the Holy Trinity through awestruck wonder.’ | Do you see how prayer is terminated through the astonishment of the understanding | at that which is begotten of prayer in the mind | as I said at the beginning of this homily and in many other places? | And again the same Gregory writes | ‘Purity of mind is the lofty flight of the noetic faculties | which resembles the hue of the sky | and upon and through which the light of the Holy Trinity shines at the time of prayer.’ | Homily 23, pp. 244-5