The desire for prayer is that internal attraction towards prayer. It is not a question of our attitude being "I ought to pray," but a question of "I want to pray." It is true there is a midway stage where I can say, "I want to do what I ought to do." And this is fair and proper, but is is insufficient. There has to grow with us a desire for prayer, a nostalgia for prayer, a taste for prayer... But the desire for prayer is something which comes, I suspect, only slowly and with practice. I think it a truism of prayer to say that the desire for it, the taste for it, follows the practice of it. It is not because we are drawn to prayer that we first begin to pray; more often we have to begin prayer, and then the taste and desire for it come.
~ Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB
in Praying with the Benedictines
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