This brief chapter is a concentrated treatise on prayer. The Latin text is full of alliteration and other devices which make it easy to remember. Notice that there is nothing about "technique", merely a reminder that humility and respect are necessary preconditions for prayer, which is linked with "purity of heart" and "pure devotion". The pure heart, of course, is one which focuses all its energy, all its love, upon God. How strange, then, that "puritas cordis" should be the translation of the Greek "apatheia", the original, pagan meaning of which was "detachment". In the Desert Fathers as in Evagrius of Pontus, we find the word "apatheia" occurring again and again, and let's be honest, there are times when the athletic asceticism of the desert strikes a chill note. But the detachment of Christian Tradition is something of a paradox. We are "detached" because we are supremely attached to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, our prayer is an expression of this, and St Benedict warns that it needs few words, indeed none at all.

There is much that we should pray about today – those suffering from the effects of the floods, the sufferings of the peoples of Africa and the Middle East, those who have asked our prayers for particular needs – but let us remember that the most important prayer is the prayer of simple love and adoration. The Father knows what we need before we ask.