St. Augustine. . . describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness, for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart. ‘Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey (a symbol of God’s tenderness and goodness); but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?’ The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed. . .This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined.

– Pope Benedict XVI