Prayer and the World

Apud omnipotentis Dei singularem munditiam, atque ejus simplicem naturam multum, Petre, humani cordis munditia atque simplicitas valet. Hoc ipsum namque quod ejus famuli a terrenis actionibus segregati, otiosa loqui nesciunt, et mentem per verba spargere atque inquinare devitant, auctoris sui prae caeteris exauditionem impetrant. Cui in quantum est possibile, ipsa puritate ac simplicitate cogitationis, quasi ex quadam jam similitudine concordant. Nos autem turbis popularibus admisti, dum frequenter otiosa, nonnunquam vero etiam graviter noxia loquimur, os nostrum omnipotenti Deo tanto longinquum fit, quanto huic mundo proximum. Multum quippe deorsum ducimur, dum locutione continua saecularibus admiscemur. Quod bene Isaias postquam regem Dominum exercituum vidit, in semetipso reprehendit, et poenituit, dicens: Vae mihi, quia tacui, quia vir pollutus labiis ego sum. Qui cur polluta labia haberet, aperuit, cum subjunxit: In medio populi polluta labia habentis ego habito. Pollutionem namque labiorum habere se doluit; sed unde hanc contraxerit, indicavit, cum in medio populi polluta labia habentis se habitare perhibuit. Valde enim difficile est ut lingua saecularium mentem non inquinet quam tangit, quia dum plerumque eis ad quaedam loquenda condescendimus, paulisper assueti, hanc ipsam locutionem quae nobis indigna est etiam delectabiliter tenemus, ut ex ea jam redire non libeat, ad quam velut ex condescensione ducti venimus inviti. Sicque fit ut ab otiosis ad noxia, a levibus ad graviora verba veniamus; et os nostrum ab omnipotenti Domino tanto jam minus exaudiatur in prece, quanto amplius inquinatur stultalocutione, quia sicut scriptum est: Qui avertit aurem suam ne audiat legem, oratio ejus erit exsecrabilis. Quid ergo mirum si postulantes tarde a Domino audimur, qui praecipientem Dominum aut tarde aut nullo modo audimus? Sanctus Gregorius Magnus, Dialogorum Liber III,  Cap XV

To almighty God, who is in purity most singular and of nature most simple, Peter, purity of the human heart and simplicity, avails. For those servants of his who withdraw from worldly affairs, knowing not idle speech and avoiding the scattering and soiling of the mind through words, before all others do especially obtain a hearing from their creator, to whom, insofar as it is possible, with purity and simplicity of heart they accord in likeness. But we while often at leisure amid crowds of people not uncommonly speak noxiously, making our mouths as far from almighty God as they are near to this world. Certainly we are drawn too much down by continual worldly talking, which Isaiah, after he had beheld the Royal Lord of hosts, did well reprove in himself and was penitent, crying out: 'Woe to me that I was silent, because I am a man with defiled lips.' 1 And why he had defiled lips he revealed straight after:'I dwell in the midst of a people that has defiled lips.'  1 For he was grieved that his lips were defiled, but whence he contracted it he indicates when he says that he dwelt in the midst of a people that had defiled lips. For very hard it is that the tongues of the worldly should not defile the minds of those they encounter, for while we condescend to speak with them of certain things, by little and little we become accustomed to taking pleasure in speech that is unworthy of us, and so very soon we find that we cannot withdraw from it, that which at first we were led to condescend to unwillingly. And so we pass from idle speech to vicious talk, and from trivial talk to words of great weight, and our voice in prayer is so much the less heard by almighty God as much as we are soiled with foolish speech, because as it is written: 'He that turns away his ear that he hear not the law, his prayer will be despised.' What wonder, then, if when we pray, God is slow to hear our petitions, when we hear the Lord's teachings either slowly or not at all? Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Book 3, Chap 15 1 Isai 6.5  2 Prov 28.9