Just as our eyes of sense when healed of blindness see by their own natural property, so, too, our mind when purified of the disease of sin naturally begins to see the mysteries of Christianity. Rely on God in your efforts.
…strive for that which is essentially necessary for your salvation and which fully satisfies the demands of that need. Endeavor to acquire pure prayer combined with a sense of penitence and mourning, with the remembrance of death, of God’s judgment, and of the frightful dungeons of hell where eternal fire blazes and eternal darkness reigns.
Such prayer combined with such recollections is an unerring, excellent form of divine meditation, and of the greatest profit to the soul.
~Ignatius Brianchaninov
Prayerful Life 