John Chrysostom: Pray with Conviction that You will Gain your Petition

In saying this, I exhort you unceasingly to keep up the habit of visiting the churches and praying at home in tranquility, and when time allows going on your knees and stretching out your hands. If, however, we are caught up by reason of time or place with a crowd of people, let us not on that account abandon prayer, but in the fashion I mentioned to your good selves pray and beseech God in the conviction of gaining your petition nonetheless with that prayer. I said as much, not for you to applaud and marvel, but for you to practice this yourselves, night time and day time, interspersing the time of work with prayers and petitions. If we manage our affairs this way, we shall both pass this life securely and also attain the kingdom of heaven. May it be the good fortune of us all to attain it, thanks to the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be the glory, now and forever, for ages of ages. Amen.

- John Chrysostom (around A.D. 347 to around A.D. 407), Homilies on Hannah, Homily 4, in St. John Chrysostom, Old Testament Homilies, Volume 1, pp. 120-21 (2003), Robert C. Hill translator.