I've changed her male language to female here:
… to become and continue a real woman of prayer, seems to me the first duty of a parish priest.
What is a real woman of prayer? She is one who deliberately wills and steadily desires that her intercourse with God and other souls shall be controlled and actuated at every point by God... one who has so far developed and educated her spiritual sense that her supernatural environment is more real and solid than her natural environment. A woman of prayer is not necessarily a person who says a number of offices or abounds in detailed intercessions; but she is a child of God who is and knows herself to be in the deeps of her soul attached to God and is wholly and entirely guided by the Creative Spirit in her prayer and her work. This is not merely a bit of pious language. It is a description…of the only real apostolic life. Every Christian starts with the chance of it; but only a few develop it. The laity distinguish in a moment the clergy who have it from the clergy who have it not: there is nothing you can do for God or for the souls of others which exceeds in importance the achievement of that spiritual temper and attitude.
An Anthology of the Love of God: from the writings of Evelyn Underhill, pp. 123-124
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