Our heart’s desires are released in prayer. How are the desires of our heart expressed? Are they expressed in a multitude of words? Are they expressed as desires for earthly treasures? Or, is the desire of our heart expressed as a total surrendering of our will to God?
A surrendering of our will requires a release of self-love for the love of God. Our prayer of surrender is a plea to bare all and endure all for the God. The Holy Spirit will enkindle a fire of love of God within our heart and stoke the flames of that fire to refine and purify our love of God. When surrendered to Christ, the crosses we carry, the humiliations we bare for Christ, our earthly desires that burden us, and the self-love that weighs us to this world can fuel the flames that refine and purify our love of God.
To Love and Truth 
What amazes me when participating in the prayer life of the Church is all the different ways to pray (i.e. the rosary, the novenas, the Divine Office, etc.) It’s incredibly rich. So, easy for an ostensibly pious person to “jump” around from one type of prayer to the next to experience that “spiritual high.” I learned recently that it is precisely when a certain type of prayer gets boring ( the rosary ) I have to stick with it. Why else is it called a “sacrifice of praise”?
Amen