Pleroma

 Pleroma is a Greek word to describe what happens when we pray so deeply that we become deliriously happy, like the apostles on Pentecost.

Yes, this is what happens if you persist in praying.

St. Bonaventure says that contemplation is first learned at the mother's breast.  Picture a babe nursing.  There's perfect contentment. The infant may gaze up at the mother.  This is the love the babe feels for his mother--Pleroma.  Our first happiness from the contemplation of love.  

This may seem ridiculous, but I remember nursing my first baby and feeling so much love that the thought of this ultimate feeling was the limit of love.  After all, I loved my husband, but this... but this... was so much deeper.  How could I have other children when I've given all my love to this one?  

In time, of course, I learned that love can grow exponentially.

St. Teresa of Avila called this stage of united love, the Prayer of Quiet.  True, the nursing baby doesn't talk and doesn't understand what the mother coos.  It's a kind of inner peace, "sober inebriation."  You are drunk with happy contentment.  I think, or at least it sounds like him, it was St. Augustine called it, "sober inebriation."  

How about Ecstasy?  The experience is felt in the head and heart. St. Teresa also calls it a Spiritual Betrothal--she's describing the love of God.  But I'm still thinking of the nursing baby and that union is also a betrothal of love.

Wow!  Prayer can be all this?  Pray so deeply that a Mystical Marriage happens between you and God.  Persevere.