"He who enters into the secret space
of his own soul
passes beyond himself and
truly ascends to God.
Therefore, banish from your heart
the distractions of earth.
Turn your eyes to spiritual joys
so that you may learn at last
to rest in the light of the contemplation
of God.
Indeed, the soul's true life and repose
are to abide in God,
held fast by love and
refreshed by divine consolations.
In your spiritual ascent and
your search for a closer union with God,
you must allow yourself no rest,
no slipping back. ........
... Follow the example of mountain climbers.
..... If your heart and mind, led by love and
desire, withdraw from the distractions of
the world, you will grow strong.  ...
...Little by little as you abandon baser things
to rest in the one true and
unchangeable  Good, you will dwell there,
held fast by the bonds of love."

--- St. Albert the Great(1206 - 1280)

*Of note, 200 years before Columbus,
he believed and held that the earth was not
flat, but spherical. He was the mentor and
a friend of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Aquinas explains how an unchangeable God can answer prayer without changing
in the below.

"The immutability of providence does not mean that prayer is unprofitable, any more than it means that there is no room for contingency within the domain of providence.
Prayer is not made to God in order to get
the eternal plan of providence changed,
because this is impossible.
Its purpose is that people should obtain
what they desire from God.
It is appropriate that God should assent to the pious desires of rational creatures.
Not as if our desires moved the immovable God, but it is a consequence of his own goodness that he brings about what they desire in a suitable way.
All things naturally desire the good.
And it belongs to the excellence of God's goodness to distribute being and well-being to everything in an ordered way.
It follows that, in line with his own goodness, he fulfills the pious desires
which are unfolded in prayer.
God loves his creatures, and he loves each one the more, the more it shares his own goodness, which is the first and primary object of his love.
Therefore he wants the desires of his rational creatures to be fulfilled because
they share most perfectly of all creatures
the goodness of God.
And his will is an accomplisher of things
because he is the cause of things by his will. So it belongs to the divine goodness
to fulfill the desires of rational creatures
which are put to him in prayer."

--- Thomas Aquinas(1225 -1275)

.... from the book, "Voices of the Saints"
     by Bert Ghezzi