St John of Kronstadt: If I pray to God with hearty, lively, and perfect faith...

If I pray to God with hearty, lively, and perfect faith, then I am not only near Him, as a son living in the same house is to his father, but I am also near to all the heavenly powers, to all the saints, reigning in heaven; and they are no farther away from me than the icons before which I pray.

Therefore it is an excellent custom with us to have in our houses icons of the Lord, of His most pure Mother, of the archangels, guardian angels, and of the saints, and to pray before them: their nearness to our bodily sight betokens their still greater nearness to our spiritual sight, armed with undoubting faith.

Nearness: "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," just as in the parental house brothers rejoice when one of them, who had offended against his father, repents of the offence he has caused his father by his behaviour.

St John of Kronstadt