 How
always to pray
Raoul More s.j.
How ‘' Always to Ask ' '
Principles and convenient of The union to God
Apostolate of the prayer
Toulouse –9, Rue Monplasir 1948,
Imprimi Tolosae potest, die 1 octobris 1925
Jh. Demaux-Lagrance
Mihil obstat:
Tolsae, die 2 octobris 1925
F. Cavallera c.d.
Imprimatur
Tolosae, die 2 octobris 1925
J. Délies p.g.
|
INTRODUCTION
God lives in us. All soul in grace is carrier of the Very High,
real presence carrier…
It is a fact, a reality, a certainty.
In front of this fact, or lately discovered by them or meditated
for a long time, some could be tempted are tempted to say itself/themselves:
"Since he/it goes from it thus, since God condescends to
live continually in me, me, I have a desire, to live continually
with Him to the bottom of me, only. My ideal will be henceforth
of more to lose only one instant God's thought. As well Our
- Lord he/it doesn't have says: Him fop always to pray. I want
to make of my life an unceasing prayer. Today same begin."
That there is practicable in a thus formulated desire and that
he of chimerical includes; how to reconcile the requirements
of the "always to ask with the necessities of our psychological
being and our current life, the very included solicitations
of the invisible world that we carry us and the imperious and
legitimate requirements of the sensitive world that surround
us of it, the appeals of one life that one would like as contemplative
as possible with duties of the active life, of a word, how to
understand the contemplation in order to reconcile the generosity
and wisdom at a time, here is and that we would like to specify.
Three Principles order this clarification:
A principle of psychology:
One is not able to (except exception) to apply his/her/its mind
constantly to God
A principle of morals:
To be united of will with God prevails over to be united to
remember with Him
A principle of asceticism:
God's frequent memory helps a lot towards the intimate union
to want it with God.
Yes, if one wants, more briefly and without prejudging more
necessary explanations:
Still to think about God is impossible;
still to think about God is not necessary;
Often to think about God is very useful.
These three principles once calm, he/it will remain to indicate
how
The Practice of one life of perfect contemplation amounts to
these three rules:
Well to make his/her/its prayer;
To make a whole prayer;
To sow in all of the prayer.
|
FIRST
PART
THE PRINCIPLES
|
Chapter
1
Still to think about God is impossible
|
| 1
reasons of this impossibility |
|  A
distinction of where will spring a big light imposes itself since
the beginning. It is necessary to avoid to confound the ACTS of
prayer and the state of prayer.
We will specify some what consists the state of prayer farther.
As for the acts of prayer, no one is mistaken. According to whether
our prayer will be vocal or mental, our acts of prayer will be
or of the aforementioned words to plug, or of the intimate screams,
formulated or informulés, leaving the heart, the impetuses,
the uniting silences. In the two cases, our thought is occupied
or look for to take care of God.
Our acts of silly prie`re of the moments of cordial union of our
memory with God.
The problem is this one. These moments of cordial union of our
memory with God can they be to this brought closer point that
they constitute a more or less continuous plot? More briefly:
Is my thought able to be occupied constantly of God? Can I think
only of God?
No, there is to it a double impossibility. Convenient impossibility
first. Our duty of state enjoined us a crowd of acts others that
of the formal acts of prayer? It will be a class to prepare or
to make, a work of inside or charity to assure, an absorbing intellectual
occupation. And if he/it is true that to the middle of the material
occupations, one can to the rigor, without harming to the action
in progress, to think of something else, an outside very occupation,
in the majority of the cases and for the majority of people, absorbs
all intellectual very activity. So our native weakness wants it.
Us essayerons to say farther how, with wisdom and method, one
can change some chose`mais there the fact is there. Immersed in
the sensitive, we don't have with the invisible that of the difficult
ratio, always piecemeal. Composed that we add body and mind, one
cannot ask us and no one must require himself, a life of pure
mind.
To this convenient difficulty a psychological order difficulty
is added.
Even though the outside occupations were reduced to the minimum,
and if the soul as well as he/it arrives in the contemplative
vocations enjoyed a good part of his/her/its time to attend to
the prayer, even then, continuous exercises of prayer would be
impossible, at the risk of bringing to brief delay cassement of
head and radical impotence.
We don't add some seraphs. Even the timetables of the contemplative
are cut of other occupations that the contemplation. No one can
constantly add to exercises of prayer of other acts of prayer.
It is therefore illusion to want not to lose to any instant the
thought, God's memory. Our mental capacity is unfit to it.
God can probably give to a soul of the special easiness, and to
grant him to live continuously or more or less continuously with
the memory or the feeling of his/her/its presence.
We are not then in the case of God's attendance, normal consequence
of our efforts. It is God who gives way to the pleasure that he/it
has to fill. He/it surrounds the soul of a sort of contemplation
tread (1) besides, more or less impenetrable to the noises of
the outside. It can go from the simplest temporary and often very
short mystical key, to the continuous union. In this last case,
the "tread" is permanent; the soul doesn't possess anymore
by eclipses of the dear presence; no, she/it enjoys some at home,
it can provoke at home, in the beginning, of the moments of absorption
that return it more or less unfit to match his/her/its plain environment:
what she/it sees in to the is so different from the cardboard
decor paints where the world that surrounds it evolves! To the
last stage of the union (2), the soul reconciles; very well his/her/its
life in the region of the sensitive with his/her/its life in the
invisible, and to the very middle of the existence outside that
she/it apparently crosses as everybody, she/it keeps in to the
the perpetual contact of the Mr. divine. She/it is bound and she/it
is free; and especially free than she/it is bound to the Sovereign
Liberty of which she/it absolutely depends.
The spiritual masters, unanimously, recognize that the souls encouraged
of this ultimate degree of union to remember with God are rare.
The agreement is less big on the question to know if the number
of the gifted souls of prayer more or less of periods of "innate"
contemplation is or non considerable, all estimate that in any
event this "innate" contemplation passes the simple
human power, and that hopeless, even at the cost of bigger efforts,
cannot pretend a right there. But the some think that if a soul,
besides psychologically capable, and in conditions that won't
come anything to thwart, take to life to perfect, mortify himself
and all, made prayer, she/it will arrive in fact, whatever God
doesn't must him, to the "innate" contemplation to the
state of the less inchoatif. God, do they say, does have so much
desire to give itself/themselves, that by where he/it finds a
very disposed soul and by fully detached hypothesis, he/it will
communicate himself/itself surely in this manner, is this of course?
We are probably created for the vision, but to the term. "Viateurs",
we are in the world of the faith. To say that all renounced soul
is called to leave this world of the faith to enter already in
a world of direct possession, this point is not, to make these
souls of the "semi-viateurs?" Does one object besides,
again, didn't one dawn model of fully detached characters, doing
have lived a long time, seeming capable, and who didn't have the
shade of a mystical grace yet ever?
It is not the place to take left in this discussion.
In any case, since the "innate" contemplation, that
he/it is or no, in fact, the normal outcome of the contemplation
"acquired", be, in himself and right, independent of
our efforts, one cannot give a technique, less again of infallible
technique, to prepare itself/themselves of it.
|
| 2
difficulty already to think about God, in a consistent way, a
certain time. |
 He/it
goes from it otherwise of collect it says acquirement. Him,
depends entire on us, with gets along, God's grace, but a grace
that remains the domain of the current graces.
However, he/it imports to specify the extent and the limits
of the man's action on my imagination, his/her/its sensitivity,
his/her/its thought.
On his/her/its thought, the man possesses a direct power. Me
then to think about what I want. He/it doesn't go from it in
the same way of our authority on the imagination and the sensitivity.
Here, we only have an indirect power; pictures and sensitive
reactions enter and operate in us without us-alas too often
against us! Our power consists solely in establishing us in
the conditions of calmness, of favorable surroundings. Me then
to stop such picture from crossing my brain. But I can prohibit
myself from facilitating entered it of some pictures in my brain.
They will enter maybe in spite of all. Of the less, the there
I would not have assisted. The imagination and the sensitivity
are two madwomen of the lodgings. Me little to limit their misdemeanors,
to circumscribe the field of their evolutions. To hold them
completely in border, impossible. And in the moments where one
would wish the more to have the peace, to the pray-god for example
or during an absorbing work, there they that get are, begin
their saraband, sometimes their obsessions.
Of these elementary psychological observations, he/it comes
out again to the evidence that our possibilities of contemplation
are at a time very big and tiny.
Tiny, because memory and imagination look for incessantly and
in spite of us to entertain us, and sometimes God knows how!
Saint Jérôme in his/her/its desert was pursued
by the thought of the Roman feasts; holy Antoine, by the phantasmagorias
whose painting kept us a picturesque representation.
Very big. Is not not always we main to every instant to bring
back our mind in a manly fashion about his/her/its case; masters
especially to move away us in a very large measure the previous
reasons of entertainment?
All Masters insist there when they speak of the faraway preparation
to the prayer.
If one throws itself fervently in the world, frivolity, the
innocent very pleasure, one will have bad thanks to complain
about to remain of long moments without taking care of God,
or to be arid and without thoughts to the prayer. The opposite
would be surprising.
I have beam to try to make prayer, one sometimes says, I don't
arrive to anything. He/it is sufficient that me to put me to
the pray-god so that immediately, as fell on crumbs a veiled
of sparrows, the distractions fall on my mind and him peck without
letting me a shade of respite.
Don't have yourselves sowed yourself the crumbs while welcoming
all possible distractions, useless conversations, frivolous
readings, vain curiosities, and the rest. As soon as you don't
move anymore, the imaginations s‘en gives to sister joy.
This is not natural?
There is an art to preserve his/her/its thought, to purify his/her/its
brain, to decant the pictures, to sift the impressions. So each
fantasy can enter in us as in a mill and to throw under the
millstone what pleases to him, all on time, instead of the homogeneous
flour of the very pure wheat, that of useless straws! To whom
does she/it make a mistake?
As one really only destroys what one replaces, the problem is
less to separate the imagination and sensitivity pictures and
useless impressions, that to suggest to these two faculties
profitable matter; one should endeavor therefore usually of
quick with a share of pictures and fertile and holy impressions.
From where a sort of vicious circle interesting.
To keep the usual contemplation, the best means will be the
fidelity to the prayer.
To really make prayer, the best condition will be the usual
contemplation.
It is not without reason that holy Ignace recommends to that
wants to pray with fruit, to prepare his/her/its topic stays
up it in the evening to d ' "to occupy" the memory.
Then to sleep himself of it while thinking of the matter of
the prayer; since the wakening, to remember the prepared topic
and during the toilet to maintain itself/themselves mildly of
it. Advice of a master in asceticism, but all as much a main
in psychology. Again, the moment come of pray, it recommends,
if one is alone, to stand not immediately on the knees, but
standing to some distance, to think about God Present,; then
to kiss the earth, to "humiliate the machine", and
to associate the body to the religious attitude of the soul.
It is the next preparation, coming to complete the work of the
faraway preparation. It is easy to call it thoroughness. Anyone
tried seriously to make prayer, don't ignore that it is necessary
to call it wisdom and brilliant common sense (3). to Come to
the prayer, as makes some, just out of an absorbing action,
and without transition, then to hope that immediately on the
knees the silence is going to exist, the divine thoughts to
abound, what coarser illusion. The home is all of a piece. There
is not in him of insulated baffles, all ourselves enter with
us in every gait of our activity. The prodigies of ability are
necessary to let to the door that that oh doesn't want to kneel.
Sometimes one has beautiful to make: even with the good will,
one doesn't manage to stay, during the prayer, master at home.
To stronger reason if will foresees n,a preserved not the surroundings.
The other way around, the practice of the prayer will act as
preparation the best to the life of contemplation.
It is about introducing in us a share of pictures and useful
impressions for the prayer. Nothing will help there better than
the habit, every day, of a contact wanted with God. As well
as said it so exactly the Founder of the Oblateses of the Sacred
Cœur, Louise - Theresa of Montaignac: "It get used
to like at controlled hours that attracts the blissful habit
to go back at all hour in God."
To hope to live collected and not to take to the prayer, false
calculation and heavy illusion (4). to Pray when one the right
and that one can it, and to make it better of his/her/its, means
the best to learn to pray always. It will be necessary for us
to come back there.
|
Reference |
| ((1)
the authors call this sort of contemplation, the innate contemplation,
to distinguish it of the one that is the fruit of our efforts
and that they name the contemplation acquired one will say better:
conquered.
(2) transforming Union or "spiritual marriage
(3) the church, by the practice of the blessed water to the entry
in the holy Temple, the genuflexion, of the sign of the Cross,
doesn't look for something else: to give to the soul that comes
of the outside the impression of the divine proximity.
(4) "one is standing sixteen heur. Won't one find a sixteenth
of his/her/its day? What! Are there sixteen things more important
indeed and it every day? "Excerpt of the Last thoughts, of
the R.P.Bouillon s.j., former Provincial (Bookstore of the S.
- does C. place Bellecour, Lyons). P.72 - incurs he of the meditation
of one half-hour or a quarter of hour spoke, that are a thirty
second and a sixty-fourth that it is necessary to read. |
|
Still to think about God is not necessary
|
1
state of prayer and to owe state |
 In
an excellent opuscule: Direction to reassure in their doubts
the souls vowed to the piety, the Quadrupani barnabite observes:
To "act for God is better than to think about God."
Very included, this composition is of the just. It is not not
at all about deciding which is the most perfect, of the contemplative
life or the active life. The question is solved for a long time
and be absolutely outside of the present survey.
Here is the point. In one life whatever she/it is, contemplative
or no, in the cloister or in the world no matter, outside of
the dedicated moment as he/it suits the exercises of piety,
that are t that for that God asks: is this to think about Him,
or rather and above all to act for Him. Is this our brain for
that God asks or our heart; our memory or our to want?
Unquestionably, our to want, above all, and reserve made of
the time of the prayer where then our
to "act for God" is to "think about Him",
God asks us in all occurrence to act if need be for Him same,
while avoiding to think about Him, if to think about Him is,
and the case is not chimerical, to the detriment of l ' to "act
for It."
An example is going all to illuminate.
Such mother of family is loaded of imperious duty of inside,
children numerous, again small, personal reduces; required to
use itself/themselves herself to the working order of the house.
Educated pain of his/her/its duties, there it is that, the morning,
whereas wisdom would require that it stayed at home and presided
to the cares of the household, goes at the Mass and spills itself
of it of long and besides fervid prayers.
Is she/it in the exact line of that that God read demand, of
for what a prudent spirituality asks?
Or, let's suppose it, the early Mass is possible; but come back
to his/her/its home, there is this mother of family so absorbed
by himself tastes of piety that she/it doesn't make anything
of good, the moments of prayers increase, the prayers or impetuses
accumulate, but also the garment to repair, the oblivions of
all sort, the carelessness. Who won't counsel: less exercises
of piety, more of fidelity to the duty of state.
He/it is clear that in the case for where the duty asks us the
prayer, all the effort must carry itself to think about God
possible best.
Outside of celà, that asks the duty? That the present
action either to make for God possible best; that while acting
I don't search for myself in anything myself, that only God
either the last objective that I pursue (5).
This last line "Always expresses in summary the exact theory
of the to pray."
Still to bet doesn't want to say, to juxtapose to the exercises
of piety. Of new exercises of piety, to a rosary to make follow
a small office, then a reading, then a mental prayer, and so
forth but to live in a state where all is "elevation of
the soul toward God". Person can, at the risk of fast madness,
to make his/her/its life that an uninterrupted cloth of piety
exercises! Everybody must, at the risk of putting a lot of human
in his/her/its existence, to live while making go back up as
merely as possible to God, his/her/its whole activity.
The continuous acts of prayer his/her/its impossible: the state
continues prayer is sovereignly desirable.
However, the state of prayer consists in the whole purity of
intention along the duty of state. Me then to have constantly
thought it occupied of God. I must never have will oriented
toward others thing that God (at least as last goal).
By the intimate bottom to want it, to bring back to him no always
explicitly, but in fact what we make, there is the union at
a time to God under a shape very accessible and very perfect.
The question comes back therefore to this: How to return to
God the intimate bottom to want it, touts our actions?
It is the problem of the direction of the intention.
There are a lot of manners to direct toward God his/her/its
intention:
- Or while thinking of Him to the very moment where one acts:
present intention
_Ou well without wondering there presently, while acting under
the ascendancy of an intention antécédemment adopted
and of which the hard influence again: virtual invention.
- Some incline to think that the usual intention is sufficient
so that our activity is supernaturally deserving. By the only
fact that the general intentation of life is not antagonized
the other way around by a positive act, life keeps its course,
his/her/its tendency toward God, his/her/its eternal value.
With this last hypothesis, all human act that is not bad moves
of oneself toward God, is therefore an upward act, an elevation
toward God, therefore at the same time as a deserving act, a
prayer.
If one asks for the virtual intention, the part remains beautiful.
In a fervid soul, all the activity is ordered by mobile distinctly
supernatural, and the virtual intention almost always exists.
Therefore, in one generous Christian life, so l‘on distinguishes,
on the one hand the actual acts of prayer, the exercises of
piety, on the other hand, the other demonstrations conscious
of the activity, all is to go up toward God; - what is positively
prayer, it is too fattening pond; - what doesn't have prayer
positively, just as exactly, since, okay with the definition:
elevation of the soul toward God.
"It want to rent God in all creatures and for all creatures,
while making a good use of them all, and sanctifying them by
this use, so that he/it is glorified: good use of light and
darkness; good use of good weather and rain; good use of fire
and ice; good use of everything that is, and with greater reason,
of oneself, of his/her/its eyes, of his/her/its language of
s joins up, of his/her/its hands and his/her/its feet and all
his/her/its heart, and with greater reason of his/her/its soul,
of his/her/its intelligence… (6)."
Elsewhere, he/it says again:
"It is necessary to pray during the day, to ask during
the night and all as much time as one awakens ` and this perpetual
prayer doesn't consist in a perpetual tension of the mind; but
rather…, having prayed at his/her/its hours…, one
is held the more that one can in a state and dependence towards
God, as exposing him his/her/its need that is - to say there
in the of it putting back then before the eyes, without saying
anything, as the half-opened earth and dry seems to ask for
rain, only while exposing to the sky his/her/its drought, so
the soul while exposing his/her/its needs to God: "Lord,
she/it seems to say, I don't have need to ask you; my need prays
you, my indigence prays you; my necessity prays you… So
one prays without praying, and God hears this language (7)."
She/it applied this doctrine admirably, the soul magnetizes
that exclaimed: "I always thought that the night, my best
prayer is the sleep… Only I don't sleep entire, my heart
stays up by the tabernacle, and I ask my good angel to offer
every beating of it to Notre-Seigneur like an act of love (8)
Saint Augustin says in the same way, explaining to the supporters
of Hippone the verse of the XXXIV psalm: The whole day, Lord,
my language will publish your praises": If you sing one
hymn, do you rent God (to suppose that the heart joins the speech);
did the songs stop, that is the moment of the meal, do you keep
the the excess and you rented God, do you withdraw yourselves
to take your sleep? Don't rise to make badly and you always
rented God. Do you deliver yourselves to the trade? Point of
fraud and you rented God. Are you a farmer? No quibbling and
you rented God again. Here is how, by the innocence of your
œuvres, you are able to rent God the whole day (9)."
Let's summarize: Is prayer everything that goes up toward the
Very - high to adore it, to thank it, to ask him for forgiveness
and to implore his/her/its graces everything that goes up toward
Him, either by explicit and formal prayer (the Acts of prayer);
either by implicit and virtual prayer (the rest of our activity
on naturalized, that means the supernaturally included state
duty and lived) (10).
In other words: We can pray or by our thought or by our wanting.
By our thought: these are our exercises of piety. By note entire
activity going up toward God: our supernaturally executed current
obligations (11).
The state of prayer it is the cult of the state duty.
|
2-Our
Lord, model of the prayer state, |
 The
theory appears clear. The consequences he/it is not less.
To imagine that all along his/her/its activity, in the hypothesis
where she/it is fully supernatural, one doesn't live united
to God because one doesn't think some about God, this and to
be mistaken rudely. We will tell the following chapter how it
is possible and desirable to mingle to sound to "act for
God" to "think it about God". But it is necessary,
above all, well to understand that the present to "think
about God" is not, of oneself, claimed for the "supernaturally
to act."
Otherwise, it would be necessary to admit that only would be
"upward toward God" our acts to which would mingle
a formal gesture of prayer, what would reduce our supernatural
and praying activity to the only "acts" of piety,
explicitly. He/it is too clear that one can be the whole day
of it to think about the Lord in some corner, the joined hands,;
moreover, it is not requisite.
Very better, sometimes, we marked it, the formal acts of prayer
should give up the step owing a more urgent obligation.
First and foremost, the duty of state. The union our to want
with God's will, there is the real union to God, there are the
will of God or his/her/its desire saintly appreciated by a wise
and following reflection an approved program, be that presently
I pray, my duty is to pray; so, currently, to let the prayer
to attend to other duties, even though these very absorbing
duties to let me no rest of mind to keep during this time the
union to remember with God my union to God is not perfected.
The holiness is there, in the union of your will to the divine
to want (12)
That said it Notre-Seigneur: "My food", it is-to say
the substance, the very marrow of my life, my reason to be and
to act, "it is-to say the "Father's will. And Marie,
the creature the more "Christ", the "most Christian"
to the strong sense of the word, won't say something else, Ancilla
Domini,
We don't have anything else to make; to act in all according
to the divine will. He/it is not asked us to imitate, of the
Christ, his/her/its birth in one trough of animals or his/her/its
rise in cross. He/it is asked us to reproduce in the whole disposition
fundamental of his/her/its whole existence, to know the absolute
and radical submissiveness to all vouloirs and want his/her/its
Father.
The Christ, essentially, is it: Someone equal he/it was the
equal the Father's, who makes itself subordinate to can, by
his/her/its obedience, to repair the original disobedience,
Verb. Incarnate, he/it will be the inferior.
All his/her/its life will define itself: Factus oediens, obediens
usque ad mortem, Obedient, obedient until the death, thirty
years of his/her/its life he/it obeys, erat subditus: he/it
was submitted. The rest of the time, he/it obeys again; Christus
non sibi placuit: The Christ didn't follow in anything his/her/its
caprice. This êut divert to its profit a few something
of an activity having the Father for unique center. Nescibatis
quia in his Patris quae mei sunt, oportet me esse: I must entirely
to the Father's things… He/it delivers himself/itself
to the "Father's something" until the tragic of the
agony and the Clavaire. Non mea voluntas sed killed trusted.,
Not my will, the vôte! Until the moment where, going back
up to his/her/its Father, he/it can stop obeying: Counsummatum
is. I accomplished the whole task.
It is necessary to come back always to this fundamental idea.
To verify the Christian ideal, each of us must center its life
in the same way way that Notre-Seigneur, ever to act while taking
his/her/its caprice for last end, but always and solely, of
way more or less formal, but always effective, the "Father's
things", God's will (13)
So such is indeed "the Christ", every Christian to
deserve his/her/its title "of "Christ others really
should make itself a retort, a double, of this Supreme Obedient
that was his/her/its Mr., someone of so subject to wills and
to the Father's desires, that he/it doesn't see anymore in everything
that that for that the Father asks: "One will call me,
said "Isaïe, in one his/her/its most beautiful messianic
texts, one will call me: "My will is some Him." All
Christian should verify for its own count, this ideal of life
of the Savior-Jesus (14)
But it, to verify itself/themselves, to suppose the death of
the natural readiness and the caprice. The I relegated to the
background, not having anything to say in the guidance of our
life, or having to speak that after God and always under his/her/its
light; the "me" reduced to a discriminating vassalage,
to this obedience of the in that is the imitation perfected
of the Savior; Non quoero voluntatem meam sed ejus that misit
me.. (15) Quoe placita sunt ei, facio semper (16). was not this
point the advice that holy Paul to whom wanted to reproduce
gave really Jesus Crucifié. To crucify itself/themselves
with Christ, c e is not darken itself/themselves of it of the
nails in the hands and in the feet, but to accept this absolute
renunciation that is worth all gibbets (17)
To act for our own caprice, while taking us ourselves as ultimate
goal, it is not accomplish an upward action, but on the contrary
an action descendants; it fold toward oneself, toward his/her/its
minute smallness, something of his/her/its activity, to take
itself/themselves for center, to take the Christ's perfect initiation,
and rest to be united has want God, it omit "to pray."
He/it is need to make notice that this doctrine is merely the
on stream stake convenient of the Foundation that pose saint
Ignace in his/her/its book of the Exercises and that dare, because
it is even thing, all catechisms when they specify our duties
towards God. "L‘homme is created for God. Therefore,
his/her/its life, his/her/its being, his/her/its activity must
only have God for last end. " In everything that I have
to execute, to mingle the less "me" possible, no certainly
of me as productive reason, on the contrary, one doesn't ever
make too well what one makes but of "me" as mobile
last of action. And this elevation of all my activity toward
God, without no mixture of me, that is this something else that
the perfect "prayer", the homage perfects returned
by my life to The one that has the right to the homage of everything
that absolutely exists. One sees how, since the first reflections
of his/her/its small book, holy Ignace prepares the excitant
to the union to God conceived of the strongest manner.
Other remark: the prayer perfected of the church, it will be
the offering of bread dedicated, however, in the host, more
nothing of bread; all "Christ" st, in the same way
my life will be perfect prayer, so in me doesn't have anymore
mixes, if there "I" am not anymore, so all is "Christ",
full submissiveness to the Father's vouloirs. (18)
|
Reference |
(5).
pretty speech of Boudon the archidiacre of Évreux: "I
would like that all Christian gush all, in God's presence, in
the manner that to explain it the P. Of Condren. He/it said
that it was to be always in God presence that to make his/her/its
actions so that one there making reflection, one didn't want
to make them in another manner nor for other motives."
(6)Lette V in the Sr, Cornuau, éd, Quick, t. XXVII, p.
447
(7)Meditations on the gospel, 40 and 41ime days ` éd,
quick, t, VI, pp.61-62 - to See BOURDALQUE éalemet: Thought
on the Prayer.
(8) 8 Angès of the cross, of the Guardian worshippers
of the Eucharist, say of Saint-Aignan, p.84 (Lethielleux).
(9) Enarr, In Ps, XXXIV, 2 serm., P.L. 36-34 S, Bonaventure,
more briefly, will say: No quit orare that no quit benefacere:
"The one that acts well constantly" prays. ` and Louis
of Blois: Who semper beneagit, sempter orat, Sancta vita, oratio
assidua,; "Well to act, it ask a holy life always, it is
an uninterrupted prayer."
(10) it is what Notre-Seigneur wanted to make Gertrude saint
hear by these words: "Is what you find that the spouse
has less pleasure when him interview familiarly and with tenderness
in the bridal room his/her/its wife, that when he is all to
trust to see to occur it in public in all the burst of his/her/its
adornment." Saint Gertrude: the Herald of the divine love,
t. L. 209
(11) the partners of the apostolate of the Prayer know that
the practice of the daily offering doesn't have another goal
that to put them in state of prayer.
((12) illusion, and that is not rare of puts if well the contemplation
above the action that one comes to forget that to the over of
one and the other there is God's will, that one and the other
are of simple means, and must confound themselves with the goal
that is the holiness… That Marthe doesn't complain of
work undertaken for God. Saint François of Dirty to tell
to him that there is an ecstasy of the œuvres, which, just
as although the ecstasy of the prayer, but otherwise, throw
us out of ourselves, in God! so speaks the P. Husk about the
Mother Barat writing: to a superior: "When to your difficulty
to collect you and to unite you to Notre-Seigneur in the middle
of the occupations so diverting that exceed you, don't worry
some; it is for God that you support them, and that of opportunities
you have to renounce you. Certainly, this life of sacrifice,
of work, of support of the neighbor, is well the best prayer
that you can make, so long as however that you frequently raised
your heart toward our name Mr., and that you acted merely for
Him," Husk. : work and Prayer: Saint Mad-Saph. Barat.Beauch.
,1925,pp.282s and 181-182.
(13) if it is necessary to believe Marie of Agréda of
it, Notre-Seigneur never exercised that only one time the faculty
that it had to choose, and it is when it chose the suffering.
Quoted in note in FABEr: Bethéem,1,p.50, Retaux,5 edict..
(14)Consummata didn't have other objective of holiness, she/it
didn't go up so high, ' jusqu to the summits, of the divine
union, that to be subjected constantly to this "Christian"
rule, the true rule of the true holiness.
(15) Joan, V.30,
(16) id., VIII,29
(17) Exspoliantes veterem hominem in oedbus is, Now (or hunting)
the old man in his/her/its limits (Collar., III,9)
(18) to see in the Christ-Jesus, the chapters on The Eucharist.
|
| |
Often
to think about God is very useful
|
1
step of prayer state without usual renouncement |
 Has
therefore where we are some: One fart always to think about
God? This and besides not necessary. One can constantly be united
to God without thinking for as much constantly to Him, the union
the only one really requisite being the one of our will with
will; of God.
What is then the utility, extolled by all masters, of the exercise
of God's presence?
We are going to try to mark it precisely.
We need in all our actons, told ourselves, a purity of intention,
to give generously to our duty of state practiced the maximum
of supernatural orientation. So our life, even outside of the
moments vowed to ask it, will be a praying life.
One understands that to act thus in a constant way with an absolute
purity of intention, to surrender freed enough of the t caprice
of the natural readiness, to stay master at home, or rather
for God there either only Mr. and that one acted in all under
the dependence of the Holy spirit, the habit of a look toward
God at the time of deciding must help mightily.
When Notre-Seigneur is going to use itself to some fundamental
action, we always see it, in the gospel, to stop one instant,
to raise the eyes toward his/her/its Father,; and after only
after this minute of contemplation, to attend to the occupation
that him He/it set. And elevatis oculis incoelum, there are
the expressions that come back with a very instructive frequency.
Where the gesture doesn't result in anything outside, it is
in drawn to the, without any doubt.
The ideal is the same for us. This constant vassalage of the
mind clean to the mind Saint is facilitated curiously because,
in the soul, the mind Saint put in good place is invited to
preside explicitly, officially, to all determinations. Impossible,
to practice the big manner the mind of renouncement without
a deep mind of contemplation. One doesn't submit in a radical
way to the invisible host that if The invisible host is held
in a perpetual proximity. The mind of death can only reign if
The mind of life installed himself of it in master on the ruins
and if it hovers on waters.
That one doesn't agree to hunt the sellers of the temple that
if he/it realizes practically that he/it is a Saint, of the
Saints,; no a house of traffic, but in all reality God's house.
One succeeds thus to these two luminous propositions:
Not of absolute dependence of the Holy spirit, what live cleanly
in "Christ", without whole renouncement, of the "me."
Not of whole renouncement, without a constant mind of faith,
without the habit of the interior silence, silence all people
of divinity.
Several don't see the tie that between the memory of the King
and the King's service have; between the interior silence makes,
he/it seems, of immobility and the continual detachment that
are the supreme activity.
He/it is only to watch well. The tie exists, narrow, tight,
infrangible. Look for an introverted soul, she/it is detached;
a detached soul, she/it is collected. The experience is comfortable
insofar as it is comfortable to find one or the other of these
two souls. To find one or the other, it is to have found one
and the other. That is tried itself one day to practice either
the detachment, either the contemplation, don't ignore that
he/it made that day double stroke.
|
2-No
usual renouncement without constant contemplation |
 So
to be fully "Christ", fully Christian, a soul must
live under the whole dependence of the Holy spirit, and if one
doesn't live under the whole dependence of the Holy spirit that
under the condition to live introverted, it goes without saying
that the contemplation, included as we tried to mark it, constitute
one of the most precious virtues that one can acquire.
One of the authors that has spoken best of the contemplation,
of one brief way at a time and substantial, the P.Pegmayr, don't
hesitate to say: "The shortest path of the love perfects,
it is to have God continually present; because he/it excludes
touts the sins, and one doesn't have the time to think about
something else, to complain or to whisper… The presence
of conducted God sooner or later to perfection."
Not to try to live in the interior silence, it is renounced
to live Christian deeply. The Christian life is a life of faith,
a life in the invisible and for the invisible… That doesn't
have any frequent reports with the invisible risk to remain
always on the doorstep of the true Christian life.
"Yes, it is necessary to stop living in the outside of
my soul and his/her/its most superficial surrounding walls;
it is necessary to go back and to penetrate until the deepest
surrounding wall; will be us there to the bottom of ourselves.
Arrived there, it is necessary to go farther, it is necessary
to go until has u centers even that is not anymore we and that
is God. There is the Mr.… It is there that he/it can sometimes
be given us to stay one day at home whole.
" However, when once in will have been given us to pass
one day with It, we will want to follow it everywhere, always,
as his/her/its apostles, his/her/its disciples and his/her/its
servants.
" Yes, Lord, when he/it will have been given me to be given
to be one day whole close to You, I will want to follow you
always (19)
The solitude, left from the strong. Strength, active virtue.
Our silence marks the level of our action (20), The noise is
homeland of the weak. Most don't try to entertain itself/themselves
that to avoid to act. One gets lost in mere nothing not to get
lost in the all. It is in the middle of the silence of the night
that the strong God comes to the world (21). Victims of the
appearances, we only appreciate c that makes the noise, The
silence is the father of that who moves efficiently. Before
springing while singing, the net of water pierced some granites
silently.
One hears well that while recommending the silence thus, it
is the silence interior q'il is question, the one that it is
necessary to impose to his/her/its imagination, to his/her/its
senses for not summer to every instant projected in spite of
oneself, out of oneself.
If one perpetually keeps the open oven, following the comparison
of Theresa saint, the whole heat runs away. It is necessary
a long time to cool the atmosphere, one instant is sufficient
so that the whole tepidness leaves. A crack to the partition,
the frozen air engulfs itself. All is to redo, to reconquer.
An excellent protection of this silence of the is in the silence
of the outside. And it is the reason of the grids and cloisters.
But to the very middle of the noise, each can carry around oneself
a halo of solitude that he/it lets pierce only to good knowledge.
The inconvenience is not the noise, but the useless noise; these
are not the conversations, but the useless conversations; this
his/her/its point the occupations, but the useless occupations.
In the species, everything that doesn't serve dark, deplorably.
To give to the useless what one could give l ' Essentiel, what
treason, and what against common sense!
There are two ways to move away of entirely different God, besides,
but to a certain disastrous viewpoint all two, it is the deadly
sin and the distraction: the deadly sin that breaks our union
objectively with God: the voluntary distraction that breaks
it subjectively or prevents it to be as intense as she could
be. It would be necessary to speak only there or to be quiet
is not preferable. The gospel doesn't only say that it will
be asked us for account of a bad speech, but of all trivial
speech.
"Tayloriser" needs its life, as speak the modern;
it is-to say e to suppress everything that decreases the output;
the spiritual life more that the whole remains, because it is
the most important When one thinks of the interest that most
people take to what has no interest, to the noises of the street,
to the gesticulations of that the stooges, to the flagrant or
tendentious emptiness of most daily printed matters, one believes
to dream. What happiness all of a sudden in the world, if, by
an unhoped-for luck, suddenly all useless noises died out! So
only stopped speaking those that speak not to say anything.
What delivery! It would be the paradise. The cloisters are only
they are that because one learns to be quiet there. One doesn't
succeed there always; but one learns the less and it is much
already. Elsewhere, one doesn't even learn. No that not to speak
is a big art and the conversation a precious pleasure, the most
precious maybe of the existence. But use is not abuse. Of no
asked to celebrate the armistice or the unknown, some soldier
minutes of silence; this silence was following upon the victory.
If the world learned to be quiet, that of victory interior s
would be consecutive to this practice of contemplation. The
one that keeps his/her/its language, says holy Jacques (22),
that one is saint's manner. Few perfect souls because few silence
souls. To perfection silence, not always but often. Make the
experience, she/it is worthwhile. You will be astonished of
the result.
|
Reference |
19)
Gratry: Slanders, inèdites, pp. 268-269
(20) "without this cell inside, one would not know makes
grand'chose nor for oneself, nor for others" (P.Surin).
(21) on the way of which Notre-Seigneur practiced the silence:
"The silence was always the ornament of the big holiness…
It is a life of silence that the Father's Verb, silently spoken
of all the eternity, chooses for himself. All his/her/its human
life, carried the print of the love of the silence. Da his/her/its
childhood, he/it let the language to appear, to come slowly
to him, he/it appeared to acquire it as the other children so
that to me helps these appearances, he/it could abstain longer
from speaking, and to defer by there his/her/its symposia with
Marie, Marie also and Joseph took him, by a celestial contagion,
the habit of the silence. During the eighteen years of the hidden
life, the silence reigned dan the holy house of Nazareth. Words
quivered in air, rare and short, seeming to a melody that would
have been too sweet so that some new accents came and erase
the first, when these would live again in the ear that listened
them. In the three years of his/her/its ministry that were dedicated
to the speech of the teaching, he/it has spoken as would have
spoken a calm man and friend of the silence or rather like a
God who makes some revelations, then, dan the Passion, when
he/it had to teach by the magnificent path of his/her/its sufferings,
the silence reappeared again like a former habit comes back
at the time of the death, and it became once of pleased sen
of the characteristic features of his/her/its life." Faber:
Bethlehem, 1,112,113 about the silence of the Verb within Marie
(22) that non offerdit united, problem erjectus, is vir (Ja.
,111,2
(23) he/it says again: Suits homo velox ad audiendum tardus,
autem ad loquedum (Jac,m 1,19) are expeditious to listen to,
slow to speak. One usually takes precisely the counter-magpie.,
Everybody speaks. No one listens, notably The one that it would
be necessary to listen everywhere, the Mr. interior.
|
SECOND PART:
The Practice
|
|
Chapter
1
Well to make
his/her/its prayer |
 A
legend that it is necessary to destroy, it is that to make prayer
is difficult.
Nothing simpler; again it is necessary to know how to take itself/themselves
of it.
No that we wanted to deny the difficulties of the prayer difficulties
of the prayer for the common among us, difficulties of the prayer
for the souls of elevated prayer.
At last, we don't address in this modest work. That he/it is sufficient
us to return to the dramatic pages of Jean saint of the Cross where
the laborious detachments of the successive purifications"
are described with the authority of a saint and a saint having lived
each of these stages where Mount Calvary is neighboring of the Thabor.
Remain the difficulties for the common among us. They come most
of the time from what one lacks a method to take contact with the
realities of the invisible world, or of what one lacks courage to
speed up during the prayer, or of perseverance to stay before God
in the drought and the lack of sweetness.
To know how to prepare his/her/its prayer.
To know how to speed up to the prayer;
To know how to persevere in the prayer;
The whole technique of the prayer comes back to the implementation
of these kings formulas.
|
1-
To prepare prayer |
 We
have in the pages that precede carefully distinguished two cases-contemplation
that results God's particular generosity, - contemplation that
results the man's effort with God's usual help.
He/it is clear that in the first case, since, by hypothesis, it
is God who makes all, the human spreading part will be able to
be reduced to the minimum. Wisdom will ask merely to tarnish standby
a topic of conversation in the event God would stop maintaining
the soul himself. To look for, during the communications a Holy
spirit, to want to insert his/her/its own reflections or questions,
can some that to embarrass, can be in any case well useful. Since
there is contact, why try to provoke it; since the sun him, why
turn the electric button?
Remain calm. Listen ` c that not at all means anything to make,
such and the rule.
All other presents itself the case of the contemplation that results
from our own work. God is all near but hidden, as to the habit.
He waits for us, to be revealed, that we pierced ourselves the
screen that veils it.
To get on the knees, and to wait no more than that, it be wait
uselessly often. Help you, the sky will help you.
How to help itself/themselves?
Here it is.
The conscience by hypothesis, is empty or absent-minded. It is
about introducing in his/her/its field of aims a reminiscent theme
of the invisible realities.
Of will be:
Or an idea,
Or a fact,
Or a text.
An idea.
The idea of the death, for example, I have a memory, an intelligence,
a will, I put in exercise, about this idea, these three faculties.
Memory (and imagination):
I try to recall me everything that I know on the death, his/her/its
circumstances, his/her/its speed, his/her/its contingency. I represent
myself the stage, the whole, the details.
Intelligence
Does one die… Therefore me also I will die… am I mortal,
or i or no? Yes. Therefore I will die currently Me so living,
etc…
Will
Since I must die, it is necessary for me to live as having to
die, therefore as having to detach me of all. Am I currently detached?…
We took this example. Miss other abound… For all one would
proceed in the same way.
No, that one notices it well, according to me don't know what
artificial artificial exercise. The process, if proceeded has,
is the one that filled all reasonable man of it when he/it thinks.
He/it tries to remember, he/it binds between them by induction
or deduction data that provides him the memory and decide what
the reason orders consequently. (24)
To shout to the mechanization, it forget that to speak is very
simple; but that to explain how to pronounce vowels and consonants
are not as much.
The theory of the handling of weapons decorated complicated; the
handling of weapons is very simple (25)
This manner to make prayer is called the meditation. The meditation,
to the precise sense of the word, because one filled the expression
meditation again in a more understanding sense, including all
manners in general to deal with God, and as synonym of prayer.
One to say: to make his/her/its meditation, that means not to
apply exclusively to "the exercise of the three powers",
but to attend to the prayer mental some coins forms that it is.
One of these shapes will be called the contemplation - here again
to the sense remain the word, because, for many, "contemplation"
specifies the prayer at the raised souls.
The contemplation, to the sense ignatien, is the implementation
of the mind to the prayer, either while using an idea, but of
a fact.
Here is Annunciation for example, or such other narration of the
Notre-Seigneur life, of the a lot of Virgin Saint. He/it will
be good, not to clutter itself/themselves and to have the order,
to divide the mystery,: Beginning, middle and end; or: before,
during, after. And in every part, or each point to take for setting:
People, speech, actions.
Annunciation.
Beginning it is-to say before the apparition of the angel.
"People": one only, Mayor
And first his/her/its silhouette outside…, the whole, what
collect… Then, I retail:
his/her/its forehead… his/her/its eyes… his/her/its
hands… is this difficult, it?
Better again, the in:
His/her/its thoughts…, his/her/its heart…, etc…
Who is not capable, while using this easy process, to penetrate
to the intimate of the mystery?
"Words": No… I listen to this silence. I bathe
there, non in Dominus commotione, God doesn't communicate himself/itself
years the noise. I don't have it not myself often noted!…
The "Actions" No… And I continue, following the
need.
Second point: Gabriel's arrival… Here, these will be "speak"
them.. I take them, I probe them, one by one..
Difficult! But try, voyons`essayez fairly, without smoothing to
stop you to the first effort. I guarantee you qu if you prepare
your interviews with God and if you have courage to persevere,
the prayer not to appear you more difficult, there are some difficulties
in the prayer. They don't come from there. To contemplate, that
is this others thing that to watch. Do you know how to watch?…
Hey well! open big the eyes, this dark world of the faith is more
luminous than you imagine. some needs that to want to see.
Me then, to go to God in the prayer, to use a fact or an idea.
Other means, to use a text. A psalm for example, an usual prayer
of which one wants to revive the sense, a verse of imitation,
or, for those that want to deepen "God's mystery in us"
such or such formula taken in Vivire with God (26).
Excellent method for beginners or for people tired good method
for all, provided that one forces itself to more to read as soon
as one feels to bring up a personal reflection or an affection.
A lot of no one that meditate arrive to the prayer without knowing
how to prepare their prayer. We said higher than that was a psychological
mistake
It is besides an indelicacy (27) I am going to have an interview
with God. With God, he/it imports to underline it. With the Mr.
of all. Suppose that a great figure comes in a city. Believe yourselves
that the one that has mission to receive it says itself: "Useless
to prepare anything. We will always pull of it! " Apply,
and with what; a fortiori, to the case that occupies us.
|
2-
To speed up to the prayer |
 Even
when one prepared and that one got ready, not to believe that
the simple made to get to the pray-god is going to open us in
one instant the treasures of the invisible World. The pearls don't
give themselves for one coin. He/it makes to strive, to apply,
of a word to speed up.
That so-called very precisely the "exercises of piety",
and in man aware, holy Ignace instituted its book Christian perfection:
the Spiritual Exercises.
Actually, exercise themselves very little indeed, that means forces
itself to u personal work, during the prayer. For many, to "make
his/her/its meditation", it browse more or less in a passive
manner the considerations exciting or boring of the author.
There are some books of meditation well made. Some exists; many
of them don't exist (28). Often, the development his/her/its too
long, too complicated, too literary, too stringy; sometimes too
arduous, too abstract, with a theological device luxury that rebuffs,
an uncommunicative or archaic air - "unreal"., would
say the English. Of where reflection of some: "If my meditation
to me must consist in one these dissertations, I prefer to renounce
immediately. I will never arrive."
Let's put that those that reason thus are too stern; it is necessary
to recognize that some manuals of meditation contributed for a
part to give the prayer a false idea, the idea of a few something
of off-putting, of alambiqué, of impassable, that has a
report really only too far with the definition given by Saint
Theresa: "A cordial interview with God", or with the
answer of this brave man to the vicar of Ars: "I inform It
and He/it informs me (29)."
Here is for our c part that we would advise not to use one book
that so indeed one cannot make otherwise, the reason for which
one finds rarely very composed his/her/its manual of mediations
is not so much that it is written badly, but it is written by
another. However, nothing more personal, that the prayer. These
feelings that the author suggests me, they don't tell me anything,
I believe well: these are his; they don't necessarily correspond
with yours. Why, about the topic that you meditate, call yourselves
of it to the developments, to the thoughts, to the feelings of
others. Others has good ideas maybe. But has there-t him not you?
Why try not to pull you, what he pulled from him,; who, to him,
has maybe and probably makes the good but doesn't possess with
your soul to you, at the moment, that a report too far. So after
having tried fairly to exploit you, you won't find anything, call
some to the thought of others, nothing better. But the grace,
tell yourselves enough credit to yourself to try first to pull
from your own bottom what to tell God wants. (30)!
A child who wants to speak to his/her/its mother, does he/it start
with throwing itself/themselves on a library to look there for
a "guide of conversation" or a "compilation of
compliments?" No, is not not this. He/it pulls from himself
his/her/its smiles and his/her/its stammerings; and the mother
appears a lot happier of these imperfect mere nothing that of
beautiful "unreal" thoughts that he would have found
in a printed text.
What we will tell the good Mr. won't be of Bossuet, It is not
necessary. But if we put all our heart there our poor words will
find the path of Life, definitely. And, for us, what profit otherwise
more considerable!.
Since except different appeals the topic-type of our meditations,
along one year, these are the secret of the Notre-Seigneur Life,
in harmony with the development of the holy Liturgy, a good means
could be to carry, as book of bottom for the prayer, of the gospel,
simply. We signal between many the small volume of the Weber canon:
The Four Gospels in one only. He/it exists of publish them very
manageable, occupying little place. The work presents this advantage:
to give in an unique narration, avoiding retells them, the Savior's
life, to divide a way very fattening pond the different parts,
and in the different parts every episode or each teaching forming
an all.
With this thin volume as basis (31), and the very easy practice
with a little use of one or the other of the methods indicated
to the previous paragraph, to know if it is about an idea, "the
exercise of the three powers", if it is about a historic
episode, the "contemplation", and if it is about a text,
of exploitation either searched more or less fast of such or such
sentence of the good Mr. (32), one has, it seems, everything that
it is necessary to arrive, so indeed one is solved to exercise
itself/themselves, to speed up instead of remaining passive, to
an excellent prayer.
Let's note besides that not to speed up to the prayer means to
"mechanize itself/themselves, to use the nasty expression
of some," not at all. That such or such, by excessive respect
for the methods prefer happens to the mill that to let in them
free game to the Holy spirit, it proves no that the methods are
not worth anything, but that the clumsy exist. Not to judge an
use by abuses.
He/it is too clear that if, having prepared his/her/its topic
of prayer wisely, as we said that by the psychological wisdom
and by deference for the Mr., he/it was right to make it Him,
the Mr., assign to substitute for the topic prepared by us a topic
prepares by Him, the rule is to adapt to the indication of in-top
and no to tie costs that costs to what one foresaw, that that
one anticipated owes the being always subject to that that, of
Himself, it would be pleasing to the Mr. interior to suggest,
and that appears to Him, to It, preferable, always to follow the
Saint-Mind without pretending to impose him our ways to make.
The activity will be, in this case, no to insert his/her/its text
clumsily to oneself in the conversation, but to let free place
to the lesson that God wants to give. The activity will be to
make say nothing about a clumsy activity. The activity will be
no so much to speak that to listen. has some gossipers, to the
prayer as elsewhere. Let's not be not some. If he/it is pleasing
to the Lord to instruct our soul more or less directly and without
worrying about our preparations, let's not embarrass his/her/its
action. Only give to him, while intensifying our interior silence,
the opportunity to make anything hear everything that he/it wants
to make hear, "Facts you capacity, I would make myself torrent"
said Our Lord to a soul (334); or, to saint Marguerite-Marie:
"Put you before me like a canvas of waiting." Make you,
put you; a passivity so sensible is quite curiously active genuine.
In summary, to exploit us maximally when the Holy spirit let us
to our own means. When he/it pretends to want to happen of our
action, to place us humbly at his/her/its disposal and to lend
us as generously as possible to all his/her/its vouloirs.
|
3-
To persevere in the prayer |
Already
two conditions important of success are supposed full. One is
decided to prepare his/her/its prayer to activate itself/themselves
of it.
Remain to persevere there.
He/it goes from it of our soul atmosphere as the atmosphere that
surrounds our bodies. It is not always the big sun. One counts
a lot of gray days, without speaking of periodic returns of the
obscurity.
Let's distinguish the three cases therefore: prayer comforted,
sorry prayer, quiet prayer.
To persevere in the prayer when God comforts, nothing easier.
We would feel bad to insist. Signal some reefs, that go besides
non tan to make abandon the prayer yet that to decrease the profit
of it.
Here is the first.
To confound the sensitive consolation with the true keys of innate
contemplation and to imagine, because one had some "tastes"
in the prayer, that one has been encouraged of mystical graces.
It have had place, but not always. To these cases the advice of
Jean saint of the Cross applies. After having said: Do never move
away of an in love attention on God", speech that doesn't
come here, about our case, him addition, what there quite comes,:
"But don't want to get no singular thing of it."
Is this to say that it is not necessary to want the possible biggest
union with God? If makes. But something else to adopt the division
of the theologians, to want a fullness constantly of larger of
the sanctifying grace, gratia gratum faciens, what is quite counseled,
and to want to benefit "free from the graces data",
gatiae free datae, vision, revelations, etc…, what would
be imprudence, Saint Jean of the Cross evidently makes allusion
at last.
In general besides, the souls up against the authentic favors
mystic are far, especially in the beginning, to want them. These
rather frighten them. To the director illuminated to give confidence
if he/it sees that he/it has before him a strong piety and the
true mystic. These two united elements are not less rare than
some die-hards pretend; less frequent than certain optimistic
don't imagine.
Other reef of the prayer comforted: To believe that God is happy
because oneself one is satisfied.
Yesterday, one was up against obsessive distractions; one fought
besides and courageously, One comes out of the prayer without
big enthusiasm. Today, one was "on cloud nine": consolation
from end to end; very few efforts besides, God made all.
It would be innocence to conclude: today's meditation is well
superior to the one of yesterday. actually, the meditation is
worth that that is worth, to the moment, the intensity of our
charity, and it is very possible that yesterday, in putty, I put
in play more charity chalk than today while receiving, theoretically,
it is not the effort that constitutes the measure of the merit,
but the charity. Practically, the measure of the charity and therefore
of the merit-it will be the effort.
The P. Lancicius, of which we already invoked the testimony; about
the preparation of the prayer, note very precisely: To "have
found no devout affection, and confess, for as much, to have meditated
badly, it is a scruple that one must not accept," has what
deserves reproach according to him: Before the meditation we don't
repulse the foreign thoughts "so (34);
" In the meditation we don't repulse the distractions so
to the first warning of the conscience;
" If we don't meditate the whole marked time `" if our
stance is insufficiently respectful and as we would blush to be
surprised by a spiritual person;
" If we allow our eyes to look at what happens, to our ears
to listen to what says itself around us."
And he/it concludes what will calm the concerns of several and
will stimulate the goodwill of some: "Out of these cases,
the meditation is always good. »
Next to the moments of "consolations", it is necessary
to count with the desolation. She/it constitutes the big stumbling
block of most devotions.
He/it imports to know the device plain of God for the rise of
the souls. To the origin, the most often; he/it fills. To give
idea of that that he/it is, to free the tyranny of the appearances,
to permit to take taste to the invisible, he/it sows; has profusion
the favors; numerous and comforting attractions, ardent heat,
desire to renew the interrupted interview…, the soul feels
attracted. How would not she/it enjoy in if soft company? The
word of the Thabor goes up involuntarily to the lips. "He/it
feels good to be here,"
But has that all change.. After having lasted more or less a long
time, the appeals stop, here suddenly, there of way more or less
progressive. After the big sun, a sort of night, especially dark
than light had appeared previously more vivid. The impression
of someone that penetrates, coming of the raw day, in a tunnel
or a cellar.
It is here that God waits for the souls. Some the big disconcerted
number, less really devout to the bottom that he/it didn't seem,
and that followed God a lot more for this qu that he/it granted
that for Himself, now abandon all that they don't find anymore
to the prayer the discounted favors. They believed themselves,
and one, generous, believed them maybe; they were, at least in
part, imperceptibly selfish. It is not God for that they looked
but themselves.
However, god wants that one watches if one dares to say no to
his/her/its hands, but to his/her/its heart; no to what he/it
gives, but to what he/it is. Here is why, exactly, he/it withdraws,
on occasion, his/her/its obvious favors, quitting to resources
of the pure faith. He/it wants to realize if the soul looks for
it, Him, and no his/her/its grants. God wants to be alone in the
soul. He wants to be liked for Himself, that is why sooner or
later, to the souls that he wants to raise to the supreme degrees
of the prayer, he likes all withdrawing, all, so that the soul
stays alone with It only. From there these strange purifications,
active purifications, passive purifications (night of the senses,
night of the mind) by which God makes pass (35) God wants arrives
to what in the soul doesn't have anymore that Him. When the authors
speak to us God's solitude in the soul, it is to this divine requirement
that they make allusion.
Happy those that an e enough practiced and ardent enough generosity
maintains oriented toward the goal, and that persevere, tireless,
in spite of the tests partitions strangely dramatic of the aridities
and desolations.
But that one knows it well. There makes itself the demarcation
of the true "insides". Hay of a piety that exercises
itself when "that pleases" And if he/it is of it, among
the readers of these pages, whom presently fights in the night,
next to the Savior, under the Olivier of the agony, that they
know that, of their perseverance, depends the obtaining of the
graces of which they don't suspect the value and that pass in
energy sanctificatrice everything that they can dream.
Remain to say a word of the quiet prayer.
There to persevere evidently demand less efforts than the sorry
prayer. But she/it asks again for some.
It yours first to this qu the invisible, unless a very big mind
of faith, do hardly attract us, and that gets to the prayer, it
look for contact with the invisible.
To the surplus, to reach it, this Invisible, or even merely to
look for it, it is necessary to break with the decor of appearances
where enjoys our taste of the sensitive, Moise, to be going to
find God, leaves its sandals to the low of Sinai, and, painfully,
part with the plain. To go up frightens us; we like the flat land,
and let's prefer to walk conveniently shod. How much besides,
if they were sincere, should leave more that their sandals!
But suppose the generous soul. A difficulty of quite another order
risks to paralyze the impetuses. To adore, to rent, to thank…,
she/it would like well. Maybe same she/it doesn't have a deeper
desire. But with what to rent; with what to thank; to adore with
what? She/it doesn't have anything. She/it is very poverty. How
ever to equal his/her/its poor prayer to the measurements of God's
infinity; how to make bring up something that is worthwhile of
it Up there, a derision who is not, nearly an insult, God is God,
is She… her.. How does to dare to present itself/themselves,
her, go everything that he is, Him, of it? It is Jacob's struggle
with the angel. One is defeated beforehand. The angel is always
victorious.
Much too much in their prayer miss intelligence of the prayer,
or if one wants, many too demonstrate in their prayer, that they
didn't understand sufficiently what holy Paul calls: the Christian
mystery, it is-to tell the mystery of our incorporation to Savior
Jésus, of our "identification" with Notre-Seigneur
in the unit of only one mystical Body: "I am the stock, you
the branches. The Christ is the trunk, you the members."
For that lives dan the light of this splendid doctrine, the difficulty
qu we express doesn't exist. In truth, if it is about liking God,
to rent it with the "me" or of "mine", I am
well incapable of it, and one homage before leaving the earth
must prove to be impotent. Is not as well this that for that I
am asked. Only Jesus-Christ is capable to offer to the Father
a glory worthy of the Father. But with this Christ, by a distinguished
mercy, I make an only… Us only Our-Lord, to save us, made
itself one of us, but it wanted to make of each of us something
of It. Here is that carries away all. It is not anymore about
liking solely with me, I have to my disposition, to ask, Christ's
whole prayer. This very wanted Jesus not to be all Him without
me. He/it was of me part of Him. My prayer to me is petty, below
all. But the Siena!… However, the Siena is mine; I have
the power to seize of it to me; very better the duty.
To the baptism, I received the power to offer, no on account of
the only faithful whole the sacrament of the order permits it
but for my own account, Jesus to his/her/its Father. In it the
spiritual ministration of all Christian consists of which holy
Pierre speaks, function so beautiful that the first Pope doesn't
hesitate to call it a "royal ministration (36)". Some
dread this word applied to the simple Christian. He/it doesn't
have it dreaded, but to understand it. He/it is himself splendid,
and the reality that he/it expresses, sublimate.
To ask "chrétiennement" hears, while giving to
this word the strong sense, it is as asks the church besides every
time that she/it prays, to offer, according to our baptismal ministration,
the Christ to his/her/its Father. There is too much us in the
poupart of our prayers; no certainly that our good will there
either ever too generous; no certainly that for the offering of
ourselves is asked there ardently by God; but "too much us"
in this sense that there is not enough "Christ" in our
grant.
The earth, the sky. So simplify ourselves, well to wrong. Actually,
there is third term; we forget it. The earth, the sky, and, between
the two, Jesus, the divine mediator, with whom we only make one.
The true formula of our reports with God in the prayer is expressed
in this word of Paul saint: Absondita Christo cum Deo in A life
hidden with the Christ in God. There are really the three terms;
God, the Christ, us. And these three terms, with their relative
value,; us, zero, no that we have to pour us, drop of water, in
the wine of the chalice (37) but precisely it made us recognize
our part exact, simple drop of water; - The Christ; the Christ
with his/her/its infinite mediation going up toward the Father,
for the glory of the Father and the redemption of the world,;
to the summit, God, the holy Trinidad, to that goes all glory
and all honor. It is the Per ipsum, cum ipso, and in ipso of the
Mass. By Christ, with Christ and in Christ. There is not enough
"Christ" in our prayer d ' "other Christ."
"It is necessary to forget you yourself" completely.
counsels the P. Guilloré and these terms, after what we
have just said, don't risk d ‘to be interpreted "only
having two look badly, one toward Jesus' divine operations that
values us hand-held like a present, and the other verse his/her/its
Father to whom you offer them. It is called to don itself of Jesus.
What spirituality more soft and more fundamentally "Christian
(38)."
"Me then more to stop my looks on me", written a soul
intelligently penetrated of his/her/its life "in the Christ",
"me them not to say qu I don't see my misery anymore, it
is the whole contrary, and him me faillait the experience of these
falls repeated to make them to me to know well in depth. But that
it is that it, that dawns for the infinite of God? He/it seems
me that me there to stop (39), it make injury to Notre-Seigneur
who balanced everything and whose infinite merits are acquired
us. If I didn't have the Christ, I would never dare to approach
of the Father; but supported. On Notre-Seigneur, donned of him,
I have all audacities, because I am rich of all his/her/its riches."
|
Reference |
(24)
Saint Ignace calls this exercise the exercise of the Three Powers.
(25) see in Surin: God's love, liv.1, VII chap., the methods,;
IX chap., their utility (and the limit of this utility).
(26) sort of small Imitation of which all thought relate to the
presence in us of the Three divine People, because of our state
of grace. Apostolate of the Prayer. Toulouse,
(27) the P. Lancicus, Jesuit polonias of the XVII e century and
master in asceticism, declare it positively, there is carelessness
in the meditation: "1 - if the preparation of the points
has not been made (in one book or in the memory) with the appropriate
attention" etc…
(28) the meditations emotional and convenient on the gospel, 4
flight, Vittle, by the author of "The forward method"
(Chan, Beauenon). would Be, to say it of the good connoisseurs,
among the most useful. - touts also knows the excellent tablets
of the R.P. Para: Béthanie and Tibériade (Apostolate
of the Prayer. Toulouse.
(29) "that it is that the faith? Asked-one to the vicar of
Ars - It is when one speaks to God as to a man." Excellent
explanation that he/it is right to remember always.
(30) did "mom ask for the small Anne of Leered to his/her/its
me`re, do you want to allow me to pray without book during the
Mass?
- Why therefore?
- Because I know by heart the prayers, of my parishioner) (she/it
is not seven years old) and that I am often distracted while reading
them, while, when I speak to the good Jesus, I am not distracted
at all; it is as when one causes with someone, mom, one knows
what one says well." Note, by The P. Lajeunie.o.p.)
(31) to feed the developments, let's indicate, without prejudice
of other commentaries, the volumes of all first interest of the
collection Verbum Salutis,: S. Mar, by the P. Huby,; S. Mathieu
and S.Jean by the P. Durand; S. Luc, by the P. Valensin (Beauchesne).
(32)Évidemment, if we suggest as main topic, following
in it the masters of the spiritual life, the meditation, along
the year, of the Notre-Seigneur Life, don't we want to be in nothing
exclusive? Of no will like; has take either such thought or speech
of the Mass of the day, such psalm, etc.. All subject is good
that feeds the soul indeed: all method is good that gets beneficial
results.
(33) mother Marie Ponnet, Visitandine of Vaissieux, Caluire (Rhone)
(34) he/it stands in the hypothesis where one makes his/her/its
meditation a short time after the rising.
(35) and that we don't have to describe here, sending back in
the first place for the survey of the mystical prayer, to the
competent authors, to laughing Jean of the Cross. Among the modern:
Maumigny: Convenient of the mental prayer, the II volume. Dom
Lehodev: The mental prayer, etc…
(36) 1 fart. , II, 9 Your autem, genus electum, people sancta,
regal sacerdoiium.
(37) we marked it enough believe ourselves, to the liv. IV. II
chap., of the volume In the Christ-Jesus.
(38) "Christ will make you know (if you try to like it) how
his/her/its Humanity constitutes a worthy offering for his/her/its
Father, this Humanity, it gave it to you with all his/her/its
sufferings to allow you to present you boldly, to the Court of
his/her/its celestial Father… You must present therefore
and must offer the Christ of a humble and generous heart as your
true offering and as your treasure that served to your delivery
and your acquisition. And he/it will offer you with himself to
his/her/its celestial Father, as the beloved fruit for which he/it
died; and the Father will receive you with his/her/its Son in
an embrassement full of love." Ruysbrechk: Œuvres, trad,
Wisques I, I pp,re.53 (The Mirror of the eternal Salute.)
|
Chapter
2
To make a whole prayer |
We
saw it: it is not necessary to be continually in the act of the
prayer to stay incessantly in the state of prayer.
All action made for God goes up toward it like a homage. She/it
constitutes our being's "elevation" toward his/her/its
supreme Majesty, a recognition no always explicit, but very real
of his/her/its sovereign right, the filial gesture of the creature
that offers all to his/her/its Creator and to his/her/its Father.
In convenient, that should require him the one that had pray"
"always? to Give to each of the his/her/its intentions the
maximum human of supernatural perfection.
To what he/it will be helped a lot if he/it endeavors to give
to each of his/her/its actions the maximum human of professional
perfecto.
In other words, to purify is motives of action and in all circumstance
to "do his/her/its best.
|
1-
Die Reinheit der Absicht |
 One
doesn't think enough about admiring God's goodness in the mechanism
of the intentions.
When does he/it arrive to think about poverty so plain of our usual
acts, to the misery of our efficient realizations, one is frightened,
along one day, what composes the plot of our twenty-four hours?
Of the gestures of a great triviality. Eight hours or past to sleep,
one or two to eat; the others to what to do? Even those of which
work is the most raised, the artist, the poet, the writer, that
it is that their works at the cost of what God deserves, and that
of portions of their time passed in tasks all others that the brilliant
élucubration or the composition, corrections of tests, accounts
of publishers and the rest? How to manufacture the eternal with
so small things: for family's mother, the sweep of an inside,; for
a maid, the care of a kitchen,; for a master of humanities, the
explanation fifteen times retelled of a text of Caesar or Virgile.
"Me, I have my desires", observed someone. We would say
just as gladly,: "It's a good thing we have our intentions!"
In this matter more or less fine or coarse that are our actions
of every day, that come to enter a "soul". has, as after
addition of a leaven, that all this matter palpitates and go up.
A hidden fermentation she/it works. This étaeint of the petty
mere nothing, it becomes an eloquent praise. These were inanimate
mere nothing, it becomes a living poetry. More nothing is low and
vile; quite, rhymes of poet or kitchen sauce, speculation of thinker
in an amphitheater of Sorbonne or assembly of brackets in a shop
of joinery, all can become something that is penetrated of eternal.
Who made the miracle? The intention.
We will be too unhappy so God had to judge us on our acts took in
themselves. Those would be the privileged to that he/it is given
to accomplish big things. We will be judged on the mobile of our
acts; and what consolation to think that a small life enlivened
of big intentions passes what the world calls a big life incomparably,
but paved of small intentions. All the man is in what he wants,
it is-to say in his/her/its thought and in his/her/its heart, and
non years his/her/its brush, his/her/its broom or his/her/its feather.
Happy country that the beyond where will finally be re-established
the true securities, where will explode to the eyes of all how some
characters to the gestures exploding was only baudruches, and that
the good signaled woman one day by François saint of foundation
to brother Jupiter, surpass in religious such supernatural dignity
of second zone!
But it is not sufficient to admire beauty and the importance of
the intention, it is necessary to signal the difficulty of the perfectly
right intention.
Most our mobile of action "are mixed". Let here the case
of the mean that looks for the pain. It is about the good Christian,
or even of the fervid soul. Probably, they look for God. But not
only God; God, with also, in addition, their small caprice, such
satisfaction of self-esteem, such desire of well-being or the vanity.
The imitation recommends to have oculus simplex, the simple look,
that wants to say an aim exclusively supernatural that doesn't come
to correct or to divide the multiplicity of the mobile human, Saint
Ignace proposes the same ideal to his/her/its sons: Ut in omnibus
Deum quoerant. That in all they look for God and only God.
It is there a recommendation of all ma^tires on which besides it
is necessary to come back always (39).
The man shortens everything that he touches, Made of dust and mind,
he puts the duality everywhere. Born of the mixture, he/it handles
it of the mixture.
To supervise in us this craze, to make the exam of our mobile of
action enough often, of our intention straightforwardness. The author
to Appear puts in stage a character whose perpetual worry is to
"take care of his/her/its page of history of France",
what the other, what the other will say, think,; what can be could
think the other. If one yet knew how much little, her more often,
the other "think" about us, I want to say have worry of
us! and better again, how much their opinion possesses interest
and merit little to influence on us! Most humans are propelled by
shades. Let's throw a light grown on these ghosts. For whom and
what do I act? For him smiles of Pierre or Paul? for the presumed
approval the most often inexistent of Mrs. a such,… Go therefore!
Before acting, to train if need be in a certain number of case,
for an effort, positive and explicit, to suppress the mixture, if
he/it exists, in order to succeed progressively in suppressing it
in an usual way and on the whole of the cases. Better again, to
train to act for the motive that appears the noblest. I have to
work; me then to make it or because it owe it, God's will, has the
motive very appears; or because it assures me a positon or a honorable
home, excellent motive, but of human and very lower order to the
precedent that was, him, all supernatural,; or because it put forward
me, give me some opportunities to shine, motive a lot less noble
already, etc..
Not besides to believe all lost because an e less noble intention
will have intervened along the way.
Evidently, if it is about a distinctly bad intention and regaining
the primitive good intention entirely in order to destroy it completely
(note some two conditions), the result is a bad action, whose gravity
is to appreciate according to the plain rules and the morals of
the sin.
But the most often, the primitive good intention will stay I make
alms by piety, by charity,; the second intention that will slip
himself the thought to be seen, for example destroyed not in totality
my aim first,; she/it corrects it merely a little, add an element
of human order; to an activity in the beginning merely supernatural.
The act remains good; his/her/its merit is merely a little decreased
because of the light intrusion of the less noble motive; the simplest
is, in similar occurrence to declare to this sly and inopportune
motive, what holy Bernard advised his monks,: Non proper you incepi,
non proter you finam. It is not for you that I began; it is not
for you that I want to finish (40)
|
2-
The perfection of the actions |
 The
normal accompaniment of the perfection of the intention, it
is the perfection of the action. to Act very well because one
sees very loud.
If the complaints that go up are necessary again of everywhere,
the well made works become rare thing. The professional conscience
leaves, one doesn't work anymore, one botches. Doesn't one have
anymore to the same degree that once the worry of the "better
possible (41), is he/it certain that, the world paganisant that
surrounds us, didn't this habit of the penetrate "come
what may" somewhat our existences to us, Christian?
What is each in our state, our conscience professional? Does
commit accomplish ourselves our daily duty? Let's do make -
us indeed of our better this that we have to make? If no, that
wait ourselves? Because our Mr. is good and reward the least
of our acts even makes half, do we satisfy ourselves to give
him some acts only to halves facts, a half work, of the activity
to half-output?
Often, we would dream for our lives something else. We would
like them full of other events, of a different activity, of
duties of states or less monotonous or gleaming. It is not a
secret for anyone, nemo contentus sweat sort, no one is happy
with his/her/its fate. One wishes to change with the neighbor,
However, God doesn't ask us to make something else, but to make
otherwise. No to change our acts, but only the manner to accomplish
them. To mend of the lign offs to correct some copies either,
it is worth us the sky if it is our duty, again he/it is that
there is "the manner". a lot of shapes of "sabotage"
exist. Each of us, if he/it examines himself/itself a little,
will discover itself behind closed doors a fervid accustomed
of the work slowdown and sabotage.
The saints didn't proceed from the sort. They made what they
had to make well, and there is the notion at a time the most
elementary and deepest of the holiness.
Some have accomplish big things little. They didn't become holy
because of it, and didn't deserve to accomplish these big things
that to have, to the habit, faithful summer in the small things,
such among the blesseds is not honored holy Jean Bechmans for
example that to have, in one life besides short, realized the
whole perfection of the ordinary stocks. One asked someone for
this qu that he/it thought the virtue of the P.Chevrier, founding
of the Prado,: "I don't know anything of it, he/it answered,
I only know a thing, it is that he/it always closes his/her/its
doors. " Simple whim but that says some long, manifest
a whole possession of oneself and a whole fidelity to the smallest
things.
Who maybe holy in that manner: to live radiantly in the dullness
monotonous of the daily life a life holy by that that perpetually
praying of the big manner.
We said elsewhere that the big secret of the fervid life was
to take ideal louse: To act in all as Notre-Seigneur would act
if it was we (42). And we marked that it didn't constitute an
imagination, one "as if" more or less artificial.
It is about a reality. Each of us living in grace is the Christ's
living portion, and therefore, what each of us accomplishes
supernaturally, the Christ, heard in his/her/its global meaning,
the Christ, accomplishes it in us and by us.
This humble detail of my existence, how would accomplish it
the Christ?
So I must accomplish me him.
And this other? … and again this other.. A soul that would
adopt this rule for convenient guidance, doesn't have need to
look elsewhere for a formula of holiness. She/it found it. And
no cannot be more efficient and faster.
|
Reference |
(39)
after having given to one superior this advice: "Spend with
Notre-Seigneur the whole time qu your can steal to the occupations",
holy, Mad,-Sophie Barat, add very wisely: "Accustom yourselves
then to empty your power of the occupation and the memory of the
things and people that follows each other. As soon as we provided
to a business, received a visit, let's do let success of it to
Notre-Seigneur and don't we amuse to remind it, to feed us maybe
of what will have interested us, to us of the success qu us had,
of the contracts, who knows? self-esteem is so subtle! Let's let
all it and let's come back in succession to the thought of Notre-Seigneur,
as the fish that one came out of water and that, when he/it sees
it again, hurl down himself of it." (Husk: Work and Pire`re:
Saint Mad, _Sophie Barat, pp. 184-185).
(40) of excellent indications on this question of the intentions,
in Smet,: Our supernatural Life, t.1,chap.Iii,2,pp.70-74,
(41) listen to some lines of Péguy, in money (pp.16 to
21 passim).: "We knew this care pushed until the perfection,
equal on the whole, equal in the most minute detail. We knew this
piety; of "the work well made" thrust, maintained until
his/her/its most extreme requirements. I saw all my childhood
(at home) rempailler of the chairs precisely and the same mind,
the same heart and the same hand that this same people had carved
his cathedrals. Notes that today, to the bottom, that doesn't
amuse them of queen to make on the yards. They would like to work
better. Them entendrent this call of the race. The hand that itches,
that wants to work… But has, of the gentlemen very well,
the scientists, of the bourgeoises, explained to them that it
was that the socialism and that it was that the revolution."
(42) in the Christ-Jesus and the Christ in our brothers, passion
(Apostolate of the Prayer.)
|
| Chapter
3
To
sow in all of the prayer |
To
make his/her/its prayer carefully; to make of all his/her/its
life a prayer, such are, let's tell ourselves, the required conditions
for the deep, real union, with God. It is necessary to add there;
the care to sow along his/her/its most possible days of aspirations
toward God. It is the habit of the prayers jaculatoires.
Let's show how one must understand it in practice, and what are
the advantages of it.
|
1-
Convenient
of the prayers jaculatoires |
|  He/it
is clear that most souls greedy of true piety would not ask better
than to think often about God. But how to proceed to arrive there?
First while training to think of it of time about others, Start
with the easiest; so an act of offering every time that one varies
occupation considerably. "If the oh is not able to, observe
holy Theresa, to practice a lot of times per day the exercise of
God's presence, of the less that one makes it from time to time…
The memory of this company that we have ourselves of it, he/it didn't
last that one instant. He/it would be already for us of an immense
profit (43)
Fénelon enters in more of details:
"Benefit of the time of the day oè you have one of half-occupation
of the things outsides, to occupy you internally of God, only; for
example, work to your work in God's simple and familiar presence.
There are only in the conversations that this presence is less easy:
one can nevertheless to remember God's general view, that adjusts
all words often and that represses, while speaking to the creatures,
the gentleness of self-esteem. Have care not to take too much part
to all c that says itself and makes itself, and of not too much
us to fill. As soon as we saw what God asks us in every thing that
presents itself, let's limit ourselves there, and let's separate
us of the whole remains, by there, we will always keep the bottom
of our free and equal soul.. An excellent means to keep itself/themselves
in the solitude inside and in the liberty of the mind, it is at
the end of every action, to finish there all reflections, while
dropping the returns, soon of vain joy, soon of sadness, because
they are one of our biggest pains. Happy to that he/it doesn't stay
anything in the mind that the necessary; and that doesn't think
to every thing that when he/it is time to think of it!"
A detail that is worth his/her/its price: "A little presence
of god during the meals (44), especially when they are long and
that one is there often of leisure will serve to keep you in the
boundary-marks of the soberness a lot and to fortify you against
your excessive gentleness. One has spoken even some moments of the
table where the first hunger makes ago can; then one can, while
eating, to think a little about God,; but all it must not make itself
that as the thought and the taste come without being inconvenienced
(45)."
This last s word of Fénelon, "to measure…",
"without being inconvenienced…" are all to fact
to keep. The big rule that orders the spiritual life in his/her/its
whole is to avoid everything that is to hinder "the holy liberty
of "God's children carefully, that means what folds, compress,
remove the dilation, the impetus, what provokes the contention of
the mind at the expense of the peace, of the serenity.
Some souls could read in such life of Father of the desert (46),
or even of such saints characters of our time, that they tried themselves
to returns toward God reaching disconcerting numbers. One doesn't
learn us not that holy Leonardo of Port-Maurice, for example, had
taken this resolution: "Me répèterai the invocation:
My Jesus, mercy, a thousand times per day, or mentally or vocally
(47)"; that holy Louis of Gonzague didn't stop, to the testimony
of a revelation of Madeleine saint of Pazzi (48), to throw, following
the archaic expression, the arrows of continual acts of love, skywards;
that holy François Xavier so often retelled: Oh Trinitas
sanctissima! Oh a lot of Saint Trinidad! that the idolaters had
taken the habit to repeat, without understanding it, this exclamation
(49); that during the last war, an Irish chaplain, the P.William
Doyle, wrote in his newspaper six but before his/her/its intervening
death close to Ypres, the 12 aoûtt 1917,: "Claire light
for that God asks me to aim to hundred thousand daily aspirations.
I feel that Jesus asks for it in repair for his/her/its priests
(50)."
Will it be necessary, to arrive to the divine union, to vie with
these exceptional privileged, to long for similar tour de force,
all to the month endeavors to this mathematical crushing? Not.
If he/it agrees, in principle, to return as numerous and as little
occasional as possible our prayers jaculatoires, again he/it is
that the rhythm of their frequency must obey the two following rules
that the big spiritual authors Alvarezes of Paz notably, so precious
between a lot, by for what it always looks to established the exact
dosage between the effort of generosity and the rest of the soul
(51) remind to the desire: to avoid the fatigue that will bring
the disgust quickly (52) to follow the appeal of the grace, the
Holy spirit not asking all same measures.
However that may be, do never wonder, and especially we don't ever
discourage, so in spite of our resolutions wisely taken, we reason
some that in this hypothesis we don't arrive, especially in the
beginning, to the fixed number, or if we noted to have arrived today
to a number elevated month that the old. We are by definition of
the fickle beings, and the earth is the country o;u one walks much
months of victory in victory that of revenge on the other hand.
The P. of Caussade notes strong precisely: "It is not necessary
to be surprised ever that one day big contemplation is followed
of another full of dissipation; is our condition in the present
life. This variation is necessary as in the spiritual things, in
order to hold us in the humiliation and in God's dependence. The
holy themselves passed by these alternatives (52)
All it is beautiful and good, will say some souls; but our difficulty
is not nor in this convenient wisdom in this generosity of bottom
us would not ask better than to think about God. But how to think
about to think about God? How, taken away by the sensitive that
dominate us and brew us, to manage to clear us of him per instant,
and to discover, would not this be that illuminates some fast, the
invisible?
We already noted how much the practice of the daily meditation (well
to make his/her/its prayer) and the exercise of the continual detachment
(to make a whole prayer, that means an elevation toward God by the
purity of intention, and no a coming down toward oneself by the
obedience to the caprice) facilitated the contact with l‘Invisible.
But he/it arrives that, even after the meditation carefully practiced
and carefully kept detachment, monopolized soul,; by the "outside",
and victim of the "circumstances", feel a lot of difficulties
to recover God's explicit presence. One will spend several hours,
a whole morning, a whole day, without only one memory of the divine
host, without only one prayer jaculatoire,. One would have liked
well. One didn't think about thinking of it.
Will it be necessary, to arrive to the divine union, to vie with
these exceptional privileged, to long for similar tour de force,
all to the month endeavors to this mathematical crushing? Not.
If he/it agrees, in principle, to return as numerous and as little
occasional as possible our prayers jaculatoires, again he/it is
that the rhythm of their frequency must obey the two following rules
that the big spiritual authors Alvarezes of Paz notably, so precious
between a lot, by for what it always looks to established the exact
dosage between the effort of generosity and the rest of the soul
(51) remind to the desire: to avoid the fatigue that will bring
the disgust quickly (52) to follow the appeal of the grace, the
Holy spirit not asking all same measures.
How to make?
The means, since the big reef is the sensitive world, consist in
trying to unite to a sensitive order data the memory of the invisible
world. Of an enemy to make itself/themselves an ally. To use a detail
of the material life to awaken the idea of our spiritual world:
to use the body to help the soul. Saint Ignace, prudent psychologist,
doesn't miss, in his/her/its theory of the particular exam, to make
bottom on this reality of the human compound, and it counsels to
combine material gesture and divine thought.
For example, he/it will be suited that every time that one will
pass before such picture of piety, such crucifix, such statue, or
even when one will accomplish such profane gesture, come out of
the house, entered in such room, occupation of such nature, that,
will be a provocation to recall us God Present, the good people
make a nœud to their handkerchief not to forget such detail
of their life. The P. Maunoir, after his/her/its missions of Brittany,
invited its flock to sew on their sleeve, the wife a heart of blue
material, one men a heart of material beats real brisque of presence
of God so that au middle of their works of the fields or household,
the view of this wool seer piece was them a beneficial recall. The
practice of the angelus and born of a same Christian desire.
Faut0il to fear that these frequent returns "to the harm to
the duty of state in?" Not at all, if they are practiced with
wisdom. On the contrary, and knows François of Dirty doesn't
miss to observe it, they can only give more heart to the work and
can make the application more conscientious and more generous, "Notice
well, he/it says, that this exercise of the prayers jaculatoires
is not difficult, nor incompatible with your occupations; and even,
far that he/it diverts or decrease the application of the mind to
the business, he/it makes it more efficient and softer."
He/it is clear while more the occupation is manual, less it risks
to be embarrassed by the explicit exercise of God's presence. More
the occupation to which we deliver ourselves is of intellectual
order and requires "all the man" less it is necessary
to require one a strain to succeed in interrupting itself/themselves
of time in other in order to think about God to speak to God. In
many press even, it be understand his/her/its duty badly. If the
prayers jaculatoires must embarrass work, to sacrifice the prayers
jaculatoires, and that work is made well, above all, we told it,
the duty of state, Ignace of Loyola, studies to the university of
Paris feels, during the courses, seized by the divine ascendancy.
The acts of love spring of its heart and follow each other without
interruption. He/it is at the sky. Yes, but he/it is not to the
course. Quickly he/it understood that his/her/its studies can only
endure these impetuses and he/it asks God to compress these impetuses
so that he/it can lead to good end his/her/its studies. There is
the intelligent spirituality.
We answer: that each not gives way on this to his/her/its attrais,
there is the big rule. To such moment, following the arrangements
insides, the indications of the prayer or the invitations of the
Liturgy, will rather be himself the screams of the soul having milked
to the purgative life: "Piety, Lord! Meserre! Trust! My Jesus,
mercy! " To such other moment, of the aspirations relating
to life illuminative, for example: "Jesus, be I Jesus!",
favorite invocation of knows Philippe of Néri; or the word
so popular: "Sacred Cœur of Jesus, I have confidence in
you!" others will prefer, these are in me the best, the prayers
jaculatoires suggested by life unitive and having the tendency the
most efficiently to maintain it: Oh Beata Trinitas! (Saint Ignace);
My God And my all! (holy François of foundation), and so
many others. (54)
Without prejudice of this explanation, and in the case of a soul
not having indication particulìeres or special appeals, he/it
seems that one can suggest like prayer jaculatoire of all first
value, the sign of the Cross and the Gloria Patri. He/it agrees
in general, to have a portable spirituality and not to clutter itself/themselves
of adventitious vegetation. Before adopting of practices them and
of the formulas, let's use the practices and the formulas well first
of all that already we use. So much time in one day he doesn't arrive
us not to draw the sign of the Cross, and can-to be notably if we
have to recite the Élise's office to pronounce the Gloria
Patri (55).
What recall better of God's presence!.
Let's signal subject the immense profit of those that gave for center
to their spiritual life, not only the presence of Die in general,
out of us, but God's presence in us.
The research of present God out of us asks for a certain effort
of imagination from where a big contention, a fatigue. The return
to present God of it only supposes us a simple look of faith. The
divine dwelling in the soul in state of grace is a reality for which
I don't have to compose decor, that doesn't require me, so that
I seize some, a sort of daring and fantastic pilgrimage through
and until the confines of the space: I only have to enter in me,
God finds himself/itself of it (56)
The formula: In the name of the Father, made not me think of u Father
who is, over there, to billions of miles of me, or that dominates
me of all his/her/its immensity before which my heart panics, more
that it doesn't soften; but to a Father all near, all to the intimate
of me: In the name of the Father who is there, that possesses in
me his/her/its man, following the picturesque expression of the
Faber oratorien, of the Son who waits for me to the margelle of
my heart, of the Holy spirit that, mixed to my life to give him
his/her/its eternal value doesn't leave me one instant and makes
all with me.
We showed elsewhere how the big dogmatic idea on which, the most
easily, a life of contemplation can lean, was the thought of present
God in our souls by the Grace.
Who surrendered this familiar idea is equipped admirably to practice
alone or in company the union to God, to use everything that surrounds
it like a means with to bring back it to his/her/its center.
Only with ourselves, "a double superhuman" accompanies
us incessantly. If we developed the mind of faith sufficiently,
if we have a little God's grant, so indeed we believe; so, for us,
"God in our soul" it is not only a beautiful formula,
a pretty theme to devout dissertation, but an incontestable, existing
fact; if this expression "we are God's living tabernacles and
really his/her/its holy temples" have for us value of reality
he can, from then on, to seem impassable or difficult all to make
"collect."
That a soul of faith penetrates years a cathedral, Instinctively,
the voice lulls, the gestures become measured, the more serious
gait, there is there the big Present, the divine host,; let's say
nothing about ourselves, let's adore. Let's walk if we have to walk,
let's paint if we have to paint, let's adjust and let's decorate
if we have to paint or to decorate. But impossible to abstract itself/themselves
of The one that over there home and lives.
We are a living cathedral. We add to ourselves our own chapel, in
us, God stays and lives, if we are in grace.
Then?
Then the conclusion is very simple and immediate. To live and to
act as we would make if we stayed perpetually in a church, in presence
of Tabernacle.
There is not that only one sacrament of real Presence, the Eucharist,;
there are two of them: with the eucharistie, the Baptism. The presence
of the Three divine People in us to the Baptism is not only less
real the presence of Our - Lord to the Tabernacle; the difference
between the two presences is entire in the modes of the presence,
no in the reality of the presence.
From where does come whereas, did leave the church, would we act
as if all real presence had stopped for us? It is that we would
not have a sufficient faith, that practically we "would not
know" God's grant.
Our contemplation out of the church should be as deep, although
for a different motive, that in the church (57).
The only difference will come of the requirements different of our
state duty here and there.
In the church, I enter for motives of cult, of the acts of prayers.
But when I leave from it, I carry away with me my tabernacle, I
carry away with me my interior real presence and therefore everything
that I would have to make, it is in company of the divine host of
the soul, dulcis hospes animoe, that I am called to execute it.
I don't immobilize myself in a static worship, since my duty of
state orders me to act. But I don't act in an uproar without worship,
because my faith recalls me the host that I carry and the living
ciborium that I am.
I act, since it owe it, I don't act "without God", since
the Very High doesn't leave me.
There is to doesn't consult the less that the main more luminous
doctrine, more simple and more stimulating, to make spring, one
would dare to say incessantly, of our soul, a scream of call, a
word of love, a sign that testifies to The one that is always there
that we are not absent and that we recognize the incomparable price
of his/her/its continual presence.
"The faith tells us, writing holy Paul of the Cross, that our
heart is big sanctuary, because it is the time of God and the residence
of the a lot of Saint Trinidad. Often visit this sanctuaire`voyez
if the lamps are lit, that means the faith, the hope, the charity,
resuscitate your faith therefore often when you study, work, eat,
while lying down you and while raising you, and facts of the love
impetuses toward God (58)
But it is especially holy Theresa that it is necessary to hear.
Let's not fear to mention his/her/its admirable chapter xxx of the
Path of the Perfection for a long time.
"Saint Augustin tells us that after having looked a long time
for God in the objects that surrounded it, he finally finds in it
to the of himself. Meditate these words in depth, because he/it
is sovereignly, useful to a soul that has difficulty collecting
itself/themselves, to understand such a truth,: to know that he/it
is not necessary for her to rise until the sky to converse with
his/her/its divine Father and to find after him his/her/its delights,
to raise the voice to be sensible, he/it is so close to us, that
he/it hears the least movement of our lips, the most intimate very
speech. We don't have need of are going to go to his/her/its research;
let's put ourselves in the solitude and let's watch in ourselves,
it is there that he/it shelters, probably speak him with a big humility,
but also with love, as children to their father, exposing him with
to convince our needs, telling him our pains, the imploring to bring
remedy there, and thankful especially as we are not worthy of prote
the name of his/her/its children."
She/it adds, to reassure the people who would wonder about to see
to push him until as sublime consequences practices the substantial
content of the doctrine:
"The souls that will be able to collect themselves thus as
I have just said it, must believe that they walk in an excellent
path, and that they won't linger to drink to the fountain of life."
Follows a remark to incline to no more to underestimate, as one
makes too much, God's grant:
"If these souls took care to remember that they possess a host
of such a majesty, he/it would be impossible to them to deliver
itself/themselves with one so blind ardor to the things of this
world, by what they would see how much these things are abject by
those that they possess in themselves."
She/it finishes by this infinitely precious confession to collect,
"For me, I confess to have known what it was never that to
pray with satisfaction until he/it had himself condescended to teach
me one so beneficial method. I will say, while finishing, that the
one that will want to acquire this habit, because it depends on
us, must not get tired of working to surrender little by little
master, of oneself while recalling his/her/its senses in to the
of him. Instead of losing there, he/it will find there for his/her/its
soul a big gain; the one to entrench the outside use of his/her/its
senses, and to make his/her/its interior contemplation serve them.
If he/it speaks, that he/it tries to remember that he/it has in
the bottom of his/her/its heart to that to speak; if he/it hears
to speak, that he/it doesn't forget that he/it must listen to the
one that speaks to him besides internally near. That he/it finally
considers that he/it can, if he/it wants, to part never with this
divine company.
That the soul, if it can happen, convenient this several times per
day; otherwise, that she/it sometimes practices it at least. So
long as she/it adapts of it, she/it will withdraw a big advantage
sooner or later of it. When once the divine Mr. will have him makes
this grace, she/it would not like to exchange it against all treasures
of the earth. In the name of God, since nothing acquires itself
without pain, don't pity the time and the application of you there
will use, I assure you that with the aid of Notre-Seigneur you will
come with it to the end in one year and maybe in six months.
A last word on this point of so big importance. To the very middle
of the world, in the necessary and customary contact with the other
people, duty of inside, of charity, of apostolate, courtesy or business
relations, the knowledge deepened of the Dei donum helps, more that
all, to keep God's presence.
God lives in us. But in the neighbor who revolves around us, God
also lives, or wants to live; and therefore, knowing us surrounded
with tabernacles, present or by destination, what recall easy of
the Three divine People.
There is not there either of efforts of imagination, of laborious
constructions of place for which some declare impotent. It is sufficient
to consider what is the reality, hopeless d need to build; merely
to note; not at all to create, solely to give to the real his/her/its
value of reality.
It is for example about a young mother, occupied to the multiple
cares of his/her/its children. That she/it doesn't say: the union
to God I am impossible. She/it is surrounded with tabernacles, surrounded
with real presences. Are his/her/its small baptized? Yes, does God
live in them?
This professor, this class mistress, this industrial in the middle
of all his/her/its world. Pupils, manœuvres, foremen, workers
or colleagues, are not this e reality, at least in hope, and by
divine destination, of God's carriers. Why see in them something
else? OR of the less, why see not it as, it especially? "God's
grant" is not only for us. He/it is also for them. They are
create and put to the world to be "divine". The Mr. gave
all his/her/its blood for them. The earth is only there to make
arrive them to the sky, and to give them, by the grace, in adjoining
the Glory, the possession anticipated of the Three People.
- I don't think of it.
- A more explicit knowledge of the doctrine would help you incontestably
to think of it.
|
2-
Advantages of the prayers jaculatoires and the exercise of God's
presence. |
 That
the practice of the prayers jaculatoires and the exercise of God's
presence is recommended by the teachings and the examples of the
big spiritual authors and the big saints, that goes without saying.
To the testimonies that we already invoked, let's join these very
especially characteristic: "Qu ' one looks for, writing holy
Ignace of Loyola, God's presence in all things, in the conversations
and the walks, while watching, while tasting, while listening,
while thinking, while making everything that one makes, this manner
to meditate that makes find God in all is easier than the one
that us elevated to things divine more appeals with efforts to
present them to us. This beneficial exercise, otherwise arranges
itself well of it, is worth of big visits to the Lord, more that
in a brief prayer contained. That one also exercises itself to
offer God often his/her/its works and he tire, while thinking
that it is for his/her/its love that we accept them, sacrificing
our tastes to serve his/her/its divine Majesty in a way while
helping those for life of which he/it accepted the death. There
would be to examine itself/themselves on colons. (59)
"The shortest pure path to arrive to the divine charity,
told his/her/its Louis tour of Grenada, is to raise our heart
to God by powerful affections and by flaming desires of his/her/its
love, always conversing with him, with a respectful confidence,
us supporter introverted in his/her/its presence (60)."
Saint François of Dirty, holy Leonardo of Port-Maurice
won't give any other advice. "In this exercise of the spiritual
retirement (the contemplation) and of the prayers jaculatoires,
lies the big work of the devotion: he/it can implore to all others
prayers, but if he/it comes to miss, he/it replaced maybe by nothing.
Without him one cannot really make the contemplative life, and
one would only know pain how to make the active life. (61)."
To the bishop of Geneva, the famous Italian missionary makes echo:
"Do you want a paradise anticipated on the earth and a sure
company to arrive quickly to perfection?… Live introverted
internally, and to walk in God's holy presence," talking
of himself, the blissful Leonardo Port-Maurice added: "My
vocation, it is the mission and the solitude; the mission, in
order to be occupied always for God,; the solitude, in order to
be occupied always in God, the whole remains vanity is."
Each of us, if he/it understands well, doesn't he/it have an identical
vocation?
So that the holy e t the authors recommend with so much unanimity
and heat the practice to God's presence, and the habit of the
frequent aspirations, it is necessary that the advantages are
well precious of it.
Them he/it is indeed.
The first of these advantages is to make at a time easier the
prayer and the detachment that are, we called it, two foundations
of the union to God. To make easier the prayer:
"It is well certain that the love causes the frequent memory
of the thing that one likes, but it is also true that this frequent
to remember increases the love a lot. A soul that would be faithful
to remember God frequently of would come soon quite embarrassed
of love, and to proportion that it would grow in God's love, his/her/its
memory would have to him continual so, that it be able to more
forget it (62)
Not only the prayer as such is facilitated by the exercise of
God's presence, but again, all along the day, the life of interior
silence, so necessary for the union. A solitude where one only
discerns the emptiness is not very appealing; but if one possesses
the art to populate divine his/her/its solitude, then this solitude
doesn't appear more austere and gloomy, but rich, and splendidly
full, overflowing of life and how much appealing! Those only that
cultivate the presence of God and the frequent elevation toward
Him know how much according to the mount of Manning, to the solitude
and the silence are full of reality (63)."
In the same way the practice of the prayer so jaculatoires facilitates
the detachment. We are so little usually courageous that to see
enough distinctly for that and for what we must defeat ourselves:
God's thought, especially when she/it is ardent and magnetize,
acts on the tepid ash of our existence, to the manner of an air
thrust that makes fly the dust, discover the embers and revive
the flame.
But don't limit there favors itself them himself the exercise
of the presence of God and prayers jaculatoires. It is necessary
to say a lot more. Nothing better than these acts of union frequently
renewed, to generate the state of morally continual union (64)
In the beginning, a reasonable effort to apply to God a certain
number of time and to offer him our different actions, Then, little
by little, a flexible and progressive practice (65)
Nothing feverish, of hasty, but a harmonious, virile development
and magnet, of the faith mind,; the supernatural habit, become
natural, to return us toward the center of the living tour in
the center of us, as soon as in the periphery nothing asks for
us for the "King's" service. As soon as I don't have
anymore to act for God, to incline has think about Him, such is
the rhythm of our practice of a contemplation that pretends to
become at a time wise and intense.
The soul possesses then, or get ready thus to acquire, the continual
union, that wants to say the elevation so toward God entry in
life, to become so easy and so spontaneous, that one can call
it uninterrupted elevation. It is not about words decisions, but
the heart remains adhesive to God, will only makes one with the
one of God, and the mind so mobile, sometimes so scattered, not
always by his/her/its mistake, home so attentive to purify or
to offer his/her/its intention, before, during or after the occupation
of every moment, that indeed the soul resembles, to borrow the
comparison of François saint of Dirty, to the child who
picks the flowers of the road, but doesn't release for as much
his/her/its father's hand. Saint Thomas calls the habit "a
quality steady settlor to act with easiness". Ease and perseverance,
there is what characterizes all habit, the habit of the prayer
like all other.
A modern philosopher describes this progressive conquest of the
union becoming easy very well. "A first order of interior
progress consists in the development of some psychological states.
First replicate on themselves and only meeting rare opportunities
to appear, they seem to acquire had had little an importance that
they didn't yet possess… The supporter so that love of God
was first only a brief contemplation of the morning and of in
the evening before to be supreme, arrives receivable in itself
the perpetual presence of the object of his/her/its love; whereas
a voluntary effort seemed necessary to him to pronounce some formulas
attentively, it feels henceforth overgrown by the need to pray..
Soon it comes from it to more to consider the universe that like
a transparent veil behind which lets itself guess the Créateur…Toute
creature everywhere, even humblest, is a picture of God's Face.
Recognizing in all things God's mark as the one of their common
origin, they will appear all to his/her/its eyes brothers and
sœurs the some with regard to the other and with regard to
himself. Thus, of his/her/its first shy effort to turn his/her/its
soul toward God, will have left, as the tree of the seed, the
devouring love of God and all things in God. (66).
On the lyric mode, here it is as speaks the P.Fratry:
"He/it is the s mind that feels, more that the other, the
needs of rest and the return to the home of life.
When such a soul was connected to God, tasted his/her/its fullness,
and that it has during long days, undergone the intolerable vanity
of the life of the outside, it comes a time where all business,
all outside work, all exit toward the world becomes impossible
to him. This world is then like an intruder who comes to disturb
a feast of the heart, and the necessity to undergo pulls it the
tears, as when it occurs us a trying business in the middle of
an inspired work, or that some foreign, some man that our eyes
knew, but that our soul doesn't know, comes to devour the purest
of one day promised to the prayer and the survey, and to torment,
for useless speeches and numbers, our attention that défaille
to every word and concentrate elsewhere. This is how the life
of the outside tires these souls and multiply their sighs toward
the eternal rest. Probably, such a maturity for the death is rare,
but of least advanced can understand it and accept it (67).
If we add these less advanced", let's not wonder too much
to have again to fight to arrive to the wanted contemplation.
But confidence!
In return for the game of the habit supposed normal, and the grace
increasing resources of the habit, why would not arrive one? "During
a lot of years, confess holy Theresa, I passed by the test not
to be able to fix my thought… it is extremely laborious.
But I know that the Lord condescends to hold us company when we
go to It to pray of it to him humbly. If we don't arrive there
in one year, hey well! that it is in several! I assure you that
one can arrive there, that one can, with efforts, to acquire the
habit to live thus in the company of the Mr. par excellence (68)."
Of are side, louis of Grenada,: "The holy king David learns
us that he always lived in presence of God (70). Make the same
thing, raise your heart continually to God, without making you
by force and of violence, but letting damage merely and lovingly
your mind in this sovereign divinity. Don't be distressed to see
that your sister, because of his/her/its natural lightness, is
often distracted: try to collect it expeditiously and offer it
again to God.
If you have courage to sustain this fight during some time without
moving you I dare to assure you that the custom will change itself
in nature, and than us only you won't have a difficulty entering
in the contemplation more, but even that you won't leave from
it anymore, you will be as the fish who cannot live out of water,
and that as being made toue outside what it is able to return
there. (71)."
However, the one that easily and turn usually toward God in the
middle of his/her/its customary actions, that one possesses the
morally continuous union. His/her/its reports with God are, to
the precise sense of the word, of the intimacy reports.
So, to this moment, he/it is pleasing to God to make splice the
soul in the state either of conquered contemplation, but of innate
contemplation, nothing will have prepared the ways better insofar
as can be prepared by us what emanates God's merely free grant
that the effort to maintain itself/themselves, by the mind of
faith and the generosity all magnetize, of the God presence as
continual, humanly, that possible.
Saint Theresa, a strong foundation. And if he/it pleases has Lord
to raise you to big things, he/it will find you disposed there
(72)."
We don't want to penetrate here in this domain of the "big
things" to which the Saint makes allusion. It be come out
of the survey that we were ourselves propose, to know, how can
one, by his/her/its personal resources helped of the grace common
to all, to conquer the union to God, to arrive to the whole contemplation
let to our free effort.
For the souls besides to that God would bestow, by keys or by
prolonged state, the innate contemplation, rules and advice agree
less that an invitation to docility, to the humility, to the total
and unreservedly grant,
The Holy spirit himself is in charge d‘enseigner, and he/it
makes it without any noise of words.
We can be quiet therefore, and to use the moment of silence of
which he/it is right to make follow the completion of all work,
to ask the Lord to bless those that will read these pages, and
of them communicates the joys of the as extensively as possible
"always to pray."
|
Reference |
(43)
Saint Theresa: Path of the Perfection, chap. XXIX p. 213 (44)
Saint Marguerite-Marie she/it didn't not often say, the meals
were for her the moment of the day where she/it felt the most
united to God
(45) Fénelon: Instruction and Opinion, no, VII, éd,
Quick, 1854, t.I. p.530 and following.
(46) he/it is related in the famous opens Vitae Parum that a lone
saint had raised his heart to God hundred livers during a conversation
(Migne: P. L.T. 73c. 943). note that the cénobites and
the first monks had little, he/it seems, the habit of the long
prayer. Without a letter Proba has, holy Augustin writes: "One
says that our brothers, in Egypt, frequently pray, but that their
prayers are very short and as shot skywards" traist, the
motive is interesting to go up, "for fear that the attention,
so necessary to the one that prays, didn't end up becoming dull
and by spreading in longer prayer" (Migne: P.L.T. 33 flight
501). This only remark, very psychological, it is not sufficient
to justify the necessity of the methods, for that wants, at least
in the beginning, to exercise itself/themselves any with fruit
to the prayer prolonged.
(47) the book of the resolutions, Vi chap., Number of other interesting
features is raised by M. Labbé Chatel in his/her/its booklet:
The angelic exercise of the prayers jaculatoires.
(48) herself had adopted the practice to offer to God fifty times
per day Christ's precious Blood for the sinners and the souls
of the Purgatories.
(49) life by, speak P. Bouhours, liv. VI
(50) magazine of ascetic and of Mystic, April 1921, pp. 128-136
- it is obvious that these aspirations, seen their stupendous
number, could not always be formulated, but had to consist often
either in a simple elevation of the mind, either in a beating
of love, either in an illuminates the soul. A very interesting
article, published since in booklet, appeared on this Jesuit Irishman,
in the messenger of Jesus' Cœur, February 1925,
(51) of inquisitione pacis, liv. Iv,p.Iii,c.10
(52) note carefully that a certain disgust, coming no of the excess
of the efforts, but of the simple cowardice, cannot be sufficient
to make us abandon our practices lawfully, since to the evaluation
of our faith mind, controlled if need by the director's assent,
we have, believed owing God, in all wisdom, to must and to can
us there to stop. The récollections of the month and especially
the retirements of the year, one in part for goal to assure, in
our spiritual life, the necessary clarifications.
(53) P.De Caussade; The abandonment to the divine Providence t.
II. liv. VI, 17th letter.
54) sages advice, to this topic, of Rodrigues,: Himself the "Christian
perfection, 1repart, VI. Tr., chap.III
(55) the Gloria Patri was the prayer favorite jaculatoire of Jérôme
saint. He/it sent it to Pope Damase that him, decided to add it
to the Breviary, at the end of every psalm. Impossible to the
priest "to think" every verse that he/it pronounces.
What convenient easy and full of sap, to search for to meet, or
rather to recover the holy Trinidad, to every Gloria.
(56) about the stake e presence of God in the beginning of the
meditation, the P. Husk notes very exactly: "Of all processes
to splice e God's presence, that one (to look for God in itself)
is maybe the most efficient, at least for those that have the
habit of the prayer, the one as that is the most advisable by
your saints" (Saint Ignace, master of prayer, Spes.p.54 ed.).
to Read The Gauthier also: Of the life Perfection spiritual t.
II 8 section, XXII chap. Bizeul éd (Dewit, 1909). Pp.93-96
(57) the mone, disciple of Bernard saint, who measured the Méditationeses
pilssimae (Opera Bernardi sancti, Venettis MDCCCXXVII, written,
collar 370: "Ubicumque jueris, inlecto aut inalio loco orea,
and ibi is tephum. Everywhere, where you are, collect you. Not
need of an election place. Yourself is this place of election,
you would be in bed, your berth herself is a temple.
(58) to the XVII sc. Practice them to keep itself/themselves in
presence of God, (Nancy, at Nicolas Balthasard, MDCCXIII), recommending:
"The simple, but lover memory of present God in you."
(59) Saint Ignace: epist., Menchaca ed., 1804, pp.223-226,
(60) Louis of Grenada: God's love, trad. Girarad MDCLXII Iipart,
Chap. IX p. 126
(61) religious life, II leaves. XIII chap. - holy François
of Dirty, talking of this retirement of the heart adds: "It
is here, Philothée, that I wish you the more of docility
to follow my advice: because it is the article grant I believe
that your spiritual advantage depends on advantage." in the
preparatory retirement to his/her/its consecration, the big Bishop
had taken this resolution: "I will make strength prayer jaculatoires
during the day."
(62) of silvering: The Sky in the Christian soul. p.23
(63) to the souls greedy of interior silence, we recommend the
beautiful pages gladly that Marie Beloved of Jesus, the former
Carmel of the Av, Saxony, dedicated to this topic-Life, with preface
of Mgr, Chollet (t. II. appendix). This courses excerpt published
in booklet: The twelve degrees of the silence.
(64) we say morally continual by that that, as well as we noted
it in the beginning of his/her/its pages, the material union continues
is, without a special grace of innate, impossible contemplation
seen our very limited resources of attention.
(65) on the laborious effort of these beginnings and the conditions
of a wise, methodical, efficient practice, one will consult with
fruit, the P.Saint-Swears: Of the Knowledge and the love of Our
Lord Christ notably t. Ii. V chap. as as Saint Alphonse of Ligouri,
in particular Christ's Real Wife XVI chap., - The PP. Baurand
and Vaubets also wrote, in widespread enough opuscules, of the
tasty pages.
(66) E.Gilson: Try on life Rev inside. Philosophical, January
- February 1920 p.31
(67)Gratry: Meditations unpublished p. 193
(68) path of the Perfection. XXVI chap.
(69) Vivit Dominus in cujus, conspectu sto (Ps.XV)
(70) Louis of Grenada: Love of God Late, Girad, II by., iX,p.130
chap. Previously, he/it had said: "As a piece of wood being
thrown by strength in the bottom of water, stand up and win, incontinent
the over…" thereafter (p.132) it completes his/its
thought: "If the business of this world that one cannot always
avoid, sometimes prevent you, to be if very introverted, persist
as much as you will be able to in your intention, try to come
never entirely out of yourselves, and make that there is always
some left your heart that yours to God and that watches it "Expression
that recall the P. Judd: "Let's go to our own heart, let's
listen and let's obey. That more of the half of ourselves are
always there, if he/it can happen to what passes himself of it
I answer for your JUDDE perfection": Œuvres., t.V, (Exhortation
_mp.70
(71) we said that it was especially about for Theresa saint at
least to this place, of the cult for present God in us.
(72) path of the Perfection XXIX chap.
|
Conclusion |
| This
small book he/it must not have that only one reader, to this unknown
reader, but so deeply beloved in the Christ-Jesus we don't want
to give while finishing that this advice. He/it emanates a master
in the spiritual ways, of the biggest master maybe holy Jean of
the Cross:
"Why do you so long defer to go to God, since you can occupy
your heart at the moment to like it?
If it is already about a soul resolute, and for a long time to be
God's and all his/her/its heart occupied at the moment to like it
but anxious to like it again more, we will recall the formula extracted
of the same Spiritual Sentences and that goes so far; "If you
wish that God's face appears clear and simple in your soul and makes
there shine his/her/its burst, don't find you on the contrary among
the creatures, perfectly empty your mind of it, and then you will
walk in the middle of the divine lights."
|
|
