The Practice of Mental Prayer. Father Rene de Maumigny
true liberty of spirit. By the light of prayer the soul clearly sees the nothingness of things transitory, the infinite value of things eternal; it under- stands that all outside of God is nothing, that God, the Sovereign Good, is everything. The outcome of this is a wonderful detach- ment from creatures, freeing the soul from the deceptive bonds of this world and estab- lishing it in true liberty, where it enjoys delicious rest. Closing the eyes to all phan- toms and earthly deceptions, the soul opens them to look on God, the only true, eternal and supreme good and cries out: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;"1 and again: "For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart and the God that is my portion for ever!"2
1 Ps. 36; 4. 2 Ps. 73: 35, 36.
PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER
But over and above all else, the peace which surpasses all understanding is the rest found in God's Will, infinitely just, holy, adorable and worthy of love; an unselfish rest, which makes the soul say with Jesus in the Garden: Father, not my will, but thine be done!"1 or again: "The chalice which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it?" 2
Hope is the second spiritual joy produced by prayer. By constantly meditating on the Holy Gospel the soul, little by little, is imbued with this consoling thought, which Our Lord recalls so often: that the pains and sufferings of life on earth are the gold with which the infinite happiness of heaven is bought. Then, instinctively, in reverse of fortune the soul says to itself: ''Blessed are the poor;" in affliction:'' Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake," finding true and solid consolation in words which it realizes in its very depths.
Love of God is the third and most exalted of the joys experienced in prayer. Noth- ing is sweeter than love; to seek to prove it would be both useless and superfluous.
1 Luke 22: 42.. 2 John 18: 11.
EXCELLENCE OF MENTAL PRAYER
Now all prayer is filled with this sweetness, for in its essence prayer is familiar inter- course with God like that of friend with friend, father with son; and consequently it is an intercourse of love.
And if you ask how far the sweetness of this love extends, the answer is: to such a point that we come to love what nature and the world detest: poverty, sickness, con- tempt, ingratitude, hard work and death. When rising from prayer, St. Francis Xavier used to cry: Lord, still more work! " It was prayer that inspired St. Teresa to cry from the bottom of her heart: To suffer or to die!"
To say that all souls who make serious prayer arrive at such transports of joy would be an exaggeration, but this is certain, that, by means of the light gained in meditation, everyone of these souls understands the value of suffering and learns that, during our mortal life, we are better able to respond to God's love by suffering than by any other means. Henceforth the soul succeeds not only in accepting the trials of this life with resignation, but still more, it prefers them to the deceptive joys which the worlding so ardently pursues.
PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER
CHAPTER V
FIFTH ADVANTAGE OF PRAYER
It gives apostolic works their true fruit
ST. Ignatius says that the apostolic worker is an instrument connected at one and the same time with God and with souls, whose sanctification will be more or less perfect in proportion as the apostolic worker has been more or less closely united to God as his instrument.
This is a happy comparison. A great sculptor can sometimes carve a statue, a real master-piece, with a poor chisel; a famous artist will paint a valuable picture with a bad brush; but however good the brush or the chisel, if they were handled by inferior workmen, the work would always be imperfect. In the same way, an apostolic worker of only moderate knowledge and eloquence, who is yet an instrument closely united to the hand of the Divine and all powerful Worker, will effect wonders in souls; whilst if he is only partially united to God, the result of his work will always be imper-
1 Const. S. J., P. 10, n. 2.
EXCELLENCE OF MENTAL PRAYER 33
feet, in spite of eloquence and knowledge and tact.
Now how is the apostolic worker to become an instrument united to God? By prayer, in which he is accustomed to converse with God as a child with its father, seeking not his own glory but God's, doing not his own will but God's; trusting not in his own strength but in God, the Almighty and the All-Bountiful.
In order to teach us this lesson by His own example, Our Lord prepared Himself for his apostolic life by forty days' prayer in the Desert and, when about to redeem the world on Calvary, He willed to spend the night in prayer in the garden of Gethsemani.
Since that time, nothing great has been done in the Church without prayer. Those specially chosen by God as His instruments have become united to the Divine Worker only through prolonged prayer. At the end of ten days' prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in the Upper Room, the Apostle saw the Holy Ghost descend in the form of fiery tongues, transforming them from men weak and worldly, into the men, filled with heavenly virtue, who converted the world.
PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER
Since the Divine mission of the Apostles, nothing has taken place in the Church of greater importance than the foundation of the Religious Orders; a close union, then, was necessary between those taking part in this great work and God, and the union was brought about by prolonged prayer made in solitude and often lasting several years. The cave of Subiaco, the many sanc- tuaries where St. Dominic was rapt in ecstasy, the rocky heights of Mount Alvernus, the solitude of Clairvaux, the grotto of Man- resa tell us in what school God was so long fashioning the great founders, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Bernard and Ignatius.
The triumphs of the Christian apostolate are still one of the great wonders of the Church's history, and there is nothing more illustrious than the names of St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis of Sales, St. John Francis Regis, St. Leonard of Port-Maurice, St. Alphonsus Ligouri. Now, all these great apostles of souls were men of great prayer. Let us imitate them, as far as grace is given us, and we shall become true apostles, producing lasting fruit in the salvation of souls.
PART II
The Principal Arts of Prayer
CHAPTER I
PREPARATION FOR PRAYER
PRAYER is a Divine work, and therefore the Holy Ghost is the most perfect teacher of how it may be well made.
Nevertheless, God demands the co-opera- tion of the soul, whose first care must be to prepare itself for this great act. By omitting the preparation, or by making it in a careless manner, the soul tempts God. As the Book of Ecclesiasticus says: ''Before prayer pre- pare thy soul: and be not as a man that tempteth God." 1
A good preparation consists, first, in purify- ing the intention arid disregarding the presence or absence of spiritual consolation, which will be wanting, perhaps, even in spite of a solid preparation. What does it matter? Meditation is not made in order that the joys of heaven may be found in it but because it is a means of glorifying God and sanctify- ing our soul. This view of it will prevent
1 Ecclus. 18: 23.
PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER
deception, disastrous to progress in prayer and virtue alike, and draw down God's blessings in abundance on our prayer.
Once we are indifferent to sensible favors and resigned to God's holy Will, we must choose the subject of our meditation! ''Al- though in itself," says St. Ignatius, ''the third consideration, that of the Divine Per- sons, is more perfect than the second, that of the