Of Ordinary Mental Prayer

LEAVING aside the very special and extraordinary prayer, since we can neither teach nor explain what it is nor how it is, nor does it depend on our will to have it, nor does God bid us attain it, nor will He ask us any account of it, we will treat now of the mental prayer which is ordinary and common and can in some sort be taught and attained by labors and counsels with the aid of the grace of the Lord.

Amongst the other favors and benefits that the Lord has done us in the Society, this is a very particular one, that He has given us a method of prayer to go by, approved by the apostolic see, in the Book of Spiritual Exercises of our blessed Father Ignatius, as appears by the brief which is at the beginning of them, in which His Holiness Paul III, after having had them strictly examined, approved and confirmed them, saying they were very useful and wholesome, and strongly exhorted all the faithful to go through the practice of them. Our Lord imparted to our Father this method of prayer, and he imparted it to us in the same order in which our Lord imparted it to him. And we must have great confidence in God that by this way and method which He has given us, He will help us and do us favors, since with it He gained our Father and his companions, and after them many others, and therein He made known to him the method and plan of the Society, as he said. We must not seek other ways and other extraordinary methods of prayer, but do our best to mold ourselves upon what we have, like good and true sons.

In the Exercise of the Powers, which is the first of the Exercises, our Father teaches us the method to be followed in prayer in all the rest of the exercises. It is that in each point that we take in hand, we must go exercising the three powers of our soul, memory, understanding, and will—first, by memory putting before the eyes of the understanding the point or mystery on which we wish to make meditation ; and then the understanding comes in, reasoning, meditating, and considering the things that will better aid us to move our wills; and thereupon must follow the affections of the will. This third is the principal exercise in which we should dwell, since it is the end of the meditation and the fruit to be drawn from all the considerations and reasonings of the understanding. That is all ordained to move the will to the desire of good and abhorrence of evil. On this account he gave this exercise the name of the Three Powers because it is the first exercise in which he teaches us this method of prayer; although in all the exercises that follow, the three powers must also be exercised as in the first.

This method of prayer which our Father here teaches and the Society practises, is not singular, nor has it any contrivances apt to issue in illusions, as is the case with some others. Rather it is a method very common and much in use among the ancient Fathers, and very conformable to human nature, which is argumentative and rational, governed by reason and by reason is persuaded, convinced, and brought over, which makes this method easier, safer, and more profitable. Thus we must not be in prayer after the manner of persons languishing or dazed with light, without doing anything, which would be a great delusion and error; but we must cry therein to God by means of the exercise of our powers and co-operate along with Him; for God requires the co-operation of His creatures, and that is what our Father teaches us in the Book of Exercises. Other methods there are of prayer by giving up reasonings, employing negations and certain silences, taken from mystical theology. These methods commonly should not be taught, nor sought either, as we have said before. Young people, who are no great hands at the knowledge of their passions and the practice of virtues, if they are set to these particular methods, are liable to illusions and deceits; and when they think they have gained some advantage, they find themselves with their passions all vigorous and unabated, passions which were lulled to sleep by this food and bait of prayer, and now wake up and prove very dangerous. Moreover, in these choice and particular methods there is engendered a hardness of judgment, a disposition that lends itself to any delusion; and so our blessed Father Ignatius apprehended, saying that such people generally have something of that about them.

I say, then, that the first thing we have to do in meditation, in whatever point we take in hand, is to put before us by memory the point on which we wish to meditate. The second is to enter on the meditation, which is to be done by reasoning with the understanding, considering and reflecting on the particular aspects of that mystery; and thereupon must follow the affections of the will. Thus the memory proposes the subject, and forthwith the reasoning and meditation of the understanding must find place, for this is the source from whence must flow all the acts and exercises which we make in our prayer, and everything else that is done in the prayer is done in virtue of this. The reason whereof is clear in sound philosophy; for our will is a blind power, which cannot take a step without the understanding’s going before: nihil volitum quin praecognitum. This is a common maxim of philosophers; the will cannot will a thing that has not first passed through the understanding. The understanding is the linkboy that goes before, lighting the path of the will and guiding it, and showing it what to go for and what to shun. So St. Augustine: “A thing may be loved that is not seen by the eyes, but not a thing that is not known”—Invisa diligi possunt, incognita nequaquam. And St. Gregory: “None can love what he is absolutely ignorant of.”” We may well love things that we do not see; but what we have no knowledge of at all, we cannot love, for the object of the will is good understood as such. We love and go after a thing because we apprehend it as good and worthy of being loved; and, contrariwise, we abhor a thing and shun it, because we judge and apprehend it to be evil and worthy of abhorrence. So when we wish anyone to change his mind and purpose, we try to persuade him with reasons and convince his understanding that what he is bent on doing is not fitting or good and that the other course is the better and proper for him, so to lead him to abandon the one and embrace the other. Thus the act and reasoning of the understanding is the foundation of all the other acts and exercises that we do in prayer, and that is why meditation is sO necessary.