Of the Necessity of Meditation

HUGH OF ST. VICTOR says that no prayer can be perfect which is not preceded or accompanied by meditation. This is the doctrine of St. Augustine, who says that prayer without meditation is lukewarm. They prove it very well, since if one does not exercise himself in knowing and considering his misery and weakness, he will fall under delusion and will not know how to ask in prayer for what befits him, nor with the fervor that is befitting. Many through not knowing and studying their faults become the prey of delusions, and presume upon themselves in a way that they would not presume if they did know themselves; and so they treat in prayer of other things than those that are necessary. But if you want to know how to pray and ask God for what befits you, exercise yourself in considering your faults and miseries, and in that way you will know what you ought to ask; and considering and understanding your great need, you will ask for it with fervor and as you ought to ask, as does the poor needy man who knows and understands well his necessity and poverty.

St. Bernard, arguing that we are not to mount to perfection by flying but by walking, says that walking and mounting to perfection must be done with two feet, meditation and prayer; since meditation shows what is wanting to us, and prayer obtains it; meditation shows us the way, and prayer carries us along it; lastly, by meditation we know the dangers that encompass us, and by prayer we escape and are delivered from them. Hence St. Augustine comes to say that meditation is the beginning of all good, since whoever well considers how good God is in Himself, and how good and merciful He has been to us, how He has created us, how much He has done and suffered for us, is at once fired with love for this good Lord; and whoever knows well his faults and miseries, comes to humble and make little account of himself; and whoever considers how badly he has served God and how much he has offended Him, feels himself worthy of any penalty and chastisement; and thus by meditation the soul comes to be enriched with all virtues.

Therefore it is that Holy Scripture so much recommends to us meditation: Blessed is the man that meditateth day and night on the law of the Lord; he shall be as a tree planted near streams of water, that shall yield much fruit (Psalm i. 1-3). Blessed are they who search his commandments, and seek him with all their heart (Psalm ecxviii. 2). These are they who seek Him with all their heart, and by this they seek Him. And so the prophet asks God for grace to keep His law. Give me understanding, and I will search into thy law, and keep it with all my heart (Psalm cxviii. 34). And, contrariwise: Jf it were not for the regular meditation that I make on thy law, perhaps by this time I should have perished in my humility (Psalm cxviii. 82), that is, in my difficulties and dangers, as St. Jerome explains. Thus one of the greatest praises that the saints bestow on meditation and consideration, or even the greatest, is that it is a great helper to all the virtues and to all good works. Gerson calls it “the sister of reading, the nurse of prayer, the guide of action, the perfection and withal the consummation of all things.”

But because contrary comes to be better known by contrary, one of the principal causes of all the evils in the world is want of consideration, according to the saying of the Prophet Jeremy: With desolation is all the earth laid desolate, because there is none who considereth in the heart (Jerem. xii. 11), none who stops to think attentively. The principal cause of the spiritual desolation of the earth and of the multitude of sins in the world, is that there is hardly anyone who will enter into himself and stop to think and turn over in his heart the mysteries of God. For who would dare to commit a mortal sin if he reflected that God died for sin and that it is so great an evil that it was necessary for God to make Himself man to satisfy in all rigor of justice for it? Who would dare to sin if he reflected that for one mortal sin God chastises in hell for ever and ever? If one set himself to think over and weigh well that sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire (Matt. xxv. 41)—that eternity! that for ever and ever!—and that so long as God is God he must burn in hell, who would there be who for the pleasure of a moment would choose everlasting torments?

St. Thomas Aquinas used to say it was a thing he could not understand how a person in mortal sin could laugh and make merry. And he had much reason to say so, because the man knows for certain that, if he were to die, he would go to hell forever, and he is not sure of one moment of life. There was that man [Damocles] in feastings and fine music and rejoicings; and all because he had over his head a naked sword, hanging only by one hair, he trembled every moment lest it should fall, and nothing gave him any pleasure. How should it be with him who is threatened not merely with temporal but with eternal death, hanging upon one little thread of life? He may drop down dead suddenly where he is; and going to bed in good health may open his eyes in hell! A servant of God used to say to this effect that he thought that in a Christian commonwealth there ought not to be more than two prisons; one that of the Holy Inquisition, the other the lunatic asylum: for either the man believes that there is a hell lasting forever for the sinner, or he does not: if he does not, let them take him to the Inquisition for a heretic; if he does believe it and nevertheless has a mind to remain in mortal sin, let them take him to the lunatic asylum; for what greater lunacy can there be than that! Doubtless, if anyone would attentively consider these things, it would be a great check upon him against sinning. That is why the devil is so diligent in trying to keep us from this meditation and consideration.

The first thing the Philistines did when they caught Sampson was to put out his eyes; and go it is the first thing that the devil contrives to do to the sinner. Now that he cannot get him to abandon the faith, he contrives that he shall believe as though he did not believe: he contrives that he shall not consider what he believes nor dwell upon it any more than as if he believed it not; he shuts his eyes, which comes to the same thing for him. As it is no use, says St. Augustine, to open your eyes if you are in the dark, since you will see nothing; so it is no use to be in the light if you keep your eyes shut, since you will see nothing that way either. This is why meditation and mental prayer are of such importance—they make you open your eyes.