Of One Good Result and Great Advantage That We Should Draw from Meditation, and of the Method to Adopt in Order to Profit Thereby

IT is well to exercise ourselves in meditation, in affections and desires of the will; of this we shall treat presently; but it is necessary that these affections and desires be well founded on reason, because man is rational and requires to be carried by reason and by way of understanding. Thus one of the principal objects to which meditation should be ordered and directed is that we may be finally disabused and well informed as regards facts, and quite convinced and resolved in point of what it is right for us to do. They are wont to say here, when one is brought back to a good and well-ordered life: ‘“‘This man is disabused.”’ This disabusing should be one of the principal fruits that we ought to endeavor to gather from meditation. This fact should be carefully noted, since it is primary in this matter. It is at one’s commencements above all that one needs to exercise oneself more particularly in this, in order to be well grounded in and thoroughly convinced of these truths.

That we may be better able to gather this result from meditation, and that it may be very fruitful, it is needful that it be not done superficially, nor at a gallop, nor in a dead-alive and feeble manner, but with much attention and tranquil consideration. You have to meditate and consider in a very leisurely way and great quiet of mind the shortness of life and the frailty and vanity of the things of the world, and how death is the end of all, that thus you may come to despise all things here below and put your whole heart in what must last forever. You have to consider and ponder many times over how vain is the esteem and opinion of men, that makes such war upon us, since it takes nothing from you and adds nothing to you, nor can it make you either better or worse than you are, that thus you may come to despise it and not make any account of it, and so of the rest. In this way a man gradually rids himself of illusions, convinces himself and makes up his mind to do what for him is the right thing; and all this goes to make a spiritual man of him. He shall sit in solitude and be silent, because he hath raised himself above himself (Lam. ili. 28). He is getting a courageous heart, a contempt of all the things of the world, and is coming to say with St. Paul: What I counted gain before, I now count as loss, something absolutely to cast out, that I may gain Christ (Phil. iii. 8).

There is a great difference between meditating and meditating, and between knowing and knowing. A learned man knows a thing in one way, a simple and ignorant in another; the learned man knows how the thing is in truth, but the simple man knows only the outward appearance. Thus if a simple person finds a precious stone, he covets it for its luster and outward beauty and for nothing else, because he does not know its value; but a skillful jeweler, finding such a stone, covets it much, not for its luster and outward beauty, but because he knows well the value and virtue thereof. This is the difference there is between him who knows how to meditate and consider divine mysteries and spiritual things, and him who has no such knowledge; the latter takes a superficial and outside view of things, and, though they make a good impression on him by the luster and radiance that he sees in them, he is not much moved to desire them: but he who knows how to meditate and ponder these things, clears his mind of illusions and makes firm resolves. Knowing well the value of the hidden treasure and of the precious pearl which he has found, he despises all else and makes little account of it in comparison. He went and sold all he had and bought it (Matt. xiii. 46).

This difference is declared to us by Christ our Redeemer in the Gospel, in the story of that woman who suffered from a flux of blood. The holy evangelists relate how the world’s Redeemer was on His way to heal and raise up the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and such a crowd of people went with Him that they pressed on Him, when a woman caught sight of Him that had been suffering from a flux of blood now for ten years. She had spent all her money on doctors and they had been unable to cure her; rather she found herself worse than before. With the desire that she has to gain her health, she breaks through the crowd of people with great faith and confidence: For she said within herself, If I touch but the hem and edge of his garment, I shall be healed (Matt. ix. 21). She goes up and touches, and at once the running flow of blood dries up and stops. Christ our Redeemer turns round and says: Who hath touched me? St. Peter says to Him, and the other disciples: Master, so many people are pressing on thee, and sayest thou, who hath touched me? I do not mean that, says Christ, but someone hath touched me, not in the manner of the rest of people, but in a particular manner, because I feel that virtue hath gone out from me (Luke viii. 46). There is the point, that it is to touch Christ, and this it is that He asked about; for as for that other indiscriminate touching, as the populace and the rest of the folk touched Him, no account is to be taken of it.

This, then, is all the business of meditation, to touch Christ and His mysteries in such sort as to feel in ourselves the virtue and fruit thereof. To this end it is of great importance that we go about our meditation with great attention, ruminating and breaking up things in very leisurely fashion. That which we do not chew is neither bitter nor savory; that is why a sick man swallows his pill whole, that he may not taste the bitterness. For the same reason neither does the sinner taste the bitterness of sin or death or judgment or hell, because he swallows them whole, taking them at a gulp and all in one volley. For the same reason neither’ do you taste nor relish the mystery of the Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection and the other benefits of God, because you do not break them up nor ruminate them nor ponder them as you ought. Do you chew and break up the grain of mustard seed or pepper and you will see how it burns and draws tears from the eyes.