Of Some Other Easy Means and Methods How to Make a Good and Profitable Meditation

| Meee are other easy methods that will help us much to make meditation, and which, being easily practised, evince that it is always in our power to make mental prayer and that there is no one but may make it so as to derive advantage from it.

On the first head, that is very good for this purpose which some masters of spirit observe. They say that we must not make meditation a fiction or an artificial thing, but that we must act in it as men act in matters of business; they pause to think of what they are doing and how their business goes and how it may be expected to go better. Thus the servant of God should deal with himself in meditation, simply and without artifice. How goes it with me in the matter of my spiritual progress and salvation ?— for this is our business and we are in this life for nothing else than to transact this affair. Let the religious, then, take account of himself and set himself to consider very leisurely: How am I getting on with this business? What have I profited by these ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years that I have been in religion? What have I gained and acquired in the way of virtue, humility, and mortification? I want to see the account that I shall give to God of these so great advantages and means that I have enjoyed in religion to augment and increase the capital and talent that He has given me. And if hitherto I have made bad use of the time, I desire to make it up from now henceforth, that my whole life may not pass as it has gone hitherto. In the same way, every individual according to his state may set himself to think in detail, plainly and simply and without any artifice, how he does his office, how he ought to do it well and in conformity to the will of God, how he shall carry on his business in a Christian manner, how he shall govern his house and family so that all may serve God, how he shall bear well the occasional annoyances which his state and office carries with it; and in all this he will find matter enough to consider, deplore, and amend. And this will make a very good and very profitable meditation.

John Gerson tells of a servant of God who used often to say: For forty years I have studied this matter of prayer with all the care I could, and I have found no better means, no shorter and more compendious method of making a good meditation, than to present myself before God as a little child and as a poor beggarman, blind, naked, and forlorn. This is a manner of prayer that we see the Prophet David used frequently, calling himself sometimes a sick man, sometimes an orphan, sometimes blind, sometimes poor and begging; the Psalms we find full of this. And we know by experience that many who have practised and habitually used this kind of prayer, have come thereby to attain to a very high prayer. Do you, then, adopt this practice and, please God, by this means you will come to attain what you desire. The prayer of a poor man is a very good prayer. See, says Gerson, with what patience and humility the poor man stands waiting at the gate of the rich, hoping for a small alms, and with what diligence he repairs to where he knows alms are given. And as the poor man, naked and forlorn, is before the rich, begging alms, and expecting of him with great humility and reverence a remedy for his necessity, so should we stand before God in prayer, representing to Him our poverty, our need, and our misery and hoping for remedy from His liberality and goodness. As the eyes of the handmaid are fixed on the hands of her mistress, so should our eyes be fixed and hanging on God, till we obtain mercy of Him (Psalm cxxii. 2).

It is told of the Abbot Paphnutius that, living in the interior of the desert and hearing tell of that bad woman Thais, how she was a snare of perdition to many souls, besides being the cause of many quarrels and murders, he conceived within himself a desire of converting her and bringing her to God. For this end he put on secular clothes, took money with him, and went to the city where she lived. And so he did convert her, taking occasion of some words which she let fall. For when he asked for a more secluded place, she said to him: “Make yourself quite easy about men, that they will not see you here, albeit from the eyes of God you cannot hide yourself in any place, how secluded soever.” It is a long story, but, coming to what makes for our purpose, he converted this woman, took her to the desert and shut her up in a cell, sealing the door with a seal of lead, leaving only one little window through which they could give her every day a small pittance of bread and a little water. When Paphnutius was taking leave of her, she asked him how she was to make prayer to God. To this the holy abbot answered: “You deserve not to take into your filthy mouth the name of God. Your prayer shall be to go on your knees, look to the east, and say many times over these words: Thou who hast made me, have mercy on me.” And so she remained for three years without ever taking into her mouth the name of God; always keeping before her eyes her many great sins, asking God’s mercy, and saying those words that the saint had taught her. And with this prayer God was well pleased. At the end of three years, Abbot Paphnutius went to consult the blessed St. Anthony as to whether God had pardoned this woman her sins. Anthony called his monks together and bade them all sit up that night in prayer, each by himself, in order that the Lord might declare to some one of them the solution of the case on which Paphnutius had come. While then they were all at prayer, Paul, the chief of the great Anthony’s disciples, saw a bed in heaven, adorned with rich hangings and upholstery and guarded by four virgins. At sight of this rich display, he thought and said within himself: “This reward and gracious welcome is kept for none other than my Father Anthony.”” While he was thinking this, he heard a heavenly voice which said: “This bed is not for thy Father Anthony, but for the sinner Thais.” And fifteen days after, it pleased the Lord to take her to enjoy the glory and repose of heaven. Be you, then, satisfied with holding to this prayer and make up your mind that you do not deserve any other, and I dare say you will please God more than by that prayer which you fancy.

In a spiritual treatise, “On Spiritual Communion,” left in manuscript by a Carthusian monk, the author recounts a story of our holy Father and his companions, which he assures us he received from a person worthy of credit. Ignatius and his companions were going one day to Barcelona on foot, as ordinarily they were wont to do, each one carrying his knapsack upon his back. They met upon the way a good man who saw them, had compassion on them, and pressed them extremely to give him their knapsacks to carry, alleging that he was stronger and better able to carry them than they. After much demurring they gave in to his importunities, and so continued their journey. When they arrived at the inn, the Fathers contrived each one to seek out his corner, there to recollect himself and commend himself to God. The good man, seeing them do this, also contrived to seek out his corner and put himself on his knees as they did. Pursuing their journey, they asked him one day: “Brother, what do you do there in that corner?” He answered that what he did was to say: “Lord, these are saints, and I am their beast of burden; what they do, I desire to do, and I offer that then to God.” The man made such progress by this prayer that he came to be a very spiritual man and had the gift of a very high prayer. Now who is there that cannot, if he will, make this prayer?

I knew an ancient Father of the Society, a very great preacher, whose prayer for a long time was to say with great humility and simplicity to God: “Lord, I am a beast. I know not how to make my prayer. Teach me Yourself to make it.” And by this means he made great progress and came to an eminent degree in prayer, fulfilling in himself what the prophet said: J am become as a beast before thee, and am always with thee (Psalm Ixxii. 23). Humble yourself, then, as a beast of burden before God, and the Lord will be with you. Much is arranged and gained in this way with His Divine Majesty. So the saints take note here of a thing of much importance, that, as humility is a means to attain the gift of prayer, so also prayer should serve as a means to attain humility and keep us and make us advance in it. And they add that from a good prayer one should always get up with a sense of humiliation and confusion. Whence it follows that, when you come from your meditation highly pleased with yourself, with an indescribable vain complacency and a secret esteem and good opinion of yourself, saying to yourself that now you are getting on and becoming a spiritual man, you should hold that prayer in grave suspicion. So if you say that you cannot find many considerations nor high contemplations, humble yourself and draw that good from your meditation. None can excuse himself from doing this, and it will make a very good prayer.

Father Master Avila, in one of his letters, gives a very good means to adopt when one cannot get on at meditation, but is a prey to divers thoughts and temptations. Throw yourself, he says, at the feet of Christ, and say: “Lord, inasmuch as this is my own fault, I am certainly very sorry for the fault I am in and the occasion I have given; but inasmuch as it is Thy will, and the punishment and chastisement that I have justly deserved for my great faults in the past, and my present negligences and defects, I accept it with all my heart and am glad to receive at Thy hand this cross, this dryness and distraction, this desolation and spiritual dereliction.” This patience and humility will be a very good prayer and please God more than the prayer you desired to make, as we shall say more at large farther on.

It is told of our Father Francis Borgia that, when he thought he had not done his meditation well, he took care that day to mortify himself more and go about all his duties with greater attention and diligence, thus to make up for the failure of the meditation, and so he counseled us to do. This a very good way of making up the defects of meditation and will serve also to bring us to make our meditation well. The holy Abbot Nilus, speaking of prayer, says that, as when we fall out of order and go amiss during the day and commit some fault, we seem to feel at once the chastisement of God in prayer, because He shows us then a severe countenance; so also, when we have mortified and overcome ourselves in something, we seem at once to feel it at prayer, God seeming to will to pay us there in money down. “If you suffer in patience hard and rough things, you will find the fruit of your labor in time of prayer.” (St. Nilus.) The saint mentions for making prayer, quite in accord with what we have just been saying: “If you want to pray well, do nothing contrary to prayer; in this way God will draw nigh to you and do you many favors.”

And in general let all understand that the chiefest care of the servant of God should be to cleanse and mortify his heart, to keep himself from all sin, and be ever quite firmly resolved not to commit a mortal sin for anything in the world. In this resolve he should found himself right well in prayer, and dwell upon it, and again and again move himself thereto, for there is nothing more necessary for us so long as we are in this miserable life; and on this foundation everyone should build all the rest of his contemplated edifice of perfection. And you should not repine at this, but be very grateful to God even though He grants you no other and higher prayer; for holiness consists not in meditation, but in doing the will of God. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is all man (Eccles. xii. 13), so Solomon concludes the discourse of Ecclesiastes; that is to say, in this consists all the well-being of man and fulfilment of his duty, and with this he will be holy and perfect.

I wish to conclude with a method very consoling for all. When you do not feel at meditation that entry into things, that attention and devotion, that intimate union which you desire, exercise yourself in having a great will and desire of it, and thereby you will make up for what you think is wanting to you; since God our Lord, as the saints say, is not less content and satisfied with this good will and desire than with high and lofty prayer. God taught this to the holy virgin Gertrude, as Blosius relates. He says that one day this saint was complaining that she could not keep her heart so elevated to God as she desired and thought herself obliged to do; whereupon she was taught from heaven that with God it is enough for man to wish for and sincerely desire to have a great desire, when at heart he feels little or nothing. Before God his desire is as great as he would fain have it to be. In a heart that has the like desire—you must understand, a will and desire to have it—she was told that God dwells more willingly than any man could among fresh and delightful flowers. God has no need of your high prayer; He seeks only for your heart; that He looks to, and that He takes for the deed. Offer yourself entirely to God in prayer, give Him your whole heart, and desire to be there in heaven praying with the fervor of the highest seraphs; and this good will God will regard and take for the deed. Accordingly, it will be a most pious devotion and profitable refiection, when we find ourselves tepid and dry at meditation, to consider how many servants of God are there at prayer—perhaps shedding tears and even their blood—and join ourselves in spirit to them; and not to them alone, but to the angels and heavenly spirits also, putting ourselves in relation with what they are doing and so supplying what we cannot do, saying in our heart, and often with our lips, those words of the canon of the mass: “Deign, O Lord, to receive, along with the prayers of the angels and saints in glory, our voices also, who in humble confession cry out to Thee, ‘Holy, holy, holy.’”’ Lord, what they say, I say; what they do, I also wish to do; and as they praise and love, I also would fain praise and bless and love Thee. And sometimes it will be well to fall back upon ourselves, when at any time we seemed to have made a good meditation, and say: “Lord, what I wished then, I wish now; as then I offered myself entirely to Thee, so I offer myself now; in that manner in which I then grieved for my sins and desired humility, patience, obedience, in that same manner now, O Lord, I desire and ask for them.”

Above all, it is a marvelous good practice to unite our actions with the actions of Christ and supply our faults and imperfections by the merits of Christ and of His sacred Passion. And this we should do not only as regards prayer, but in all other actions, offering to the eternal Father our prayers in union with the love and fervor with which Christ prayed and praised Him on earth: our fasts in union with His fastings; begging the Father to be pleased to supply our impatience by the patience of Christ, our pride by His humility, our evil doing by His innocence. This practice, Blosius says, our Lord revealed to some of His special friends that so we may make our actions to be of value and merit and by this method may eke out our poverty by the infinite treasure of the merits of Christ.