Chapter V. The practice of prayer

The religious whose heart is cold and tepid leads a wretched and useless lire; nay, the tepid religious, the religious who does hot pray fervently and assiduously, scarcely lives at all. His body lives, but in the sight of God it harhors a dead soul. It follows then, that prayerful habits are essential if the spouse of Christ is to achieve her desires and advance towards perfection. The practice of prayer is a virtue of such efficacy that of itself it can comlletely subdue all the cunning devices of its implacable enemy, the devil. It is the devil and the devil alone who prevents the servant of God from soaring above herself even unto the heavens. There is, then, no reason for surprise that the religious who is not devoted to the practice of constant prayer succumbs frequently to temptation.

St. Isidore realised this truth, for he says: "Prayer is the remedy when temptations o sin rage in the heart. Whenever you are tempted to sin, pray, and pray earnestly. Frequent prayer renders powerless the assaults of vice." 11. Our Lord gives similar advice in the Gospel: "\Vatch ye and pray that ye enter hot into temptation." 113 Devout prayer is so powerful that it enables a man to win whatever he wants. Winter and summer, when times are stormy, when times are fair, night and day, Sunday and Monday, in days of health, in the hour of illness, in youth and old age, standing, sitting and walking, in choir and out of choir: in a word, never need the efficacy of prayer rail. Indeed, at times, more than the very world itself its worth may be gained by one hour of prayer. By one little devout prayer it is possible for a man to gain Heaven.

I shall now discuss the nature of prayer. Probably, in this matter I am more in need of 112 S. Isid. III Sent. viii, I. la3 Matt. xxvi, 4I.

The-Practice o[ Prayer 47 information than you are, still in so far as the Lord inspires me, I shall tell you in what way and manner you should pray.

I would have you know, O worthy handmaid of God, that three conditions are requisite for perfect prayer. When you settle down to pray, close your senses to every sensation, and with your body and soul absolutely intent on what you are doing, ponder in silence with a sorrowful and contrite heart on all your past, present, and possible wretched efforts. Reflect seriously, in the first place, on the many grave sins you have committed from day to day. Call to mind how you have neglected so many opportunities for doing good--opportunities that came your way since your entrance into religion, opportunities that were given you before you took the veil. Think of the many and wonderful graces you have lost. 114 Once you were near to God. Realise how to-day, sin keeps you far from Him. Bring home to yourself the fact that you have become unlike to God. Yet there was a day when )'ou were conxa4 Cf. St. Bonaventure, The Threefold Way, II, 2, formed to His very image and likeness. Your soul was once beautiful. To-day it is ugly and foul. Think on these facts.

Now turn your thoughts on what the future has in store for you. Whither will sin eventually "lead you"? "To the very gates of hell!" Remember that there is "a day of" dreadful "judgment." What is likely to befall? Do not forget "the eternal rires of hell." 11» How will your sins be punished? Your reflection should move you to strike your breast with the humble publican, la6 "Groaning in heart you should cry out your sorrow" a7 with the Prophet David and in company with Mary Magdalen you should "wash the feet" of the Lord "with your tears." a18 There should be no end to your tears, for beyond all bounds have you offended your sweet Jesus by your sins.

St. Isidore gives similar advice. "When 1» S. Bern. Medit.

11«Luke xviii, x3.

The Practice of Prayer 49 we pray to God, ve should pray with groaning and weeping. This is possible if, when at prayer, we remember the sins we have committed, their exceptional gravity, and the awful torments we have deserved to suffer on account of our sins. Fear of those dread torments vill enable us to pray with genuine sorrow. , 119 In such vise should we commence our prayer. We should begin our prayer with tears that spring from sincere regret and earnest fear.

Thanksgiving is the second requisite. 131essings received from God should call forth the humble thanks of the spouse of Christ. So too, should she thank God in all humility for the benefits yet to accrue to her. In his epistle to the Colossians St. Paul lays stress on this part of prayer: "13e instant," he says, "in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving." 120 Nothing makes a man so worthy of God's gifts as the constant offering of thanks to God for 119 III Sent. vii, 5- 120 Col. iv, :2.

gifts received. Writing to Aurelius, St. Augustine touches on this matter. "What better thoughts," he asks, "can we have in our minds, what better sentiments in our hearts than those of thanksgiving to God? \Vhat better words are given us to utter or to write than 'Deo Gratias'? The idea of due thanksgiving could not be expressed in fewer words. What other words could give greater pleasure ? No other two words are so full of meaning. What more profitable than their use ?" 1.- You must meditate, you must pray with a grateful heart. Thank God because He ruade you. Thank Him because He raised you to the Christian state. Thank God because Ho has forgiven you so many sins. Thank Him because, had He hot taken care of you, you would have fallen much lower. 1.- Thanksgiving is due from you because God has taken you out of the world. Thanks to Him you will die in religion. You should thank God because He has chosen you to live the life of a 12x S. Aug. Ep. xii.

12z Cf. S. Bern. Serm. ii in 6 Sund. after Pent. The Practice o[ Prayer 51 religious in the highest and most perfect religious state. You have no worry nor anxiety. He keeps 3,ou from harm, comforts you, and gives you all that you need.

Further motives for continual thanksgiving on your pa-t arise from the fact that God took to Himself a human nature and became man for your sake. It was for you that He was circumcised and baptised. For you He lived His poor lire. For you He went poorly clothed, vas humbled and despised. AI1 His fastings, hungers, thirst, labours, and fatigues He endured for your sake. For you He wept. Love for you prompted Him to give 3,ou His Iost I-[oly ]3ody to eat and His Iost Precious Blood to drink. In anguish for you He bled from His very pores in the Garden. For you He was struck in the face, spat upon, befooled and scourged. For love of you He was fastened to the cross. He was wounded for your sake. He v«as done to death by the most cruel and agonizing crucifixion because of His love for you. It was because He so loved you that He paid such a price for your redemption, l-le was buried, He rose trom the dead, He ascended into Heaven, and He sent the Holy Spirit trtto the world simply because of His promise to give you and His chosen ones the Kingdom of Heaven. Such motives should be sufficient inducement to you to make your prayer an act of thanksgiving. Remember too, that while acts of gratitude tender prayer immeasurably eflïcacious, all prayer is valueless without the element of thanksgiving. "Ingratitude," says St. Bernard, "is a parching wind which dries up the sources of piety, the dew of mercy, and the streams of grace." 1-s This brings me to the third requisite of perfect prayer. You must in the act of prayer occupy yourself with and think of naught else but what you are doing. It ill becomes a man to speak to God with his lips vhile in heart and mind he is far away from God. To pray half-heartedly, giving, say, hall one's attention to what one is doing and the remaining hall to some business matter or other, is no prayer at 123 S. Bern. Serra. li on the Canticle of Cant. The Practice o[ Prayer 53 all. Prayers made in such a way as this never reach the ear of God. In the I ISth Psalm there occurs the following: "I cried with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord." 1.-4 St. Augustine discovers in this passage the implication that "a heart divided obtains nothing." 1.5 When at prayer, the servant of God should recollect herself and taking ber heart to herself banish from it ail solicitude for things of earth. Earthly desires should be put aside and ail love of friends and kinsfolk forgotten. Ail her thoughts and affections should be ttrrned inwards and she should give herself up wholly to the God to whom she prays. Your spouse, Our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, gave this counsel in the Holy Gospel: "But thou, whenthou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber and, having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret." 1-« "To enter into your chamber" means to recall and gather into the very in- 12« Ps. cxviii, 145.

most recesses of your heart all your thoughts, all your desires, and ail your affections. You have "shut the door" when you have your heart so well under control that no thought or wandering phantasy can thwart you in your devotions. St. Augustine's definition of prayer makes all this evident. "l»rayer, '' he says, "is the raising or turning of the mind to God by means of loving and humble acts of affection." 1-°7 Let me exhort you, most good mother and handmaid of Jesus Christ, to "incline your ear to the words of my mouth." 128 Do not be misled. Do not be deceived in any way. Do not allow the sure and great fruits of prayer to slip from your grasp. Do not throw away and so destroy the sweets of prayer. Let not the delights you may drink to the full in prayer be drunk to no purpose. Prayer is the well whence sanctifying grace is drawn from the spring of the overflowing sweetness of the Most Blessed Trinity. The Holy Prophet 1_7 S. Aug., The Holy Spirit and the Soul, 5o. 128 Cf. Ps. xliv, il; Ps. lxxvii, x. The Practlce of Prayer 55 D'avid, who knew all about this, said: "I opened my mouth, and panted." a.-9 "David meant," says St. Augustine, "I opened my mouth in prayer, I begged by prayer. With reiterated prayers I knocked at the door of Heaven, and thirsting for the grace of God I panted and drew in that heavenly grace." a.o I have already told )'ou what prayer is, but I tell it to you again. "Prayer is the raising or turning of the mind to God." Pay attention to what I ara about to say if you wish to learn how to raise or turn your mind to God When you give yourself to prayer, you must recollect yourself and with your Beloved enter into your secret heart and there occupy yourself wîth Him alone. Forget everything else and with all your mind, heart, affections and desires, with all the devotion possible, lift yourself out of and above yourself. TM Take care hot to allow your mind to bec.orne remiss, but endeavour constantly, by the burning ardour x2 Ps. cxviii, I3 I.

of devotion, to m6unt upwards till you enter "into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God." 12 There, when with the eye of your soul you have caught sight of your Beloved, you should in one way and another "taste that the Lord is sweet," and learn how great is "the multitude of His sweetness. ''14 You should rush to your Lover's embrace, and kiss Him with the lips of tenderest love. Then, indeed, will you be lifted out of yourself. You will be rapt even up to Heaven. You will be transformed wholly into Christ. At last, unable to restrain the raptures of your soul, you will exclaim with David: "My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God and I was delighted." There are three ways in which the soul may be transported out of herself and elevated even unto God. In order then, dear mother, that you may learn how the heart may be lifted up higher and higher, and how prayer may in- 13-Ps. xli, S- 13 Ps. xxxiii, 9.

l- Ps. xxx 20.

» Ps. lxxvi, 3, 4- The Practice o[ Prayer 57 flame our love for God still more, I shall discuss these three methods. A surpassing intensity or excess of devotion is one. Deeply rooted, ever-increasing, admiring love is another. The third is exceeding great, exulting joy.

It happens at rimes that owing to excess of devotion "the soul cannot contain herself. She is lifted up, rapt out of herself and finally beeomes transforme& When we are lit up by so great a tire of heavenly desire that everything of earth is changed into bitterness and becomes distasteful to us and at the saine time the (ires of the love of our inmost heart increase in intensity beyond measure, the soul melts as though she were wax. She in some way becomes dissolved, and like the fumes of fragrant intense she mounts high, until at length she gains ber freedom away on the topmost summits of Heaven." an« When this happens we are compelled to exclaim with the Prophet David: "My flesh and my heart bath fainted away. Thou art the God of my heart, xao Richard of St. Victor.

and the God that is my portion for ever." Elevation of soul may also be brought about as follows: "An ever-increasing, admiring love frequently brings to the mind such floods of Divine Light and overwhelms the soul with such a realisation of the Divine Loveliness that she becomes bewildered. Struck to her very foundations she loses hold of the body. Just as the deeper a streak of lightning strikes the quicker it mounts, sois it with the soul in the condition just described. The more such a soul conterons herself and sinks in selfabasement in presence of God's most admirable loveliness, so much the higher and quicker does she rise. The greater the ardour of her loving, admiring desires, the higher does she ascend. She is carried otlt of herself until she is elevated even to the topmost heights." There, as another Esther, she bursts forth into a poean of praise. "I saw Thee, My Lord," she exclaims, "as an Angel of God; and my heart was troubled for fear of Thy Majesty, l, Ps. lxxii, 26.

x8 Richard of St. Victor.

The Practice o]: Prayer 59 for Thou, My Lord, art very admirable; and Thy Face is full of graces."

A similar transport occurs when exceeding, exulting joy takes possession of the soul. '%Vhen the soul has drunk of an abundance of interior sweetness and is completely inebriated with delight she forgets altogether what she is, and what she was. There and then she is transformed. She is thrown into a state of supernatural love, and is rapt into a marvellous bliss-producing ecstasy. ''14° vrith the Psalmist in transport she sings: "How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of ttosts. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God."

Thus is it that the servant of God should train herself in the practice of fervent prayer. Frequent prayer, the frequent use of prayer will teach her and render her fit to contemplate things divine. The eye of a heart purified xs9 Esth. xv, x6, x7- x4o Richard of St. Victor.

x4x Ps. lxxxiii, 3.

and washed by prayer can see the things above. Purified by frequent prayer the soul comes to taste and to enjoy the sweets of God. It is hot becoming for a soul fashioned after and stamped with God's image to fritter away her rime busying herself with earthly cares. A soul redeemed by Christ's Precious Blood and ruade for eternal happiness ought "to ascend even above the Cherubim and fly upon the wings of the wind," 4 that is, the wings of the Angels. She ought to ascend high and contemplate the Most Holy Trinity and Christ's Sacred Humanity. She should meditate on the glory of the citizens of the city above, and ponder on the happiness of the Angels and Saints.

Tell me, who explore to-day into the regions of heavenly glory? Who are they that in heart and soul pass their time thinking on the things above? They are the few. We may to-day with truth say even of many religious what St. "Bernard said: "Many who should have been devoutly penetrating the x42 Cf. Ps. xvii, ii.

The Practice o[ Prayer 6 heavens, viewing there the many mansions, holding converse, with the apostles and the prophets and assisting in wonder at the triumphs of the martyrs, instead, find themselves as base slaves to the body, serve the flesh and pamper its gluttonous desires." x4a x43 S. Bern. Serra. xxxv on the Canticle of Cant., 3.