Book II. Dialogue X: The same subject continued

Q. From what you have said of these great strippings of the soul and of its spiritual nudity, would it not seem from appearances that instead of advancing one goes back?

A. The most common and dangerous error to the souls in question is that of believing that one only advances in the ways of perfection as one acquires more sensible devotion, more facility and inclination towards all the practices and the ordinary acts of piety, as one is sensibly enriched by all kinds of graces, favours and heavenly gifts. I admit that the progress of beginners usually takes place in this way; but the progress of advanced persons often takes place quite differently by this way of stripping and of death to all created things, that is, all which is not God, however divine it is otherwise; so that these souls shall not finally fall into grievous discouragement by that very thing which should encourage them, they must know that in their way it is nearly always by appearing to become poorer that they become richer in the sight of God, by the divine union which grows with poverty of spirit and the bareness of faith. ‘ It is this perfect poverty of spirit (Bossuet tells us,¹ Cassian says) which made David say: “ The poor and needy will praise thee.” 5 It is also in this way again, that Bossuet 2 with many Fathers and great doctors, understood these words of the Gospel: * Blessed are the poor in spirit. 5

&• But one sees and has seen so many holy souls enriched with graces, with sensible favours, sometimes even with the most splendid gifts.

A. Doubtless; but only after passing through all the degrees of renunciation, poverty and death to all things; or else, by an extraordinary effect of his Almighty grace, without making them pass through real and perceptible poverty, God placed them at once in a complete nakedness of spirit and heart; but it is perhaps more difficult to be thus poor of spirit in the midst of spiritual riches, than to be poor in heart among temporal riches.

Q. And when souls are reduced or called to this blessed poverty and simplicity of spirit, as Bossuet calls it,² how should they habitually behave before God ?

A. With a continual alertness to hear and follow simply the various movements of grace without ever wishing either to anticipate it, or to act in any other way than it inspires, nor to go further than they lead. This requires an unimaginable attention and faith.

Q. Should they await a particular movement in the matter of the duties of their state ?

A. It would be a gross error to think this, for every common or particular duty is the signified will of God, and must be exactly and faithfully performed. Common grace, which is never lacking, is enough for this, and nobody will perform it better, since these persons are wont to do all things in a most purified light, and with an interior spirit which the others have not.

Q. In what then does this continual waiting for the spirit of God and his grace particularly consist?

A. In no longer seeking within oneself to be occupied with God in the old way, according to their own choice, their own will, in a sensible, consoling and satisfying manner; but bearing themselves before him in a simple disposition to harmonize moment by moment with what he wishes or does not wish; in a word, to bear them- selves in a simple attitude of waiting that the Prophet King so well expressed by his comparison with a servant who keeps his eyes always fixed on his mistress,³ not through zeal and desire to act, but just so as to be ready for action; not, again, awaiting the moment to take flight in its natural activity, but repressing it all the time, in order to be simply disposed to obey the least flicker of the eyelid; this counsel can hurt no one, since it is only souls of this degree that can practise it, or even understand it.

Q. What great good do the persons in this way who know how to rest as they should in these interior dispositions with these simple attitudes of waiting draw from this ?

A. These goods are inexplicable. God finds a soul so bereft of all its own will, even in the use of its most holy powers; a soul in which he sees nothing decided, nothing of its own choice, but a simple desire that the Holy Ghost should act in it and with it, according to his holy will and good pleasure, and he then operates with the simple co-operation of the soul, without the least obstacle, in the way which he alone knows to be the most suitable to all the dispositions of a heart so upright, so simple, so dead to itself, so full of confidence and complete surrender.

Q. Is it easy to remain long in these interior dispositions, in this simple attitude of expectancy ?

A. Every time we feel ourselves actually called thereto by a distinct attraction, apart from the general call; his savour and sweetness retain us without difficulty during our other exterior occupations, more or less as during the time of prayer; and to withdraw from this way, by an interior action of our own choice, after our old manner, we must be either very badly taught, or very jealous for our liberty and faithless to grace. But when there is nothing more than the general call to this way with an unmortified activity of spirit or with much boredom and a thousand vain fears of wasting time, in order to be constantly faithful to the grace of this state, in these painful and rather frequent circumstances, a heroic courage is necessary, or an abandonment to God which is perfect and so rare that the Venerable Mother de Chantal had not attained it when she complained thus to her holy director: ‘ I realize that I try too often to make acts of union, and that it would be better to remain simply united to God; this causes me interior reproaches, and these infidelities are very hurtful to me. 5

You will realize from this how constant fidelity to the grace of this state must be difficult at times, even to those souls which have already made the greatest progress.

Q. Whence comes this great difficulty?

A. From some unhappy remains of disproportionate love for oneself; for it always comes either because of the love of liberty which is impatient at seeing the soul captive and, as it were, in chains, in simple interior dispositions, which seem to it like a very prison; or because of the natural activity which, breathing only action and movement, cannot long be content with simply waiting; or through attachment to our own will which before it has been tamed, regards as intolerable slavery all dependence on another’s will, especially when it is lasting, or from attachment to our own spirit, which counts as nothing anything that does not happen according to its experience, and as time lost that time which is used contrary to the demands of our senses; or, lastly, from deep attachment to a small thread of natural life which rarely breaks, because it costs too much to renounce for ever all individual action of the mind and heart, which is the natural life of both of them. These are the sources of the various degrees of infidelity to the graces of this state, in which, having protested a hundred times to God that we were surrendering ourselves completely to him, and depending in all things only on his spirit and his grace, we yet do not cease in many circumstances to take ourselves up again, in order not to be completely dead to self-love, until we have no longer anything on which we can know ourselves to be of good will and praise ourselves for, ‘ which is thanking oneself, and not God,’ says Bossuet.⁴

Q. How, and on what pretext, do these unhappy self-seeking movements which hinder complete death to ourselves arise?

A. It comes through our withdrawing from the path of simplicity on a hundred different pretexts; some people say it is in order to arouse themselves to pious sentiments; they then do it either with great effort, or at the wrong time, or against inspiration: they do this so that they may always touch something perceptible to the senses, poverty of spirit, nakedness of faith, being to them as insipid as the manna of the desert to the wicked Israelites. Others say that they do this to regain their old fervour by taking up again their old practices; but God now wants something more simple, more perfect: yet the other things are more to their taste, and they thus resume them either partly or wholly, despite the futility which, as a punishment of God, they have often experienced despite the counsel of their directors. Then too, without the appearance of this tangible resource, so far from being content with themselves they would feel very discontented. Others again say: should we not know where we are and what we are doing ? Hence, in spite of frequent interior reproaches, these endless reflections which merely disturb our peace while we wish to be assured of everything. Again, this is because 4 nature, still very much alive in them, cries for assurance ceaselessly, while grace cries for abandonment to God, if we wish to find true assurance. 52 In a word, can we not say that most of them seek only these miserable human supports,

(condemned in Article XVII of Issy), since they appear to value more the perceptible acts which they themselves perform which are reflective and distinctly perceived than the holy and simple dispositions in which God places them, and in which he wishes them to stay in peace until further orders; that is, until he makes them feel new touches of his grace, or permits them to enkindle themselves, but without too much urgency or trouble.

Q. What is the result of the frequent seeking of these human supports, which are so well dis g ui sed ?

A. They lead us ceaselessly to feed or revive our self-love, occupying ourselves nearly always, at bottom, with ourselves, instead of being occupied solely with God, in the way he signifies to the soul and makes known by way of her directors. For he calls the soul to this new life in which, according to S. Paul, we should be truly dead to all and buried with Jesus Christ, and in which, according to the mystics, we should be lost in God in order to lead henceforth an entirely supernatural and divine life.

Q_. How does this death to self operate, this losing ourselves in God to lead a new life in him ?

A. It leads to forgetting ourselves and being occupied entirely with God, or always in relation to him; from which it gradually results, and that through different effects of grace, that we come not only to understand but to experience, to feel strongly that, on the one hand, living for ourselves and relating all things to ourselves, as the old man did, is at bottom merely a bitter and continual slavery, for in holding to all things, and wishing all things for oneself, we become slaves to all things, and all the more enslaved as we hold to all things; on the other hand, that living for God, and relating everything to God, as the ‘ new man * would do is holding to God himself alone, for time and eternity; this is the supernatural and divine life, in which we find by and in Jesus Christ the perfect liberty of the children of God, with perfect repose in our present life, and all the assurance we can have for eternity.

Q. Where does this happy twofold experience lead ?

A. To another more perfect and rapturous one, which consists not so much in knowing, by the deep knowledge of faith, as in experiencing, by the sweetest sentiments of the heart, that God animates our soul more than it animates our body, that he is its light and its life, and thus the soul of our soul; in fact, God is all mine, as I should be all his. I therefore abandon this old and cursed ego, I put my God in its place, owing him a greater love than myself; he will thus be henceforth my true self in which alone I live, since we only live really in the sole object of our affections; but what do I say ? O Lord, could we ever live more truly for ourselves than in living for thee ? O consoling thought ! but I will not linger over it, for it might waken the old love of the accursed ego, and I want none other to be dear to me than thou alone, O Lord ! who art all mine, as I am and would be thine.

Q. Do souls in this way often make such pronounced acts, so deliberately reflective ?

A. Whenever God gives them the movement and the facility; this movement comes to an end through a noble renunciation of the sweet consolation of these tender approaches to God, they return to themselves and rest in peace, are absorbed in their simple ordinary dispositions, only to emerge when and in what way it shall please God, as vessels returned to port do not leave it until a favourable wind blows.

Q. What has made them so supple, so pliant in the hands of God ?

A. It was necessary for this that all their own wishes, even in the use of the most holy of their powers, should be thwarted ten thousand times, broken, beaten down and taken prisoner under the will of God alone; that great emptiness of the spirit, long sustained and of frequent intervals, should have almost stifled their natural activity; that long and terrible impotence to perform the slightest reflective or distinctly perceived act should have forced them to seek in the higher part of the soul alone, the direct acts of their simple dispositions, and taught them to be content when it pleases God thus to reduce their souls to great poverty and nakedness of spirit; with regard to many others, they have had to pass through many other temptations, through a hundred interior agonies.

Q. What do you call interior agonies ?

A. Impressions of terror like those of a dying man who continually thinks he is going to expire; which happens always by a special grace, but without clear knowledge or conscious feeling: we are interiorly urged to abandon ourselves to God in the profound obscurity of faith, where there seems to remain no inward support to sustain the soul in her agony as she sees the fearful abysses of this terrible abandonment; for it seems at such moments that one is about to be precipitated, engulfed and lost no one knows where, and even destroyed by some invisible hand; a feeling of terror as fearful as that of a man from whom, in the midst of a vast sea, the single plank which was his support and his last resource is snatched from him. Those who, far from passing through these impressions of terror, of mortal agony, of interior annihilation, have not even been led up to the beginning of this terrible journey nor even to the strait of pure abandonment in pure faith, with no kind of distinctly seen support, cannot even understand what it means; thus it is not for them, but for certain others that these words are spoken: ‘ May God ever be praised for his wondrous operations in souls, 9 as the Bishop of Meaux well said⁵ on a similar subject.

Q. When God gives to souls movement and facility for acts so expressly reflective or sensibly marked, are they performed in the usual way ?

A. No, most often they are performed in a very special manner, that S. Francis de Sales so well explained to one of his daughters: ‘Let your acts henceforth be, as it were, spun, strained, distilled at the point of the spirit; thus will they penetrate further into the substance of your soul, which you will experience if you are simple and docile. 5 This is so true that one sees souls who after conversations with God could not remember a single act of them (except on occasions of zeal when God recalls it to them), so much did everything pass from spirit to spirit, in a manner very remote from the senses.

Q. How then can one be certain that they are performing explicit acts of faith, hope, charity, contrition, thanksgiving, petition, etc., all of them acts which should, you said, according to Bossuet, be made at a suitable time?

A. Hear how he himself, in conjunction with the other Bishops, explained it in Article XIII:* ‘In the most perfect life and prayer, all these acts are united in love alone, so much that it inspires all the virtues and directs their exercise, as S. Paul says: “ Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 55 5 In this state one might say the same of any other Christian acts, the distinct exercise of which is prescribed and legislated for, though they are not always sensibly and distinctly perceived. This is a very clear and consoling solution for these souls or those who direct them.

Q. No doubt many favours are received in this state of perfect prayer ?

A. As you must be careful not to believe with the Quietists that there are any absolutely perfect people, I think you must be talking merely of those who have begun to enter truly into the great contest of the perfection of the holy, where the most perfect have to advance ever, even till the last moment of the longest 1 Instruction, p. 340.

life. Now at the beginning of this new and supernatural life one receives inexplicable favours. For the divine nature, infinitely more communicative than the light of the sun, which sheds itself in every place where there are no obstacles, loves nothing so much as to shine in all the souls which are detached enough to receive its divine effusions without corrupting them by the confusion of reflections or of pride or of self-love.

d- Are these favours and consolations similar to the first ?

A. They are as different as the state of these souls is different from their first state; for everything is arranged and proportioned with an admirable wisdom, which gives sensible consolation to those who, being still among their senses, would not be able to appreciate other consolations; but when through progressing in spirit by pure faith, one is simplified and spiritualized, then one receives these spiritual, divine and heavenly interior joys, which are thus called the pure delights of the spirit and of pure love, since it is only pure love which causes them, and pure spirit which enjoys them; just as they alone enjoy them who are able to understand them, to speak well of them and indeed sustain them; for often they are torrents of pleasure which engulf our hearts by the excess of the spirit over the body.

d- How does this purification and refinement of taste take place ?

A. Very much in the same way as one purifies and refines the taste of an animal and earthly man according to the world. When we wish to inspire in him a taste for the pleasures of the mind, as they say, it is by depriving him of his former old satisfactions, for which we gradually substitute satisfactions of a new kind.

d* Is it the same in the case of lights that enlighten the mind ?

A. Everything happens in the same proportion as in our present state; for if you except in certain persons occasional moments of dazzling light, which give them a deep insight into the things which are mysterious to us, they are for the most part in the spirit admittedly penetrating and efficient lights, but not bright; wholly divine lights, but as to feeling almost imperceptible, lights which nevertheless guide, rule and direct all things, which uphold us in trials, and by which we see ourselves to have been enlightened and sustained almost without knowing how, or whence. For it is by an invisible hand, in which for the flight of evil and the practice of good we find a firmer support, more constant than in all our past fervours, since it is the one light of faith in God which never varies as all other things do.

Q. And is it the same with interior peace ?

A. Certainly, for by growing and deepening this peace finally becomes deep as the lowest depths of the sea; it no longer dwells in the senses; raised high above them, as S. Paul said, 16 it surpasses all feelings: Pax Dei quae exsuperat omnem sensum custodiat corda vestra et intelli - gentias vestras.’ Where then must we seek it ? At the bottom of the heart, continues the apostle, and in the supreme intelligence, or, as the mystics put it, in the centre of the soul, at the point of the spirit; it is a peace of unshakable rest, I will not say amid human revolutions, to which one is now hardly sensitive, but in the midst of all interior vicissitudes. For it is founded on unreserved surrender to the supreme will of God, with perfect confidence in his all-powerful goodness.

Q. Does the advancement and progress of souls take place in the way and in the order that has been said ?

A. Only ordinarily, and in relation to persons of constant faithfulness; but apart from the fact that God changes all things when it pleases him, being able to mingle all things without confusing them, and overturn them without disorder, there are so few constantly faithful persons that in order to accommodate himself to our weakness and our wretchedness, according to the ordinary rules of his providence and the gentleness of⁶ Philipp, iv, 6.

276 ONPRAYER his government, God is often obliged by our changes to alter his own interior conduct, varying the impressions of grace in a hundred ways, but always so mercifully that these changing impressions help to the perfection of the chosen even in the midst of the most pitiful unfaithfulness and straying; therefore with him and like him without changing the essential part of each one’s way many must be led at the same time as beginners, proficient and advanced souls, according as at one point or another they share in these three different states. But the accurate distinguishing of this is the business of directors; our duty is blind and humble obedience which can never lead astray him who obeys the minister of God as God himself.⁷

A. The same as that which the author of the Instruc-

A. He himself tells us in the Preface to his book, 1

Q. But what remains to be done to obtain these

EPILOGUE

On the conclusion of the whole work

Q. What fruit does Bossuet propose to himself in composing his ample Instruction ?

A. He tells us himself in the Preface to his book when he says: ‘. Souls which are simple and still weak will be drawn to prayer, and those who already practise it will be less fearful of giving themselves up to the divine attraction; God knows that it is not from myself but from the doctrine of the Saints and the force of truth that I hope for these advantages

( z ■ But what must be done to achieve these advantages ?

A. Two things: (i) to remember always that it is by the cessation of all acts towards God that the holy repose of prayer has been abused. It is this that makes and might still make Quietists, says Bossuet; (ii) not to forget that in disposing ourselves towards the prayer of simple recollection, both by the practice of the four kinds of purity, and by judicious pauses during all kinds of prayer and meditation, we must only change our ordinary manner of prayer in proportion as God himself draws us from it by certain interior touches and by his divine attractions; and that on this point judgement must be left to those whom God has given us for guides.

{ i. Could you not teach me or show me an exercise of prayer which would include the practice of this divine doctrine ?

A. Providence has put into my hands exactly what you want: it is an exercise of prayer containing fifteen

EPILOGUE 279 simple articles composed by Bossuet for the Religious of the Visitation of Meaux.

Q. Is it from this convent you have it ?

A. No, from that of Nancy, where the late Madame de Bassompierre, a religious of that monastery, took a copy on her return thither after being Superior at the House of the Visitation at Meaux, where Cardinal de Bissi sent her. I will give you this holy exercise word for word, as it was found at Nancy and as I know it can be seen in some towns of France, at the end of a little book called Practice of the Presence of God.

A SHORT AND SIMPLE WAY TO PRACTISE THE PRAYER OF FAITH AND OF THE SIMPLE PRESENCE OF GOD, BY BOSSUET.

I

O NE must become accustomed to nourish one’s soul with a simple and loving gaze at God and at Our Lord Jesus Christ; and to gain this end it must be gently separated from discourses, reasoning and the multitude of affections, so as to keep it in simplicity, respect and attention, and to bring it thus ever nearer God, its single sovereign good, its first principle and its last end.

II

Perfection in this life consists in union with our sovereign good, and the greater the simplicity the more perfect the union. That is why grace asks in an interior manner those who wish to be perfect to become simple, so that they may finally become capable of enjoying the one thing necessary, that is the eternal unity: Let us then often say from the bottom of the heart: 0 mum necessarium, unum volo, unum quaero, unum desidero, mum mihi est necessarium. Deus meus et omnia —O only

280 on prayer necessary One ! thee alone I wish for, seek and desire, thou alone art my one thing necessary, my God and my all !

Ill

Meditation is good in its time, and very useful at the beginning of the spiritual life: but one must not stop there, for the soul by its fidelity in mortifying and recollecting itself usually receives a purer and more intimate prayer, which may be called the prayer of simplicity, which consists in a simple loving sight, regard or attention in oneself towards some divine object, either God in himself or in one of his perfections, or Our Lord Jesus Christ or one of his mysteries, or some other Christian truths. The soul leaves aside reasoning and makes use of a sweet contemplation which makes it peaceful, attentive, and susceptible of the divine operations and impressions that the Holy Ghost communicates to it; it does little and receives much; its work is gentle and yet more fruitful; and as it comes nearer to the source of all light, grace and virtue, it is granted more and more.

IV

The practice of this prayer should commence on waking, by making an act of faith in the presence of God who is everywhere, and of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose gaze leaves us not even were we buried in the centre of the earth. Either this act is produced in a tangible and ordinary way, as when one says to oneself: I believe my God is present; or it is a simple remembrance of faith in God’s presence which occurs in a more pure and spiritual way.

EPILOGUE

28 l

V

Further, we must not try to produce many other different acts or dispositions, but remain simply attentive to this presence of God, exposed to his divine regards, continuing thus this devout attention or exposure for as long as Our Lord gives us the grace, not trying to do any other things than those which come to us, for this prayer is a prayer with God alone, a union which contains eminently all the other particular dispositions and inclines the soul to passivity. That is to say, that God becomes sole master in one’s interior and operates more particularly there than ordinarily. The less the creature acts, the more powerful are God’s operations; and since God’s operation is repose, the soul becomes in a way like him in this prayer, and receives also marvellous effects; and as the rays of the sun make plants grow, flourish and bear fruit, so the soul which is attentive and tranquilly exposed to the rays of the Divine Sun of justice receives more fully the divine influences, which enrich it with all kinds of virtues.

VI

The continuation of this attention in faith will serve to thank God for the graces received during the night and throughout one’s whole life, as an offering of oneself and all one’s actions, in the sense of direction, intention, etc....

VII

The soul will think she loses much by the omission of these acts, but experience will teach her that on the contrary she gains much thereby, for the greater her knowledge of God the purer her love, the more upright her intentions, the stronger her aversion to sin and the greater and more continuous her recollection, mortification and humility.

VIII

This does not prevent her from making interior or exterior acts of virtue when she feels herself led thereto by the movement of grace; but the background and habit of her interior life must be its above named attention in faith, or union with God, who will hold it surrendered in his hands and given up to his love, to do with it what he wills.

IX

When the time of prayer has come one should begin very reverently with a simple remembrance of God, invoking his spirit and joining intimately with Our Lord Jesus Christ; then continue it in the same way; with vocal prayers, the office in choir, the saying or hearing of Holy Mass, and even the examination of the conscience, for this same light of faith which holds us attentive to God will make us find out our least imperfections and conceive a great displeasure and regret for them. We must go to meals in the same spirit of simplicity, making us more attentive to God than to eating, and leaving us at liberty to attend better to the reading which takes place. This practice attaches us to nothing, except to holding our soul detached from all our imperfections, joined solely to God and united intimately with him; in which union lies all our good.

X

We must take recreation in the same spirit, so as to give the body and the mind some relief without dissipating ourselves in inquisitive gossip, immoderate laughter, or indiscreet words, etc., keeping ourselves pure and free within, and not angering others; uniting ourselves often with God by simple and loving recollections; remembering that we are in his presence, and

EPILOGUE that he does not wish us to be separated at any time from him or his divine will; this is the most ordinary rule of this state of simplicity; it consists in the sovereign disposition of the soul, to do God’s will in all things, and to see all things come from and go to God; this sustains and fortifies the soul in all kinds of events and occupations, and maintains us in the possession of simplicity. Follow then the will of God always, following the example of Jesus Christ, united to him as to our head; this is an excellent way of increasing this kind of prayer, and to tend by its means to the most solid virtue and the most perfect sanctity.

XI

We must bear ourselves in the same way and spirit, and remain in this simple and intimate union with God, in all our actions and conduct, in the parlour, in the cell, at supper, at recreation; on which point it must be added that in all conversation we must try to edify our neighbour, profiting by all opportunities to bring one another to piety, the love of God and the practice of good works, to be the good odour of Jesus Christ. c If any man speaks,’ says S. Peter, ‘ let him speak as the words of God,’ and as if God himself spoke; for that, it is sufficient to give ourselves simply to his spirit; he will command us in all eventualities as to what is advisable, without affectation. Finally we will finish the day with this holy presence, examination, evening prayer and sleep, and will sleep in this loving attention, interpolating into our rest a few fervent words full of unction, when we wake in the night, like so many sighs for and cries of the heart towards God. For example: My God, be thou all things to me; I want none but thee for all time and all eternity; O Lord, who is like thee ? my Lord and my God, my God and nothing more.

XII

It should be noted that this true simplicity makes us live in a continual death and perfect detachment, for it sends us to God by a perfectly straight path without stopping for any creature; but it is not by speculation that we obtain this grace of simplicity, it is by great purity of heart and by true mortification and contempt for ourselves. Whoever flees from humiliation, from suffering, from death to himself, will never enter into it; this is why there are so few who approach this stage, for almost no one will leave himself, without which self-abandonment we lose immense things and are cut off from incomprehensible good. How happy are those faithful souls who spare nothing to belong truly to God ! How happy are those religious who faithfully practise all their observances according to their order ! This fidelity makes them continually dead to themselves, to their own judgement, to their own will, their natural inclinations or repugnances, and thus disposes them in a wonderful unknown way to this excellent kind of prayer; for what is there more hidden than a religious who follows only the common observances and exercises of religion in which there is nothing extraordinary, and yet lives in a total and continual death ? By this way the Kingdom of God is established in us, and the rest is granted us freely.

XIII

We must not neglect the reading of spiritual books; but we must read in simplicity and a spirit of prayer and not in one of curiosity or research; we read in this fashion when we let the light impress itself on our souls, and the feelings which this reading reveals in us, and when this impression is made more by the presence of God than by our own efforts.

EPILOGUE

XIV

For the rest, we must be fortified by two or three maxims: the first is that a devout person without prayer is a body without a soul; the second, that we cannot have true and solid prayer without mortification, recollection and humility; the third, that it needs perseverance not to be overcome by the difficulties we meet.

XV

We must not forget that one of the greatest secrets of the spiritual life is that the Holy Ghost leads us not only by light, gentleness, consolations, tenderness and facility, but by darkness, blindness, insensibility, grief, anguish, sadness, revolts of the passions and the temper; I will say further that this cruel sacrifice of our peace is necessary, that it is good, nay, the best, the most assured, and that it leads us much more quickly to perfection. The enlightened soul cherishes respectfully the conduct of God, which permits it to be harassed by creatures, and overwhelmed by temptation and desertion; and it well knows that these are favours and not disgraces, preferring to die on the cross of Calvary rather than to live in softness on Tabor. Experience will teach it in time the truth of these beautiful words: Et nox illuminetio mea in deliciis meis; et mea nox obscurum non habet sed omnia in luce clarescunt. After the cleansing of the soul in the purgatory of suffering through which it must pass will come light, repose, joy by intimate union with God, who will make this world, exile as it is, into a little paradise for her. The best prayer is that in which we abandon ourselves most completely to the dispositions and feelings God sends into our souls, and in which we study ourselves with more simplicity, humility and conformity to the true will and to the examples of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Great God, who by a marvellous assemblage of particular circumstances hast arranged from all eternity the composition of this little book, do not permit certain spirits, some of which are among the scholars and others among the spiritual, to be accused before thy dread Tribunal of having helped in any way towards closing the way to thee to numberless hearts, because thou didst will that they should enter on it in a way whose very simplicity shocked them, and by a door which, opened as it has been by the saints from the first centuries of the Church, was not perhaps well enough known to them. Rather make us become as little children, as Jesus Christ ordains, so that we may once enter by this little gate so as afterwards to show it more surely and efficaciously to others. Amen.

Footnotes

1. Instruction, p. 465. • Ibid., p. 463. ↩

2. Instruction, p. 468. ↩

3. Ps. cxxii. ↩

4. Instruction, p. 45G. 2 Ibid., Book X, § 18. ↩

5. Instruction, p. 581. ↩

6. Lord, what is my confidence which I have in this life: or what my greatest comfort amongst all things which are seen under heaven ? Is it not thou, O Lord my God, whose mercies are without number ? Where was it ever well with me absent from thee ? Or when could things go ill with me when thou wast present ?... Where thou art there is heaven: and there is death and hell where thou art not. Thou art my longing, and therefore I must need sigh after thee, cry and entreat. In short I cannot fully trust in any one to bring me more seasonable help in my necessities; save only in thee, my God. Thou art my hope, thou my confidence; thou my comforter and most faithful in all things.... Even though thou expose me to various temptations and adversities: yet all this thou ordainest for my good; yet who art wont to prove thy beloved servants a thousand ways. And in this proving of me thou oughtest no less to be loved and praised; than if thou wert to fill mo with heavenly consolations. In thee therefore, Lord God, I put all my hope and refuge; on thee I repose all my tribulation and anguish;... Thou therefore art the end of all good, the height of life, and the depth of all that can be uttered; and to trust in thee above all things is the greatest comfort of thy servants. Bless and sanctify my soul with thy heavenly blessing, that it may be made thy holy habitation and the seat of thy eternal glory: and in what thou hast deigned to make thy temple let nothing be found which may offend the eyes of thy majesty.... Protect and keep the soul of thy poor servant amidst so many perils of this corruptible life; and direct him with the fellowship of thy grace through the path of peace to the country of ever- lasting light. Amen.’ (. Imitation, Book III, Ch. LIX.) CONCLUSION ‘L What is the principal fruit that can and should be drawn from these instructions ? tion Pastorale which was the subject of our dialogues had in mind. What result did Bossuet look for in composing his ample Instruction ? in which he says: ‘Simple souls and those who are still weak will be drawn to prayer, and those who are already experienced in it will be less fearful of giving themselves up to the divine attractions; God knows that it is not from myself, but from the doctrine of the saints and the strength of truth that I hope for these advantages. 5 advantages ? A. Two things: (i) to remember always that by the cessation of all acts towards God one abuses the holy repose of prayer; this makes, and still could make, Quietists, according to Bossuet; (ii) not to forget that in disposing ourselves to the prayer of simple recollection, and in the practice of the four kinds of purity, and by making judicious pauses during all kinds of prayer and meditation, we must only change our ordinary method when God himself draws us from it, by some interior touch, by his divine attraction, and that on this point we should leave judgement to those whom God has given us for guides. ↩

7. Instruction, p 350. FINIS ↩