Meditations for the Feast of the Sacred Heart (2): Nature of Mental Prayer

111. Nature of Mental Prayer

St. John Eudes does not dwell at any length on the nature of mental prayer, but the few lines given to the subject in The Kingdom of Jesus have a clarity and precision that leave nothing to be desired. "The first is called mental or interior prayer, in which the soul communes with God, taking as the subject of conversation one of His divine perfections, or some mystery, virtue or word of His Divine Son, whether something He accomplished in the past, or is doing now, in the order (8). Letters and Minor Works, Letter 228. (9). The Kingdom,m of Jesus, Part 1, pp. 26-27. These words show that the Saint does not attach very much importance to treatises; and rigid methods of prayer. Not that he despises them. He advises his priests to give retreatants aid beginners in the spiritual life the guidance they require for commencing the practice of prayer, and he even suggests. that they should give them the sixth volume of Louis of Grenadas Memorial of the Christian Life. He also advises that beginners should be assigned subjects of prayer suited to their capabilities, and he would have them give an account of their prayer. But in Spite Of all this he only attaches secondary importance to these means of training. For him, as for everyone else, the true toaster of prayer is the Holy Spirit, and it is for Him to trach us to pray well.

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of glory, grace or nature, in His Mother, His saints, His Church or in the world. You begin the conversation of prayer by applying your understanding to consider with a determined, yet unstrained, attention and effort the truths to be found in the subjects chosen, truths which can arouse the soul to love God and hate sin. Then make your heart and will produce a few fervent acts of adoration, praise, love, humility, contrition and oblation, with the resolution to avoid evil and do good, according to the prompting of the Spirit of God." (10)

With all their brevity these few lines plainly show the Saint's mind on the subject of prayer; they tell us what should be its subject and of what acts it should be composed. The author's teaching on both these points is succinct. In the first place, he would have us take as the subject of our prayer one of the divine perfections, a mystery, a virtue, or a saying of the Incarnate Word, or else consider how our Divine Master operates in His saints, in His Church, or in the natural world. He seems to exclude purely moral subjects which, instead of drawing a soul to God and His love, throw it back upon itself and plunge it into preoccupation with its own personal interests.

Nor would he have us limit ourselves in our prayers to considering in themselves the Christian virtues, the evangelical truths or the example of the saints, but he wants us always to consider them in relation to the Incarnate Word. In his eyes the Christian virtues are a participation in the virtues of Jesus, the Gospel truths are words of instruction that have fallen from His lips, and the examples left by the saints are the fruits of Christ's sanctifying action in each of them; and thus he was accustomed to consider them in his views on prayer, in perfect harmony with his teaching on devotion to the Incarnate Word and the life of Christ within us.

As for the acts that comprise prayer, these are of two kinds, springing, respectively, from the intellect and the will. It is true that, strictly speaking, prayer consists of affections of the will acting under the influence of grace; but the will is a blind faculty, and, if it is to be attached to what is good, the intellect must present that good and make the will recognize it.

We, therefore, should begin our prayer with acts of the intellect, ( 1 0 ) . The Kingdom of Jesus, Part 1, p. 26.

xxx - INTRODUCTION "applying our understanding," as the Saint says, "to consider with a determined, yet unrestrained, attention and efforts the truths to be found in the subjects chosen . . ." (10a) Thus, we should not dwell on purely speculative truths: to do so would be to make our meditation a study, whereas it ought to be an exercise of piety.

The only truths which should engage our attention are those which can move us to love and serve God, and these we should consider with gentle and insistent attention; gentle, because prayer should be made quietly, without striving or fatigue; and insistent, because otherwise the heart will remain cold and will soon stray off to distractions.

Later on we shall see what the Saint asks us to consider in the mysteries of the Incarnate Word, but for the present we may note that he does not ask of us wise and profound considerations, but very simple and easy reflections. Prayer, in fact, is within the grasp of all devout souls; provided they know enough of the mysteries and the teaching of the Incarnate Word to be able to achieve first-rate prayer. "0 Jesus, my Saviour, Thou art all lovable, infinitely lovable and infinitely worthy of love. 0 my God, I need no other knowledge but this. What concern have I with so many studies and ideas and considerations? It suffices me to know that my Jesus is all lovable, and that there is nothing in Him that is not worthy of being loved beyond measure. Let my mind then be satisfied with this knowledge; but may the hunger of my heart to love Him Who can never be loved enough, never be sated." (11)

There are to be found in the Saint's works, and especially in The Kingdom of Jesus, some complete meditations which are models of mental prayer, and it is obvious at a glance that their "points" are extremely simple and well within the range of all minds. This is the case, for example, with the meditations for each day of the week and on the subject of baptism. Unfortunately, for want of understanding these principles, many souls are never trained to prayer, for they try to make use of learned reflections which are beyond their capacity and have nothing in common with prayer.

The acts of the will demanded by prayer may be reduced to three. The first is an act of adoration united to acts of praise, thanksgiving, (10a). Ibid., P. 2 6 . (11). Ibid., Part V, P. 223

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reparation and . especially love. We must adore Jesus in all His mysteries , in all His virtues and works because He is our God and, therefore, always has a right to the supreme worship owed by the creature to his Creator. We must praise and glorify Him because of His infinite perfections, we must thank Him for His benefits and above all for the glory that He procures for His Heavenly Father. We must beg His pardon for our ingratitude and our sins, and lastly affirm that we love Him with our whole heart, and seek to employ all that we are and all that we have for the purpose of loving Him.

The second act is what the Saint calls oblation, which means not only the giving and consecration of self to Jesus, but also and more particularly an act by which, renouncing all power of disposing of ourselves or acting of our own accord, we surrender ourselves to Him entirely, so that He can take possession of us, eradicate everything opposed to His influence, make us sharers in His mysteries and virtues, and guide us in everything as the head guides the members that it vivifies.

It is, in short, that "adherence" so strongly recommended by Bérulle and his school. To this oblation is naturally added an invitation to Jesus Christ to take possession of our hearts and to establish therein His life and virtues. It is true that this request is already virtually included in the oblation of which we speak, but St. John Eudes almost always makes it the subject of a formal act, as for instance in his salutation to the Sacred Heart, Ave Cor Sanctissimum, (12) and in many of the prayers in The Kingdom of Jesus and in the Manual of Piety that he composed for his congregation of priests.

The last act involved in prayer is a resolution to shun evil and to do good, imitating the example of the Divine Master and putting His holy teaching into practice. This shows us that the Saint had the same view of prayer as had Father de Condren, Father Olier and all the fol(12). In the Ave Cor Sanctissimum, a prayer written by St. John Eudes in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we find after acts of adoration, praise, thanksgiving and love, these words: "we offer Thou our heart we give it in Thee. We consecrate it to Thee. We immolate it to Thee. Receive it and possess it wholly; purify it, enlighten it, sanctify it, that Thou mayest live and reign in it now, always and forever and ever. Amen.' Cf. The Sacred Heart of Jesus (New York, 1946), p. 173. This is that oblation or adherence which we have just explained.

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lowers of Cardinal de Bérulle.(13) Prayer, as taught by this school, is but the practical application in our relations with God of the principles that sum up St. John Eudes' spiritual teaching.

The various elements of prayer unite and interact throughout its whole course; therefore, St. John Eudes sees no necessity to make our considerations and our affective acts two distinct matters. The intellect' and the will have to work together, as they do in the meditations given in The Kingdom of Jesus. Nor is it necessary to separate the various acts of the will so as to make them in the order we have just shown. They also combine and intermingle, and we may even say that in practice each of them calls up the other two, implicitly contains them and can suffice for the completion of a good prayer.

Iv. Meditation on the Mysteries

St. John Eudes says that the mysteries of our holy religion must be "the subject of our contemplation and adoration," "the object of all our pious exercises," the "daily bread and nourishment of our spiritual life" consequently the ordinary subject-matter of our mental prayer. To help us in meditating on these mysteries the Saint points out seven elements which we have to consider and to honor in each mystery.

Of these the first is the body or external aspect of the mystery, which St. John Eudes explains as being "all its outward manifestations. For (13). To grasp his concept of prayer, we most bear in mind the fact that St. John Eudes belongs in die Seventeenth-Century French School of Spirituality, also called "the Berullian School" from the name of its founder and most illustrious member, Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, who in 1611 organized the French Congregation of the Oratory on the model of the one founded some years before by St. P hilip Néri at Rome. In 1623, St John Eudes entered the Oratory and received his spiritual training from Bérulle himself and from his saintly successor, Father Charles de Condren. These two holy men concentrated their devotion on Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, and on His most holy Mother; they looked upon the Christian life as a continuation and an extension of the life of Christ in each one of i n ; they stressed the virtue of religion and the supreme worship of adoration that we owe to God in union with His Divine Son. These ideas, so clear to de Bérulle and de Condren, constitute the basis of the spiritual teaching of St. John Eudes to be sure, he sets them forth in his way; nevertheless, they are the essence of his spiritual doctrine. Other distinguished disciples of do Bérulle were Bossuet, St. Vincent de Paul and Father Jean Jacques Olier. In 1643, St. John Eudes left the Oratory to found the Congregation of Jesus and Mary for the training of priests and the preaching of missions. cf. The Spiritual Teaching ot St. John Eudes (London, 1934) PP. 49 ff.

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instance, the visible exterior elements in the mystery of the birth of Jesus are the nakedness, poverty, cold and weakness of the newborn Infant, the little swaddling bands in which He was wrapped, His cradle in the crib and on the straw between die ox and the ass, His tears and baby cries, the tiny movements of His sacred feet and hands, the first gaze of His baby eyes, His slumber in the arms of His Blessed Mother, the nourishment He took from her most holy breasts, the sweet kisses He received from her and from St. Joseph, the visit of the shepherds, and all the other touching incidents that took place outwardly in the stable of Bethlehem, on the night of the birth of the Son of God."(14)

Saint John Eudes then adds, "Every detail deserves your consideration and honor, because there is nothing unimportant in the mysteries of Jesus, but, rather, each aspect is great, divine and worthy of adoration. If the Son of God, therefore, takes the trouble to concentrate His divine S pirit and Heart (which ought not, it seems, to be concerned about anything other than divinity itself), on the consideration of every step you take, even numbering the hairs of your head, as He Himself asserts, and writing and treasuring in His Heart the slightest actions you perform for Him, so that He may do honor and glorify them for all eternity in heaven, how much more should you Centre your mind and heart on the consideration, adoration and glorification of the smallest details of the infinite mysteries of His life, seeing that there is not one thing about them which is not infinitely great and admirable, and deserving of infinite honor and adoration !" (15)

The second feature to be considered in each mystery is, in St. John Eudes' words, "the interior spirit of the mystery, that is, the particular virtue, power and grace which inhere in the mystery and are peculiar to III since each mystery has its own proper virtue and spirit of grace. This includes the thoughts and intentions, the affections, sentiments, dispositions and interior activity accomplishing the mystery. In a word, it includes all that took place inwardly in the mind, Heart and holy soul of Christ, and in the minds and hearts of all those who participated directly in the mystery." (16) (14). The kingdom Of Jesus, Part VI, p. 260. (15). lbid., pp. 260-261. (16). Ibid., Part VI, p. 264.

xxxiv- INTRODUCTION "This spiritual aspect," the Saint proceeds, "ought to engage your principal attention and honor in the mysteries of the life of Our Lord; yet it actually receives the least attention and honor. Many Christians are satisfied to contemplate the body and the externals, without passing on to the inward features of these tremendous mysteries. Yet it is the spirit and the core that are most important, constituting the foundation, the substance, life and truth of the mystery, whereas the exterior is no more than a covering, an accessory, and the accidental being of the mystery. The exterior and body are passing and temporal, but the interior virtue and spirit of grace which dwell in each mystery are permanent and eternal."(17)

The third element to be honored in Our Lord's mysteries comprises the effects He has produced and still continually produces by each of them.

The fourth comprises the particular designs entertained by Jesus in each of His mysteries.

The fifth is the share and the special part taken by the Blessed Virgin in each mystery.

The sixth feature to consider in His mysteries is the part played by the angels and saints particularly connected with each mystery.

Lastly, the seventh matter to be considered and revered is our own participation in these mysteries. "You have a very particular part m each mystery of the Son of God, inasmuch as He had some thought, some plan, some special love for each one of you, and the design to impart to you special graces and special favors, both on earth and in heaven by every mystery of His perfect life." (18)

Obviously St. John Eudes does not attempt to persuade us to include all these considerations i n our meditations. Every person is free to choose those which most attract him or correspond to his particular needs, and to concentrate his thoughts and his love on these. In due proportion, these principles apply equally to other possible subjects of prayer, especially to the mysteries of the Blessed Virgin, the Christian virtues, and the teachings of our Divine Master. (17). Ioc. cit. (18). Ibid., Part V1, P. 264 INTRODUCTION xxxv-

V. How to Begin and End