Meditation (1): Introduction Xxxv11

In his Manual of Piety, St. John Eudes indicates four ways to begin and end the regular exercise of morning prayer. Fundamentally they are similar, but their difference purposely preserves us from the monotony which accompanies the constant repetition of any formula and diminishes its efficacy. The study of the first method will be sufficient for us.

The Saint wishes us to commence our prayer by four preliminary acts:

The first is an act of adoration. "Let us adore God," he says, "and humiliate ourselves deeply before Him, recognizing the fact that we are infinitely unworthy of appearing before His face and of thinking of Him, and that we do not deserve that He think of us, nor that He suffer us in His presence." The greater number of spiritual authors invite us to place ourselves in the presence of God while beginning our prayer. The act of adoration recommended by St. John Eudes presupposes and implies this Divine presence. It is impossible to adore God and to humiliate ourselves before God without feeling that we are in His presence.

The Saint does not ask that we place ourselves by a formal act in the presence of God, because he desires the prayer to be said before the Blessed Sacrament and also because the Three Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity arc present everywhere and reside in a special way in the soul of a Christian who is in the state of grace, The second preparatory act for prayer is an act of purity of intention or of pure love. "Let us humble our spirit and self-love at the feet of our Lord," the Saint tells us, "renouncing all curiosity of mind and all self- satisfaction, confessing to Him that we wish to do this action, by means of His grace, for His pure love and for His sole contentment." Prayer is an act of faith and of love; therefore we must try to seek first the glory of God and then personal advantage. The Saint puts us on our guard against speculations in which the mind i s merely pleased with itself, and against devotion which simply delights the heart. To xxxvi- INTRODUCTION seek and enjoy these emotions would be to forget that prayer is fundamentally a religious act designed to render to God His due homage of adoration, praise and love, and there is no prayer-value i n extravagant speculations nor the pleasantness of sensible devotions. St. John Eudes invites us to renounce them and to resign ourselves in advance to dryness and aridity which, instead of vitiating prayer, renders it More excellent, particularly when the dryness and aridity are involuntary.

The third preparatory act for prayer consists in our surrender to Jesus and His divine spirit . "Let us give our mind and heart to Our Lord, begging Him that He possess them and that He lead them into prayer according to His Holy Will." This act is called the adherence. It is required for every act of Christian life, since the Christian life is the life of Jesus in us, since it emanates from Him, and since we can do nothing without Him. We are like the branches which can produce neither leaves nor fruit without the sap which comes from the trunk of the tree. Here, as always, St. John Eudes invites us to join to the act of oblation and adherence an act of request which follows in the natural sequence.

In The Kingdom of Jesus the Saint strongly emphasizes this act of oblation to Jesus: "Finally, to make all the other holy dispositions complete, at the beginning of your prayer, fervently give your mind and heart to Jesus and to His divine spirit, praying Him to inspire in your heart such thoughts and affections as He may desire. Abandon yourself entirely to His holy guidance, that He may guide you as He pleases in this divine activity. Trust in His great goodness to lead you in the most fitting manner, and to give you all that you shall ask . . ." (19)

Finally, remembering that we are the members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ, and that we are completely with Him, with His holy Mother and all the saints, Saint John Eudes invites us to unite our prayer to that of Jesus and to all those who pray with Him on earth and in heaven. "Let us give ourselves to our Lord, Jesus Christ," he says, "in order to enter into the holy dispositions of His continual prayer before His Eternal Father, and to unite ourselves with the prayer now being said by His holy Mother, by St. Joseph, by St. Gabriel, and by our good angels." (19).Ibid, P. 32.

Introduction Xxxv11

These preparatory acts are simply the fundamental application of the theory of the Seventeenth-Century School of Spirituality. They find their application everywhere, in the preparation for prayer as well as in the prayer itself.(20)

In finishing the prayer four things should be done.

The first is to give thanks to God and to ask His pardon. "Let us thank God," says St. John Eudes, "for the graces that He gave us in this prayer, let us ask pardon for the faults we have committed during it, and let us beg Our Lord Jesus Christ to amend them and that He Himself be our perpetual prayer before His Father." Then comes an invitation to make what St. Francis de Sales calls "the spiritual bouquet o r nosegay," but St. John Eudes never uses the expression. He prefers to call it an "ejaculatory prayer." "Let us make," he says, "a selection of the principal resolutions and suggestions that God has given us in daily prayer, and as an ejaculatory prayer we shall say: . . . . . . . . . .

In the Congregation of Jesus and Mary founded by him, St. John Eudes requested that the ejaculatory prayer be recalled not only at the end of all the community prayers, but also after the Litany of the Blessed Virgin recited in the evening. The Saint desired that his children remain the whole day under the influence of their morning prayer.

In the third place, the Saint invites us to rely entirely on the assistance of Our Lord and His holy Mother for carrying out our resolutions. "Let us guard well," he said, "against depending on our own thoughts and resolutions, but rely on the pure mercy which our Divine Saviour imparts to us i n prayer, begging Him to give us the grace to practise them. Let us also place ourselves with this same intention in the hands of the Blessed Virgin." After that we must beg the angels and saints to continue our prayers. "Let us pray," said St. John Eudes, "to the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, our guardian angels, to all the angels to help us to overcome our faults, to help us continue our prayer for ourselves and to join our prayers with their unceasing chorus of praise and prayer before the face of God." (20). See footnote 13 xxxviii- INTRODUCTION verbal prayers usually conclude with the expression of sentiments similar to those which we have just indicated, and have as their object to obtain from Our Lord, from His holy Mother, from the angels and from the saints, the grace to spend the day in a spirit of prayer.

Conclusion

Such is the idea of prayer given by St. John Eudes, and his understanding of its practice. We have already mentioned that his views on this point arc those of the followers of the SeventeenthCentury French School of Spirituality for whom prayer is paramountly adoration and love and i s deeply theocentric. It is, in addition, a way of increasing the life of Jesus in us, and that is why the offering of ourselves to the Incarnate Word occupies an important place in it. But, as participation i n the life of Jesus demands upon our part the comprehending of His feelings and virtues, so it requires the resolutions which assure its efficacy.

We might add that prayer, as the followers of Cardinal de Bérulle understand it, leaves little room for the imagination or for human reasoning. It is based entirely upon the principles of faith, such as those furnished us by Holy Scripture; it does not contain anything arbitrary or factitious, and it demands of the intelligence only that it seeks to fathom the truths of Scripture in order that the heart, in its turn, find in them an increase of generosity and love.

We need not try to find out how this concept of prayer agrees with that of Louis of Grenada, of St. Ignatius, and of St. Francis de Sales. There are fewer differences than at first appears to be the case, because they are all only various applications of the Catholic doctrine.

Charles Lebrun, C.J.M.

Prayers Before and After