Chapter VI: Oratorian

THE methods of mental prayer, according to M. Olier and his disciples, commonly known as the Sulpician method, and of St. John Eudes, who left the Oratory in order to found the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, generally called the 'Pères Eudistes,' are so thoroughly dependent upon and impregnated with the teaching of Cardinal Bérulle and his disciples that it will be necessary to give an outline of the spirituality of these great masters, so little known in England, except as it is found diffused in the works of Fr. Faber, and in the third volume of P. Pourrat's Christian Spirituality, a work every priest should possess and study.

Two powerfully dominant thoughts form the background of Bérullian and Oratorian spirituality – the absolute supremacy of God and the utter nothingness of man, altogether dependent on God. These two conclusions Bérulle arrives at, not directly or by philosophical premises, but by the fact and implications of the Incarnation. He sees Jesus Christ, not only as the full revelation of the Father, but the perfect attitude toward the Father, the true Adorer, Religion incarnate – He who, by virtue of the fact that He is God and man in one person, is alone capable of rendering to God that adoration, love and service of which He is worthy. 'Apostle of the Word Incarnate,' as he was styled by Urban VIII, Bérulle thinks primarily of our Lord in His relation to the Father and as He is in Himself rather than as what He is to us. As it is only in and through

Jesus that we can know and approach and adore the Divine Trinity, so the principal occupation of the Christian is ' to know, to love, to adore Jesus in Himself.' The central act of religion is adoration; our first thought and care is not self-improvement – culture du moi,¹ as M. Bremond calls it – but an attitude of worship, a constant recognition and expression of the fact that we were created for God, a truth taught from one end of Holy Scripture to the other, but strangely neglected in our day.

This attitude is only possible when we realise and enter into the truth that Jesus is our Life, and so our Model.

Bérulle is immensely struck with the self-annihilation of the Son of God in the Incarnation, and from this is led to the thought of man's nothingness. ' There is more of nothingness in our being than being.' That which we call life is but a capacity, an emptiness created that it might be filled by Him Who alone is Life. ' Jesus is the accomplishment of our being, which subsists not save in Him, and is only perfect in Him . . . we ought to regard our being as an emptiness . . . and Jesus as our fulness . . . His spirit our spirit, His life our life, the plenitude of our capacity ' (Œuvres, p. 1180,

1181). ' Take life in that mystery of life [the Incarnation] : take life immutable and eternal in that mystery of life eternal and immutable ' (Œuvres, p. 952).

' Our first knowledge ought to be of our empty and imperfect condition ; and our first movement ought to be to Jesus as to our accomplishment. In this search for Jesus, in this adherence to Jesus, in this continual and profound dependence upon Jesus, is our life, our rest, our strength and all our power to operate ' (Œuvres, p. 1181).

There must, then, be a twofold act of our whole being, a continual and complete self-renunciation and a continual and entire adherence to Jesus. All our religion is summed up in the two words of our Lord : ' Deny thyself, ' ' Follow Me. '

Nor is this following a mere external imitation, as of an artist copying a model. ' Be ye imitators of God, ' says St. Paul, ' as dear children. ' It is only by the possession of the life of Jesus within us that we can imitate Him. ' Christian virtue, ' writes P. Quarre, ' is not the imitation of the life and virtues of a perfect man . . . but a living image of the virtue of Jesus, God-Man : or, more truly, it is the very life and virtue of Jesus in man ' (Thrésor spirituel, p. 181).

' Give yourself wholly to the spirit of Jesus, and to this spirit of Jesus as operating in and imprinting itself in souls a living image and a perfect resemblance of His states and conditions upon earth ' (Bérulle, Œuvres, p. 1054). This reference to the states of our Lord's life on earth brings us to a central doctrine of Bérulle and the French Oratorians, one which influences and animates their teaching on prayer. In our Lord's life there are ' states ' and ' actions, ' the latter of which are passing, of the moment, the former permanent, abiding, possessed of an eternal character. The birth of our Lord, for instance, is an act taking place at a certain moment and in a particular place, in itself passing and unrepeatable. But the Incarnation is a state, permanent and abiding in time as in eternity; the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father, eternally is given to men. Calvary, again, is an act, so far as all its outward manifestation is concerned, taking place 'there,' not 'here'; 'then,' not 'now.' But how much more is it a state, having a permanent, eternal character, since the Crucified is the 'Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' 'the Lamb standing as it had been slain.' So Bérulle would have us contemplate, enter into and gain the spirit and virtue of not only these mysteries of the Incarnate Life, but of all those of which the Gospels tell us, which 'pass in certain circumstances, endure, are present and perpetuated, in certain other ways. They are past as to their execution but present as to their virtue, which never passes, as the love with which they were accomplished will never pass . . . for the spirit of God, by which that mystery has been accomplished, the interior state of the exterior mystery, the efficacy and virtue which make that mystery living and operative in us, the state and disposition by which Jesus has acquired us to His Father . . . even the actual taste, the living disposition by which Jesus accomplished that mystery, is always living, actual and present in Jesus. . . . For as God in His glory is Himself our heritage and portion, Jesus also in His states and mysteries is Himself our portion. . . . He wills that we have a singular part in His various states, according to the diversity of His election for us and of our devotion to Him. Thus He apportions Himself to His children, making them participate of the spirit and grace of His mysteries, appropriating to one His life, to another His death, etc.' (Œuvres, pp. 940, 941).²

In our prayer, then, we adore Jesus in Himself, all that He is, and in all that He does, ' for all His days and moments are adorable by the dignity of His Person'; the least actions of Jesus are to be considered. ' Who can treat anything as little where all is so great, where each thing, however small it may seem, so nearly touches the Divinity?' We seek to penetrate into His mind ' to put on the mind of Christ,' to know His desires and sentiments and will; we read between the lines of the Gospel that we may enter into that unknown life ' the many things not written' of which St. John speaks. The virtues of the Christian life - humility, patience, love, etc. - must not be meditated on as abstract principles, but contemplated in the humble, patient, loving Jesus, and this very act of ' looking unto Jesus' serves to conform us to Him, transform our souls into His likeness.

All this is, of course, to be found in the New Testament; it is the Johannine and Pauline Gospel developed with a fulness which had hardly been achieved so completely before Bérulle. No commentary, ancient or modern, has ever so illuminated the 'mystery of the Gospel' as taught by St. Paul as does the teaching of the Oratorian school.

Père Condren and Père Olier develop the sacrificial aspect of our Lord's life. Jesus is not merely 'a priest for ever' outside of us, as it were, but He is in us all that which He was and is to God; He is our sacrifice, our adoration, our prayer. 'What grace does the mystery of the Incarnation work in us?' asks Père

and gone, but as though they were actually present before you and you were there at the moment, gazing on them. For although they are passed in fact, yet their virtue remains. Nor is that love, wherewith our Lord did them, passed away, but lives to-day, as infinite, as unchangeable, and as completely the same as when He dwelt on earth and for love of us suffered and died. Thus, seeing that He is present and actually burning with that same love . . . we ought, also, on our part, to regard His acts, not as things passed away, but as still present; for we seek from them profit and advantage to ourselves, not as things already finished and done, but from things living and eternal.'

Olier in his Catéchisme Chrétien. 'It works in us a putting off and entire renunciation of ourselves; more, it accomplishes a putting on of our Lord by a total consecration to God.' Entire self-abnegation, that we may be filled with the life, virtue, power, priesthood of Jesus, this is to be a Christian, according to the Oratorians, who yet, indeed, say now more than St. Paul, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'

One concise and comprehensive phrase sums up all the teaching of St. John Eudes (1601-1680): 'The Christian life is nothing else but a continuation and achievement of the life of Jesus in each one of us.' He is possessed by the Pauline doctrine expressed in the Apostle's constantly repeated phrase 'in Christ,' of which Bishop Westcott said, 'It is in itself a full Gospel . . . sufficient to illuminate our whole conception of the Christian Faith . . . the central truth of Christianity,' for which 'I would gladly have given the ten years of my life spent on the Revised Version to bring it to the heart of Englishmen.' In chapter ii. of his Règles Latines the Saint groups all the texts containing this doctrine under seven heads: (1) The Christian ought to adhere to Christ; (2) to put on Christ; (3) to abide in Christ; (4) to live with Christ; (5) to live the life of Christ risen from the dead; (6) to go by the spirit of Christ and to do all things in His Name and Spirit; (7) to put on the character and virtues of Christ living in Heaven.

The Christian 'baptised into Christ' is in a real sense one with Christ, not only sharing in all that Christ is and does, but called to continue and reproduce the life of Christ given to him in that Sacrament; he is alter Christus. 'The Eternal Father having done you the honour of receiving you into companionship with Him in Holy Baptism, as one of His children and one of the members of His Son, He has obliged Himself to look upon you with the same eye, to love you with the same heart, and to treat you with the same love with which He regards, treats and loves His Son' (Œuvres Complètes, ii., p. 212).

' As St. Paul says that he fills up what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ for His Body's sake, which is the Church,' so it may be said of the true Christian, who is a member of Jesus Christ, one with Him by His grace, that he continues and accomplishes, by all that he does in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the actions which the same Jesus Christ performed whilst He was on earth. So that, when a Christian meditates, he continues and completes the meditation which Jesus made on earth; when he labours, he continues and completes the laborious life of Jesus on earth; when he converses with his neighbour in the spirit of charity, he continues and completes the life of Jesus talking with men; when he takes food or rest, he continues and completes the subjection in which Jesus Christ willed to be in these necessities. . . . So should we be as Jesus on earth, continuing His life and works, doing and suffering all, holily and divinely, in the spirit of Jesus, that is to say, in his dispositions and intentions' (Œuvres Complètes i., p. 164).

Thus ' the practice of practices, the secret of secrets, the devotion of devotions, is not to be attached to any practice or particular exercise of devotion; but to have a great care in all your exercises, of giving yourself to the holy spirit of Jesus . . . that He may have full power and freedom to work in you according to His desires, to fill you with such dispositions and sentiments of devotion as He wills, and to lead you by such ways as He pleases' (Royaume de Jésus, p. 452).

This short résumé, altogether unworthy of the subject, may yet be sufficient to enable us to enter into the methods of mental prayer composed by M. Olier, and used by the Sulpicians, and that of St. John Eudes, both of which are as singularly beautiful as they are distinct from any which preceded them. The fundamental ideas which underlie the Sulpician method are to be found in M. Olier's Introduction à la Vie et aux Vertus Chrétiennes. ' Christianity consists in three points . . . to regard Jesus, to be united to Jesus, to work in Jesus. . . . The first is called Adoration; the second Communion; the third Co-operation.'

There are several recensions and explanations of this method, from amongst which I choose that which M. Letourneau calls the traditional text and upon which the Entretiens of M. Tronson are based. It is made up of three parts – the preparation, the body of the prayer and the conclusion.

I. The Preparation. The remote preparation consists in (1) a great purity of heart; (2) a perfect mortification of the passions; (3) a great fidelity in the guard of the senses, interior and exterior, especially against vanity and curiosity.

The immediate preparation consists of three acts :

(1) Of placing oneself in the presence of God.

(2) Of humility, recognising one's unworthiness.

(3) Of recognising our inability of ourselves to render anything to God.

Each of these has two acts.

(1) (a) An act of faith in the presence of God in the place where we are and in our hearts.

(b) An act of adoration of the Divine Majesty.

(2) (a) Acts of penitence, humiliation, confusion and contrition occasioned by the thought of our sins.

(b) Of union with and abandonment to our Lord in order that we may appear before His Father in the Person of Jesus and pray in His Name.

(3) (a) A renouncing of our own spirit, which is incapable of guiding us in the way of salvation, and of our affections, which ordinarily turn toward evil.

(b) An invocation of the Holy Spirit that we may make our prayer in His light, by His movements and as conducted by Him.

II. Body of the Prayer.

A. Adoration. (1) The consideration of the subject.

(2) The rendering of our duty to God according to the subject, ordinarily consisting of seven acts, adoration, admiration, praise, thanksgiving, love, joy and compassion. It is not necessary always to follow this order; we should abandon ourselves to the affections which God gives us and repeat those to which the Holy Spirit attracts us.

B. Communion. The consideration of the subject is designed to lead us to a fervent desire to participate in the perfection, virtue or mystery we have adored. To this end three acts are necessary :

(1) Of contrition, in which we see not merely the beauty of the virtue, etc., but the necessity of it for ourselves. For unless we are persuaded of our need we shall ask for it either coldly or not at all.

(2) Reflection upon ourselves, our lack of virtue, of the obligations we are under to practise the particular one we are meditating upon, of regret for the past neglect of this perfection, of confusion at the realisation of our present poverty and misery, of desire for the future that we may earnestly seek to escape from our lukewarmness into a real communion with our Lord. This reflection will lead us to

(3) Petition, humble, confident and persevering, that God will give us the grace we need. We should do so by humbly representing to Him that it is His will; that it will be to His glory; that one so imperfect and lacking in grace should not be suffered in His Church; the merits of His Son; the Divine promises in Holy Scripture, etc. Further, we must beg the favour and aid of the most Holy Virgin, our guardian angel, our patrons and other Saints. Nor must we forget the needs of Holy Church and of those for whom we ought specially to pray.

III. Co-operation or Resolutions. The two words, says M. Olier, mean the same thing (Catéchisme Chrétien pour la vie intérieure, chap. viii.), but the first expresses more strongly the power of the Holy Spirit upon which we are more dependent than upon the good works of our own will : whilst the term resolution marks more expressly the determination of our will. Remembering, then, the need of our co-operation with grace, we make the resolution to live for the future in conformity with the light we have received in our prayer, and especially to practise, the same day, the perfection or virtue we have considered. Such resolutions should have six qualities ; they must be particular, present, efficacious, humble, full of confidence and often reiterated. They should be made with an entire distrust in ourselves and an entire confidence in Jesus Christ, without Whom we can do nothing.

IV. Conclusion, in which

(1) We thank God for having allowed us to come into His presence, and for the graces given to us in our prayer.

(2) We pray Him to pardon all our faults and negligences in this prayer ; to bless our resolutions this present day, our life and our death.

(3) We select some thought from our prayer to carry with us during the day, the spiritual nosegay of St. François de Sales ; and conclude with the Sub tuum præsidium, placing all we have done and hope to do in the hands of Mary.

M. Olier, in his Introduction à la Vie et aux Vertus Chrétiennes, gives a ' Manner of meditating upon the Virtues ' which is worthy of note. He founds it on the Divine command in the Old Law, ' These words shall be in thy heart . . . and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand and they shall be between thine eyes' (Deut. vi. 6, 8), and describes his method as having Jesus before our eyes, in our hearts and in our hands. He takes as a model an exercise upon the virtue of penitence.

First Point. Having our Lord before our eyes. Consider with reverence Jesus Christ, penitent for our sins. Honour in Him the Holy Spirit of penitence, Who animated Him throughout all His life and has filled the hearts of all the penitents of the Church.

Hold yourself in reverence and respect towards so holy and Divine a thing, and after that your heart has poured itself out in love, praise and other duties, remain some time in silence before Him, in those same dispositions and religious sentiments rooted in the depth of your soul.

Second Point. Having our Lord in our heart.

After having so reverenced Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit of penitence, we spend some time in seeking that same Spirit for ourselves. We pray that Spirit, to whom alone it belongs to make in us a new heart and to form a spirit of penitence in the soul, to be pleased to descend upon us. We implore Him, by all the inventions of love, to come into our soul in order to conform us to Jesus Christ penitent, continuing in us the penitence which He began in Him and enabling us to bear part and measure of the pain due to a body full of sin such as ours.

We give ourselves to Him to be possessed by Him and animated by His virtue: then remain in silence before Him, that we may be interiorly filled with His Divine unction, to the end that we may exercise, on all occasions, such mortification as pleases Him.

Third Point. Having our Lord in our hands.

That is, to will that His Divine will should be accomplished in us who are His members, who ought in all things to be submissive to our Head, and not to have any movement which Jesus Christ, our life and our all, has not given us; Who, filling our soul with His Spirit, His virtue and His power, ought to operate in us and by us all that He desires.

He is in pastors: Pastor; in priests: Priest; in religious: Religious; in penitents: Penitent; operating in each the work of their vocation; He ought then to work in us the effects of penitence, and we ought always to be in this spirit, co-operating faithfully with all that He wills to do in and by us.

To pray thus, says M. Olier, is to pray according to our Lord's intention, for these three points correspond exactly with the first three petitions of the Paternoster.

The Eudist Method

I. Preparation.

A. Act of faith in the presence of God.

B. Act of intention to make our prayer solely for His glory and to please Him.

C. Act of humility, acknowledging our unworthiness to appear before Him and our inability to pray of ourselves.

D. Act of union with our Lord, Whose prayer we continue and Whose dispositions we desire to enter into.

E. Act of petition for the aid of the Holy Spirit, of our Lady, the Angels and Saints.

II. Meditation. In each mystery of the life of Jesus there are seven points to be considered.

A. Application of the mind or meditation proper.

(1) The body, or outward part of the mystery; the scene, the persons, the actions, the words, etc.

(2) The spirit, or inward part of the mystery; the dispositions and intentions of our Lord; the mind of God the Father; the interior thoughts of those concerned in the mystery, etc.

(3) The general and enduring effects : that which is permanent, living, active in the mystery.

(4) The particular effects ; the plan and designs which our Lord had in the mystery ; why He acts and speaks as He does.

(5) The relation of the mystery to Mary, for she had a special and extraordinary share in all the states and mysteries of Jesus her Son.

(6) The mystery in its relation to the Saints and Angels who had a particular share in it, as St. Gabriel, our Lady and St. Joseph in the Incarnation ; St. John Baptist, St. Elizabeth, the Holy Innocents, etc., in the Divine childhood ; the Apostles in the Public Life ; St. John, Magdalene, etc., in the Passion.

(7) The special and singular part we have in the mystery, for, as the Saint says, our Lord had always, in each of His mysteries, ' some thought or plan, some particular love in regard to each one of us.'

B. Application of the heart or affections.

(1) Adoration of Jesus in all the details of the mystery.

(2) Admiration, joy and love at seeing Jesus so great and God so glorified in this mystery.

(3) Thanksgiving for the glory given to God and the grace merited for mankind by Jesus.

(4) Humility and penitence for that we have so little honoured this mystery or profited by the graces which flow from it.

(5) Offering to Jesus of all the praise which He has received in Heaven and earth in this mystery.

(6) Offering of ourselves to Jesus to honour Him in this mystery and to gain profit from it.

(7) Prayer to Jesus that all men may come to honour this mystery and share in its fruits.

C. Application of the will or resolutions.

(1) Renewal of our resolution of renouncing self, of offering ourselves entirely to Jesus, of uniting ourselves to the dispositions of His Heart, in order that we may continue His life.

(2) A particular resolution, humble and fervent, derived from the mystery we have meditated on, and corresponding to the duties of the day and the opportunities which are likely to present themselves.

III. Conclusion.

(1) A thanksgiving for the lights and graces received in our prayer.

(2) A petition that God will pardon all our failures and negligences in it.

(3) The placing of our resolutions in our Lord's hands, who alone can ensure our keeping them.

(4) The spiritual nosegay.

(5) The begging of the Virgin, the Angels and Saints to continue our meditations for us and continually to aid us to profit by it.

St. John Eudes is not content with instructing us how to pray; some of the most beautiful and helpful parts of his works are the Elevations, in which he treats the mysteries of the Gospel in the ways he has indicated and gives exquisite outpourings of his affections and devotion to the Holy Trinity, our Lord, His Blessed Mother, the Saints and Angels. In his desire that Christians should constantly contemplate, adore and reproduce the life of Jesus, he gives a series of meditations for each day of the week which will serve to indicate his thought.

Sunday : The Divine life of Jesus in the bosom of His Father from all eternity.

Monday : The first moment of the Life of Jesus on earth.

Tuesday : The life of Jesus during His childhood.

Wednesday : The hidden and laborious life of Jesus during the thirty years.

Thursday : The life of Jesus amongst men and in the Blessed Sacrament.

Friday : The suffering life of Jesus.

Saturday : The life of Jesus in Mary and of Mary in Jesus.

It is easy to see - and experience will abundantly prove it - that such a manner of meditating upon the Gospel as St. John Eudes gives must increase and deepen our knowledge of that Divine life which is our salvation in such a way as to lead to a more fervent love of our Lord and a more intense desire to imitate Him. Moreover, the Saint teaches, in common with the whole of the Oratorian school, that, as says P. Bourgoing, ' All the mysteries of Jesus Christ . . . His thoughts, words, desires, movements and all His holy operations, interior and exterior, are as rays of the sun . . . imprinting their virtue ' upon those who simply contemplate and adore them. For our Lord communicates His own perfections to His members who yield themselves to His influence, so that, drawing the water of eternal life from the ' wells of salvation,' they so participate in His merits and in the different states and mysteries of His life, so enter into the dispositions of His sacred Heart, that they ' put on Christ,' ' live in Christ ' according to His word, ' Abide in Me and I in you, so shall ye bring forth much fruit.'

The Ven. Paul Libermann, a convert from Judaism, unites in his teaching many characteristics of both the Oratorian and Sulpician spirit. Trained in the seminary of St. Sulpice, he received Minor Orders in December 1828, but on the eve of his ordination to the priesthood he was seized with epilepsy and for the next ten years he occupied the position of a kind of ' general help ' at Issy. As his health gradually improved he began to work among the sick, then among the students, and later became a guide in spiritual things to all in the house. The need of missionaries for Africa and the West Indies became a matter of engrossing interest to him, and in 1837 he joined the first novitiate of the Eudists. Two years later he went to Rome to reflect upon what he now felt to be a vocation to establish a new missionary congregation, and after a period of much trial, founded the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1841 he resumed his theological studies at Strasburg, and was ordained priest on September 18th, 1841. A very large collection of his letters of spiritual direction have been published in three volumes by the Congregation. On the subject of mental prayer he writes to a man of the world, 'I am not astonished that you have difficulty in making your meditation. There are several causes of this; first, that you have not yet had the courage to do that which, above all, would enable you to overcome the greatest difficulties, that is, to make a general confession . . . you ought to open yourself to a man of God, telling him of all that passes within you.' Defects in preparation and in the method of prayer constitute two more obstacles. Mental prayer is composed of four parts, the preparation, the entry, the body of the prayer and the conclusion.

The preparation is proximate, consisting of (1) A great purity of heart – that is, freedom from mortal sin and a firm will not to commit venial sin, and an entire detachment from creatures. 'It is not necessary that one should have all these dispositions in a very high degree; but the more one is pure, the more prayer is made easy and grace drawn to the soul.' (2) A great watchfulness of self, yet without disquietude and agitation. (3) A sincere, firm and true desire of advancing in the perfection of love for our Lord, by means of self-renouncement and prayer. These dispositions are of the highest importance, but it is not necessary to have them at the beginning; it is enough to see their necessity and to endeavour calmly to acquire them, putting all our confidence in God.

The immediate preparation consists in the overnight choice of the subject, 'for otherwise we shall not know where to begin or what considerations to make,' and a little recollection before retiring that we may rest in peace before God. The prayer itself should be made as soon after rising as possible, and in solitude. Some vocal prayer may be used to dispose the spirit toward a more perfect recollection. Penetrated by a conviction of the presence of God, you will enter naturally into sentiments of adoration, love, humility, in presenting yourself before God, you ' so poor, so miserable, so covered with sins and deserving of punishments.'

The actual meditation follows. The entry is made by fixing the mind upon the subject, and in doing this it is always best to consider it in relation to our Lord. Thus we are led to acts of adoration, etc., toward Him, though it is not necessary to have many different acts ; one alone may be enough. So ' we pass unconsciously to the body of the prayer, ' making use of such considerations as will tend to convince us of the truth of that upon which we are meditating.

The conclusion consists of (1) A return upon oneself in order to see what we need to do in relation to the truth we have meditated upon, how we can conform our lives more to it, or what are the sources of our previous neglect of it ; (2) The making of resolutions, practical not vague, firm, to be executed as soon as occasion offers ; (3) Petition for grace to be faithful, invocation of the help of Mary, our patron, etc. Père Libermann also recommends the ' spiritual nosegay ' of St. François de Sales, ' a text of Holy Scripture . . . or some very simple, very loving and very practical thought ' (Lettre xiii.). To a seminarist he writes, ' For your prayer, take a mystery of our Lord and endeavour to apply yourself to it. Represent to yourself this good Master in the state of that mystery, and let yourself go in the desires and feelings of your heart ; uniting yourself to Him, embracing His feet, prostrating yourself before God, attaching your soul to that divine Lord in all sweetness, without agitation, without efforts. Go on to consider His interior, His dispositions and sentiments, His desires, His relation to His Father. Unite your interior to His and so copy His dispositions in yourself' (Lettre clxxxviii.).

A most interesting letter as illustrating his rapports with the Oratorian school is that to a seminarist written in 1843: 'I understand perfectly your difficulty in your prayer. If you employ yourself in reasoning, it becomes nothing but an amusement of spirit and a labour. If you do not reason you grow weary and "bored" and remain in vagueness. It is this vagueness which weighs upon you and troubles you. You may be able, perhaps, to fix beforehand the subject of your prayer, without, however, taking it as something to exercise your reason upon. Take for subject the mysteries of our Lord or of the most Holy Virgin. See the Divine Saviour in His mysteries or states of life. Consider Him in the various actions which He accomplishes in these mysteries; consider thus practically these actions in Him and the perfection with which He performs them; consider, further, the interior principles of these actions, the movements of the holy soul of Jesus in their accomplishment. Take, for each meditation, two or three of these practical considerations, which, ordinarily, may be subdivided. Pause from time to time in order to make affections, if you are so moved; if not, to adhere by your will and spirit to that which you see in Jesus. It is not necessary to repeat in words, over and over again, that you do so adhere; but do so really from the bottom of your heart; and if the sentiment does not flow easily of itself, remain in silence and adhere by a certain disposition of faith and of good desire' (Lettre cclxxxix.).

Footnotes

1. In using this phrase of M. Bremond's I must not be taken as accepting his attribution of it to the Ignatian spirituality. On the contrary, I think his criticisms of St. Ignatius and the Exercises, both in his brilliant study Histoire littéraire du Sentiment Religieux en France, and in his article on ' St. Ignace et les Exercises ' which began in the April 1929 number of La Vie Spirituelle grossly unfair to both the Saint and his teaching. The French school of spirituality which M. Bremond so enthusiastically and lyrically admires needs no such comparison with that of St. Ignatius to commend it, and in so emphasising his personal and largely literary predilections he but affords another sad example of the constant temptation to set one religious order or school of spirituality against another. M. Bremond has missed an opportunity : he might have accomplished a synthesis : he has preferred to widen a gap. Apart from this, there is no other modern work which can compare in value with this monumental Histoire of M. Bremond, and it may be hoped that every priest will at least read it in the English translation by K. L. Montgomery, which is as perfect a piece of literary work as is the original. But with Bremond one must read P. Pottier and F. Cavallera (see Bibliography), who show how untrue to fact is the former's attempt to make Bérulle the master and source of the teaching of Lallemant and his disciples. ↩

2. This conception, whilst largely developed by Bérulle, was not original in him. St. Ignatius had already spoken in his directions for the first contemplation on the Incarnation of our Lord, 'ansi nuevamente encarnado,' and Fra Thomé de Jesu, the Augustinian (1529-1582), in the instructions on prayer which preface his Trabalhos de Jesu has a typically Bérullien passage: 'Think of and call to mind those mysteries which form the subject of your exercise, not as things passed ↩