Chapter I: Some Chief Difficulties of Mental Prayer

THREE truths in connection with mental prayer should be constantly kept in mind : (1) That the main object of our prayer is to get into personal contact with God Himself; to gain such a knowledge of Divine realities as shall lead us to desire, love and seek them for their own sake. (2) That the means of our so getting in touch with God is through the Sacred Humanity of our Lord. ' No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.' (3) The true test of the value of our prayer is not the ease with which we make it or the consolations we may experience, but the deepened realisation of our own nothingness, the increase of our love and desire for God, and of our obedience to the Divine Will, and the closer conformity of our exterior conduct with our interior life. ' Right relation between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer may help it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it ' (Archbishop Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 45). We must not, writes Père Poulain, ' analyse our prayers incessantly, but watch our external conduct.' The pull of our lower nature constantly acts as a drag upon us, so that our exterior lags behind our interior life; and while we must not allow this to discourage us, we must not acquiesce in it as if it were an inevitable thing. The reconciliation of the exterior with the interior life is the hardest, as it is the most necessary task we have to accomplish, and it can only be accomplished by the exercise of a great patience, an ever-growing sense of our inability to be or do anything save by the grace of

God, and the acceptance of our failures as means by which we learn that humility which is the foundation and touchstone of the spiritual life.

To speak, then, of the difficulties which beset the life of prayer is to speak largely of difficulties which really exist in the whole of our life – which is one – but which become more apparent and intense at the time of prayer. The reason of this will appear later. At the outset two facts need emphasising. First, that we need not and must not be surprised or discouraged to find that difficulties exist, for prayer is a supernatural work against which our fallen nature, the world and the Devil constantly array themselves. ' My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation. Set thy heart aright and constantly endure, and make not haste in time of trouble ' (Ecclus. ii.). We must rid ourselves of the too widespread idea that religion is meant to comfort us, in the modern sense of the term, to make life easier and more pleasant, an idea totally alien to the Gospel and the experience of the Saints. On the contrary, it is a stern and uncompromising guide on a long and dangerous journey, conducting us, not as millionaire tourists in our own time and way, but by the way of Jesus : ' Ego sum via, sequere Me.' Difficulties, then, must be expected and looked for, and the wise man, knowing that he is no pioneer who must blaze his way through an unknown country, but a pilgrim following a well-trodden way, will seek for aid from those who have gone before, and have left word of the dangers to be met with and the means of combating them. Second, we must not always expect to conquer and get rid of our difficulties and temptations. There is a great deal more in Holy Scripture as to the need of enduring temptation than of conquering it. ' Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, ' says St. James ; and the classic passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (x. 13) does not say that there is no temptation which our Lord will not enable us to escape, but none that He will not enable us to bear. Our Lord Himself prayed that, if it were possible, He might be spared the supreme trial of the Passion, but the Father's will was that He should endure it. St. Paul 'besought the Lord thrice' for deliverance from a sore temptation, but received the reply: 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' 'All our peace in this miserable life must be placed rather in humble endurance than in the absence of contradictions,' à Kempis tells us; and Baron von Hügel has truly said: 'The fact is, religion thrives, not by the absence of difficulties, but by the presence of helps and powers.' In every Christian life, whether in the cloister or in the world, there will be one thing or more for which there is no remedy but endurance, a cross which has to be carried, a position which has to be hung on to until it please our Lord to relieve His servant. It is indeed such things which make saints.

A further word about temptation in general. It is well-known that our capacity to resist disease depends more upon the general health and fitness of the body than upon any particular prophylactics. The fact that the various organs are functioning in such a way as to establish that unified balance of his physical nature which we term health enables one man to live immune in an unhealthy environment where another in weak or disordered health falls a ready victim to any disease with which he may come in contact. No less certain is it that the surest safeguard against temptation is a state of fervent, generous Christian practice, by which we are kept in a state of salvation, i.e. health of soul.

Why is temptation so grave a danger to us? Because the unity of our nature has been destroyed, and is only in process of restoration, so that when temptation comes it finds some response from within, some answering desire from that lower nature not yet 'subdued to the spirit,' still incompletely dominated by reason and faith. It is, then, of primary importance that we should aim at the restoration of the unity of our nature, of the attainment of that health which is the result of a right correspondence with the source of our life, so that we may present a united front to the attacks of evil. And this means a more entire return to God, 'Whose unity is the mould of all things.' The more we give ourselves to Divine things, the more every side of our nature reaches out to and touches reality, the more that very contact, that correspondence with the Healer and Restorer of our race, establishes us in that unity which is the greatest defence we have against 'the fiery darts of the evil one.'

Distractions. — Distractions in prayer are nearly always thought and spoken of as if they were something peculiar to the practice of mental prayer, whereas the fact is that the cause of them usually lies in the rest of our life; it is only when we come to pray that we notice and are hindered by what has been there unnoticed all the time. We have to remember that we are a unity — one person — persisting through innumerable forms of activity, so that when we come to pray we are just what we are outside our prayer. We cannot leave that self which we are outside the church door, nor will the holiest surroundings transform normally distracted beings, as most of us are, into recollected ones. 'As the mind is all day long, so it will be in the Presence of God. As we think all day long, so shall we think as we kneel at the altar . . . habits of undisciplined carelessness and frivolity . . . can produce no fruit from the seed of God's grace. If our minds have become so dissipated that they have lost the power of thinking out properly the matters which concern our earthly life, it is no wonder that they cannot lay hold of the mysteries of faith' (Maturin, Practical Studies in the Parables, p. 14). 'It sometimes happens that you go to your prayer after having spent the whole day dissipated and without recollection; it is no wonder you are distracted, for you well deserve it. You follow your own inclinations, you are cross-grained and resentful in your obedience, lacking in sweetness and condescension towards your neighbour, and then you go boldly to prayer in order to unite yourself to God and to have consolation and sweetness. If you find the door shut, why should you be surprised?' (St. Jane Chantal, Entretien, xxxiv.).

'The time of prayer,' writes Faber, 'is God's punishment time. It is then that venial sins, little infidelities, inordinate friendships and worldly attachments rise up and complain of us, and we shall be chastised for them.' Distractions at prayer, then, are the fruit of seeds sown outside our prayer, and it is there that they must primarily be dealt with. But, before considering the remedies to be applied, we must see what are the main causes of distractions. They are threefold: (1) the Devil; (2) an undisciplined life; (3) the result of the necessary interaction of soul and body.

(1) 'The Devil,' says St. Nilus in his Treatise on Prayer, 'is very envious of the man who prays, and uses all possible means to defeat his purpose without ceasing, suggesting thoughts to his memory and endeavouring to excite his carnal passions, so that, if possible, he may prevent his ascent to God.' To pray is definitely to range ourselves on God's side, to take into our hands the one weapon before which Satan is powerless, so that it is at our prayer that we are especially subject to his attacks, as was our Lord in the wilderness and Gethsemane. And his main object is not so much to cause us to commit any particular sin as to cloud and distract our mind, to spoil our prayer and cause us to abandon it. 'He suggesteth many evil thoughts that he may weary thee and frighten thee, that he may call thee away from prayer and holy reading' (Imitation III., vi. 4).

Now we are to remember that such temptations, however vile and persistent, are not sins, nor even imperfections. We cannot help them coming to us, and we can deal with them so as to make our prayer even more pleasing to God because of them. 'Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.' It is true; but there is a right and a wrong way of doing so. Nothing in the spiritual life can be fruitfully accomplished by violence; we must not endeavour to drive temptations away by violent efforts, nor by forcing ourselves to ignore them, for all such efforts only tend to rivet our attention on the very thing we are trying to avoid, and this defeats the end aimed at. The right method, all the saints tell us, is quietly, without any anger or impatience, to turn our eyes towards God and rest in that haven of His peace which no storm may disturb, 'anchored in the Will of God,' as says St. Catherine of Siena.

'When your heart is wandering and distracted, bring it back quietly to its point, restore it tenderly to its Master's side; and if you did nothing else the whole of your hour but bring back your heart patiently and put it near our Lord again, and every time you put it back it turned away again, your hour would be well employed' (St. François de Sales, Instructions vi.). 'The thing is inevitable, so do not let it distress or disturb you, but let the mill clack on while you grind the wheat: that is, let us continue to work with the will and intellect' (St. Teresa, Interior Castle, IV. i. 9, 12).

'If distractions come, you must not disquiet yourself, nor search to repulse them with violence and impatience; it is enough to turn yourself away peacefully and to bring back your attention to God. The Devil will neglect nothing in order to suggest distractions during prayer, hoping by this means to make us abandon it; to give up our prayer because we are distracted is to do what he desires,' says St. Alphonsus Liguori.

The author of The Cloud of Unknowing bids us ' if any new thought or stirring of sin ' come between us and God, ' try to look as it were over their shoulders, seeking another thing, the which thing is God. . . . An this device be well and truly conceived, it is nought else but a longing desire after God, to feel Him and see Him as it may be here; and such a desire is charity, and it obtaineth alway to be eased ' (Cloud, chap. xxxii.).

St. Pedro of Alcantara says, ' The remedy against evil and untimely thoughts is to fight manfully and perseveringly against them, but without any violence or anxiety of spirit. It is not so much a matter of strength and force as of grace and humility. We should turn to God without any scruple or anxiety (seeing there is here no fault, or but a slight one) and say, Thou seest, Lord, what I am, and what else indeed could be expected of such a one unless Thou cleanse me ? Then, one should take up again the thread of the meditation and with patience wait for the visitation of the Lord, Who will not fail to come to the lowly in spirit. If, however, these thoughts still disturb you and you still with perseverance resist them and do all you can, you may hold this for certain - that you gain much more ground by this resistance than if you had been finding joy in the Lord with all savour and without hindrance.' Both St. François de Sales and St. Jeanne Chantal say the same; ' if we do nothing else but combat the distractions and temptations which assail us, our prayer will be well made, ' writes the former, whilst St. Chantal teaches her nuns, ' The fact that we hold ourselves in the presence of His Spirit constitutes prayer . . . if we are humble in suffering the assaults of vain thoughts and distractions it is as acceptable to Him as the highest aspirations we have had at other times. The longing of a loving heart for God and its endurance of unwelcome difficulties is one of the most perfect prayers' (Œuvres, vol. ii., p. 324).

There is scarcely anything in any teaching on the spiritual life which requires more emphasis than the truth that all our spiritual exercises are means toward seeking and knowing God, and not for our pleasure and comfort. The very first act, says M. Olier (Catéchisme Chrétien, Leçon vii.), 'is to renounce ourselves and our own wills,' for all our natural desires lead only to the gratification of self, even in our good works. 'The aim and end of prayer,' says Père Bourgoing, 'is the reverence, recognition and adoration of the sovereign Majesty of God, of that which He is in Himself rather than of that which He is to us . . . our prayer is not made for our own spiritual profit and utility but for the sole glory of God' (Les Vérités et Excellences du J. C. Notre Seigneur. Avis).

And St. Vincent de Paul, 'When you go to prayer you should do so purely to please God, saying, "I am not worthy to converse with God, but since obedience demands it and it is God's will, I shall go to honour our Lord"' (Conference on the End of the Company, edit. published by Pierre Coste, c.m., Paris, 1923, vol. x., p. 131).

(2) An undisciplined life. A slack, undisciplined, unmortified life necessarily leads to a distracted prayer, for not only are we the same persons in prayer as in every other action, but any real attempt at prayer is an endeavour to be more truly ourselves. All day long we go about disguised, to a very large extent hiding our real self that others may not see what we are, and this not seldom to such a degree that the disguise becomes more real to us than our actual self. But when we come to pray, our real self, torn by a myriad interests, our interior mental life, crowded with distractions, surges out into that silent sanctuary wherein we seek the peace of God. 'If we find the door shut, why should we be surprised?'

The main remedy, then, which must be sought seriously and perseveringly, is to be found in a careful attention to the remote preparation for prayer, notably in

(a) The guard of the heart.

(b) The custody of the senses.

(c) The spirit of recollection.

(a) Fr. Roothan, S.J., in his De la Manière de Méditer, says there are three main obstacles which hinder our practice of prayer, pride and the vain esteem of self, dissimulation or the desire of appearing to be what we are not, and the sins to which the soul is attached and which it does not seriously endeavour to combat. Père Lallemant asks why so many religious and devout Christians who practise the duties of their religion, and in consequence 'in a high physical degree the gifts of the Holy Spirit,' yet manifest so little of the Spirit in their lives and actions, resenting being corrected, seeking the praise and esteem of the world and all that leads to their own self-love. He answers that it is due to the fact that they give way continually to venial sins which bind the gifts of the Spirit and prevent their operation, since these venial sins exclude the reception of the grace necessary to produce the action of the gifts (La Doctrine Spirituelle, Pt. IV., chap. iii. 3). St. John of the Cross, too, has some most illuminating chapters, of which I have ventured an analysis, in The Dark Night of the Soul, upon the sins and imperfections of beginners in the spiritual life. ¹

It is not enough that the soul who desires to pray well should deliberately abstain from mortal sin; there must be a continual guard of the heart from venial sin and imperfections, from all which would hinder a free and joyous approach to God. 'We must keep our hearts free,' says St. Pedro de Alcantara, 'from all kinds of idle and vain thoughts, from all strange affections and inclinations, and from all virulent and passionate emotions' (On Prayer & Meditation, Pt. II., chap. ii.). Dom Chautard, in his invaluable L'âme de tout Apostolat, tells us that our Lord only admits souls into intimacy with Himself 'in the measure in which they apply themselves to destroy or to avoid' all that would defile the soul, and goes on to give a list of such things.

'Spiritual sloth in not raising one's heart to God; inordinate affection for creatures; brusqueness and impatience; rancour, caprices, softness and seeking for comfort; a facility in speaking of the faults of others without good reason; dissipation and curiosity about matters which do not concern the glory of God; talkativeness and empty words, vain and temerarious judgments of our neighbour; vain complaisance in oneself; contempt for others and criticisms of their conduct; the desire of esteem and praise for our actions; display of that which is to our own advantage; presumption, obstinacy, jealousy, lack of respect towards those in authority, murmuring; lack of mortification in eating and drinking, etc.; that swarm of venial sins or at least voluntary imperfections which take possession of us and deprive us of the abundant graces which from all eternity have been reserved for us' (L'âme de tout Apostolat, Pt. V., chap. i., p. 273).

We must seek, then, for that purity of heart of which our Lord speaks, that detachment from creatures and from self above all which is necessary to those who seek God; we must 'make ourselves indifferent,' as says St. Ignatius, so that we do not desire or set our hearts upon anything except as our Lord wills, that 'single eye' which, looking steadfastly toward God, only sees creatures in relation to Him; we must be convinced that little things are often as dangerous in hindering our walk in the path of perfection as are great things; indeed, for the devout Christian, even more so, since whilst he would shrink from mortal sin, he allows himself a licence towards venial sins and imperfections which mars his efforts and spoils his prayer. For what does it matter, asks St. John of the Cross, whether a bird be tied to a stake by a rope or by a slender thread, so long as it is tied and cannot fly?

(b) The custody of the senses, those five avenues through which temptation continually presents itself. There is much of evil which those living in the world in our days cannot help but see and hear, but much more that they could avoid seeing and hearing had they the will to do so. With few exceptions – and in these necessary exceptions the grace of God is never lacking – there is no occasion for us to hear and see, still less to say, half the things which, if they do not lead to sin, yet disturb the peace and calm of the soul. 'Keep thy tongue from evil' and from that idle speaking to which our Lord refers so sternly, for talkativeness and all that it leads to are most harmful to the spiritual life. It is too often the mark of a shallow spirit; indeed, it would seem that the less a man thinks – and thinking is fast dying out – the more he talks. 'Talking,' said Faber, 'is a loss of power,' and it certainly tends to dissipate that sense of the presence of God which is the greatest guard of the soul. Deliberately to choose to be silent at times, to watch and weigh our words when we speak, would accomplish more for many than the pious practices they so much enjoy.

Another sphere in which custody of the senses is necessary, especially in view of our prayer, is that of concentration in the spirit of St. Catherine of Genoa's 'One thing only and one thing at a time.' To pray well demands not merely concentration, but a concentration which has nothing forced or violent about it. St. François de Sales never tires of insisting upon the need of calmness and tranquillity in our approach to God. But to have this at our prayer means that we must strive for it outside of our prayer, and one of the greatest aids to this is to learn to do each thing as it comes, as if it were the only thing we had to do, and having done it, or being compelled to leave it to go on to another duty, to do so in the same spirit. So, occupied and fully and calmly concentrated on each duty as it presents itself, repressing all impatience, excitement and the vain attempt to do or think of half a dozen things at once, we shall come to our prayer in the same spirit, and find ourselves free from a swarm of distractions which are simply due to the lack of any concentration in the rest of our life.

(c) The spirit of recollection. We 'live and move and have our being in God,' and 'this is the work of a perfect man, never to let the mind slacken from attending to heavenly things, and amidst many cares to pass on as it were without care; not after the manner of an indolent person, but by a certain privilege of a detached mind, not cleaving with inordinate affection to anything created' (Imitation III. vi. 26).

Mediocre Christians who content themselves with a bare performance of obligations frequently excuse themselves from attempts at further progress on the ground that their manner of life in the world, in itself quite lawful, prevents any such recollection and devotion as à Kempis and all spiritual writers insist on. They should be taught to see, first, in what true devotion consists, for which the early chapters of the Spiritual Combat of Scupoli, and of The Introduction to a Devout Life of St. François de Sales, and the second part of St. Pedro de Alcántara's On Prayer & Meditation, may be consulted; and second, in what exactly recollection consists. The world of affairs is full of men who are intensely recollected because they are intensely interested in some particular aim or project. They do a thousand things a day, but behind all they do, dominating and influencing all their life, is one supreme thing. They are not always actually thinking of it; they may, indeed, and will at times, be thinking of and doing the commonplace things, eating, drinking, playing, that all men do. But always, even if not consciously at the moment, one thing and one alone is supreme and central; for that thing they live; without it, life to them would lose all meaning. They are men of recollection.

And recollection in the spiritual life means precisely the same thing; it is the spirit of the man who is possessed with the reality of God as the true end of all human life, who knows that he exists 'to praise, reverence and serve God, and by this means to save his soul.' He is not, any more than his neighbour, possessed with the reality of money or fame, always consciously thinking of God, but he does all for God, sees all in relation to God, seeks God in and through the commonplaces of daily life. For to him God is no mere word, no vague shadow afar off, no mere abstract principle, but the living, personal God Who is not only in all things by His Presence, Essence and Power, but in the depths of his own soul, God of his heart and life.

This is no more than elementary Christian truth, yet for most it is but dimly adverted to, and even the practising Christian needs definite means of recalling and preserving the fact of it to himself. Such aids are the practice of making the first act of the day an act of profound adoration of God, in Whose Presence we awake. To begin each day by kneeling in silence and uniting ourselves to the unending adoration of Heaven and earth is one of the most useful and influencing practices it is possible to perform.² It should be followed by the Morning Offering, another most valuable practice, in some such words as these: ' O my God, I offer to Thee, by the hands of Mary, all the thoughts, words, actions and sufferings of this day in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the holy Mass.'

The intention manifested in these acts not only sets the tone of our life for the day, but endures in reality before God, even if we do not think of it. These two acts, in the case of those who have little time, with a Pater and Ave, might well suffice for morning prayers, for the prayer consists, not in many words, but in intensity of desire.

The practice of ejaculatory prayer, of raising our heart and mind to God in acts of adoration, praise and love as we go about the day; the frequent offering of our actions to Him, remembering that the ordinary duties of our state of life are the chief means of our sanctification; the taking of some thought in our mental prayer to recur to during the day, St. François's spiritual bouquet, are all efficacious means of keeping ourselves in that spirit of recollection which is one of the great secrets of the Christian life. But the illustration I used above of a similar spirit in men of the world reveals what is most necessary. They are recollected, I said, because they are interested, because something is seen by them as eminently lovable and desirable. There is our need, to see God as supremely lovable and desirable in Himself. The fundamental weakness of Christian life to-day is largely due to the fact that we are more concerned with self than with God, with the question of saving our soul rather than adoring, praising and serving God, with fighting temptations rather than seeking God, a ' glory for me ' rather than a ' glory be to God ' religion. We do not think enough, contemplate enough, adore enough, God in Himself; our minds are so filled with self that we habitually think of God in relation to ourselves, our needs and desires. But all religion is founded on what God is and ever was and would be had He never uttered the fiat of creation. God the Self-Existent, the Eternal, Abiding, Unchanging Reality; Who is not the sum total of created perfection, but altogether ' other ' than creation, differing not in degree but in kind from all the works of His hands. ' What art Thou, then, my God ? What can I say, but the Lord God ? O most high, most good, most powerful, most Almighty, most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most near; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, and never old, renewing all things and " making old the proud and they know it not "; ever in action, yet ever at rest; still gathering, yet lacking nothing; supporting, filling and overshadowing all things; creating, nourishing and ripening; seeking, yet knowing all things ' (St. Augustine, Confessions i. 4).

We need a conversion to God, not merely from sin; a realisation that we were created ' to be for the praise of His glory ' (Eph. i. 12); that our first aim should be to ' seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness ' (Matt. vi. 33), the principle and foundation upon which our life is to be based, ' to praise, reverence and serve God, and by this means to save our souls ' (Spiritual Exer. of St. Ignatius : Principle).

To this end all our religious exercises should tend; so long as we mainly seek our own good we shall rest in ourselves; so long as we are occupied with self and our sins shall we remain bound to self and sin. ' Flee from the consideration of yourself and of your sins as from a fire,' says Père Condren ; ' no one ought ever to think of himself except to humiliate himself and to turn in love to our Lord ' (Lettres, p. 134). ' Seek the Lord and your soul shall live,' ' for if ye truly seek Me with all your heart ye shall surely find Me,' and to find God is to have found that one absorbing interest before which all else is as naught.

(3) The third cause of distractions in prayer, as of a great many difficulties in the spiritual life, is the fact of the close relation between body and soul, so that whatever affects one must necessarily affect the other. In fact, the less we differentiate between soul and body, as if they were two separate entities linked together, as it were, the better. In A Catholic View of Holism, Mons. Kolbe quotes from a previous book of his, The Art of Life, the following illuminating passage : ' This body of ours is not a separate thing, different from the soul. We deny that it has any organic life of its own which a superadded soul comes in by some mysterious influence to control and direct. Sensation is not a gathering by the soul of impressions on particles united to, but external to, itself. The body has not even a being it can call its own ; whatever the body is, the soul makes it. . . . I am one being, not two. My soul is simple in its essence, as well as various in its powers ; and it is one and the same thing which thinks beyond the body's range, which in the body feels, which organises the body itself, and which constitutes (or gives being to) the very minutest particle of which that body is composed ' (op. cit., cxii., p. 47 ; cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol. 27, III. Q. lxxvi.).

We have to remember, then, and to reckon with the fact that any mental or spiritual effort affects the body as, on the other hand, bodily conditions affect the soul. As Baron von Hügel says, ' Nothing we may feel, think, will, imagine, however spiritual, however real spiritually, but has in this life to be paid for by the body. True, the joy of it will even do our body good; still, a certain subtle, unintentional strain has been introduced into our nervous system. The same in its degree and way would be true if we took systematically to music or mathematics. There is no necessary harm in this, and no means of fully avoiding it. Yet it is important that we should be aware of the fact. For such awareness will help to give us a certain sobriety and moderation in all this our emotional life – a sobriety and moderation which will, if wisely managed, greatly add to and aid that fundamental Christian virtue, creatureliness' (Selected Letters, p. 278).

Now this affects our prayer in two ways; either (1) we come to it bodily or mentally tired, or (2) the act of prayer itself, especially if it is marked by more than usual fervency or sensible consolation, tends to produce a certain fatigue. In the first we suffer at the time; in the second, afterwards.

In the first case, where we come to prayer fatigued in mind or spirit, we should make our prayer one of quiet rest, in simple confidence, placing ourselves at our Lord's feet, remembering the Psalmist's ' O rest in the Lord,' and our Lord's ' Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.' He knows that human tiredness, He Who, being weary, sat by the well-side, knows that feeling of being ' at the end of the tether,' as we see in the Agony in the Garden. For indeed ' I have no need to evade my human weakness or to be other than I really am; no need to play any false rôle or assume any exterior convention; it is enough that as a man I resemble the Son of man, and so long as I do not descend to sin, I am one with Him Who, in Himself, has experienced all our miseries. . . . Lord, I offer you, then, my infirmities, my fatigue, my long wearinesses, this profound drowsiness which periodically seizes me and from which I am rarely free . . . it is enough that I accept it with You and for You, without bitterness or wrath, content to know that in this I resemble You' (Pierre Charles, S. J., La Prière de toutes les Heures, vol. I., vii.).

In cases of fatigue arising from physical conditions we may act in the same way, but it is also necessary to take physical remedies. ' Physical strength is necessary in order to pray well,' says Faber, and St. François de Sales, ' To eat little, work hard, have much worry of mind, and refuse sleep to the body, is to try to get much work out of a horse in poor condition without feeding him up' (Letters to Persons in Religion, xv., p. 303). Père Poulain says that we often read in the lives of the Saints of long prayers and great mortifications, and think we ought to imitate them, but that this ' is an exaggeration if we do more than our strength permits . . . this aptitude for prolonged prayer is a highly desirable thing, but it is a special gift ; we do not have it merely because we try to produce it' (Graces of Interior Prayer, chap. x., p. 140). St. Teresa treats this question in her usual commonsense way : ' This poor prisoner of a soul shares in the miseries of the body. The changes of the seasons, and the alteration of the humours, very often compel it, without fault of its own, not to do what it would, but rather to suffer in every way.' She goes on to say that in such times the soul must not be forced ; discretion must seek whether ill-health be the cause ; ' the poor soul must not be stifled' ; a change should be made in the hour of prayer ; the soul must not be tormented to do the impossible ; exterior works of charity, spiritual reading, going for a walk in the fields, holy recreations, may take the place of mental prayer for a time. ' Take care, then, of the body, for the love of God, because at many other times the body must serve the soul' (Life, chap. xi.).

On the other hand, we must be on our guard against that temptation to become anxious about our bodily health, for, as St. Teresa tells us, when the Devil sees us a little anxious about our health, he wants nothing more to convince us that our way of life must kill us. ' Being myself so sickly, I was always under constraint and good for nothing, till I resolved to make no account of my body nor of my health . . . my health has been much better since I have ceased to look after my ease and comforts ' (Life, chap. xiii. 9, 10).

Discretion, then, but not slackness or unnecessary thoughts about, and care of, the body, but a true, steady and sane mortification such as the Church has ever insisted upon, which, as Abbot Vonier has said, ' aims not to weaken but to make a man pure and strong.' As a matter of fact, most of us need more mortification, not less, for the main thing we suffer from is not mental or physical weakness, but just flabbiness. The remedy for half our ills is to ' pull ourselves together,' and to ask ourselves, not ' What do I want ? ' but ' What do I need ? '

' We think that our nerves are out of order when we are wanting in attention ; that we are anæmic when we are wanting in thoroughness ; that we are broken down when we are not yet broken in ; that we require a physician when what we really need is a schoolmaster of the old type ' (Münsterberg).

We shall often find that little bodily ailments, drowsiness, inattentiveness, and so on, will vanish if we offer them to our Lord and practise a little extra mortification – e.g. kneeling upright at prayer. For a discreet mortification brings power both to soul and body.

In the second case the act of prayer may, and often does, cause fatigue, and this not infrequently results in a reaction afterwards and a fall into sin. This may be due to overstraining the mind in the reflective part of prayer, to especial fervour and feelings of sensible devotion, or to the lack of consolation.

All overstraining and forcing of the intellect in prayer is to be avoided. We come to prayer, not to gain new and great thoughts, but to perceive the reality of old ones, so as to be more moved by them – not, in St. Teresa's words, to think much, but to love much. ' Let the will quietly and wisely understand that it is not by dint of labour on our part that we can converse to any good purpose with God ' (Life, chap. xv. 9).

' The loftiest and most recondite speculations are not prayer; sometimes they are rather the swellings of pride,' says St. Vincent de Paul, and again, ' Too much mental application heats the brain and brings on headache . . . we should be moderate in these matters; excess is never praiseworthy in any respect, and especially is this true of prayer ' (St. Vincent de Paul and Mental Prayer, p. 280).

Nor, teaches the same saint, is moderation in the matter of fervour and sensible devotion less necessary. Truly we need fervour, and to the soul who is fired by the love of God all things seem possible and we may be tempted to do too much, and this sometimes comes from the Devil, who, ' when he cannot directly induce us to do evil, inclines us to take on more good than we can accomplish, and so overloads us that we are crushed under a weight that is too heavy and a burden we cannot bear.' The result of this is that ' after all these useless efforts (to make virtue felt and, as it were, natural) there must be some relaxation, the grip must be let go,' and there often follows ' a distaste for all sorts of devotion, a distaste for virtue, a distaste for the holiest things, to which one only returns with the greatest difficulty and trouble ' (op. cit., pp. 189-193). St. Ignatius says the same (Letters : ' To the fathers and brothers at Coimbra ').

Aridity or Desolation.

By these terms is meant that state of the soul bereft, to a greater or less degree, of any pleasure or consolation in prayer; when there is no 'feeling' of the presence of God or of the action of Divine grace; when the mind is devoid of thought, the heart cold and unmoved by spiritual things, and the will without any desire or energy; when we do not want to pray, and, if we force ourselves to do so, find it almost impossible. St. Ignatius defines desolation as 'a darkening of the soul, trouble of mind, movement to base and earthly things, restlessness of various agitations and temptations moving to distrust, loss of hope, loss of love; when the soul feels herself thoroughly apathetic, tepid, sad and as it were separated from her Creator and Lord' (Spiritual Exercises, Fourth Rule for the Discernment of Spirits). 'My heart is dried up, and my soul like a land without water. I cannot shed tears. I find no savour in the Psalms. I have no pleasure in reading good books. Prayer does not recreate me. The door is not open to meditation. I am lazy in my work, sleepy in my watchings, prone to anger, obstinate in my dislikes, free in my tongue, and unrestrained in my appetite.' Thus St. Bernard describes a state which every Christian knows in some form or another, a state which may be either a friend or an enemy according to the cause from which it springs, and the way it is received and treated.

Before we come to the causes and remedies of aridity one very necessary lesson has to be learnt – that is, that we shall make little or no progress in the spiritual life until we are convinced that it is a supernatural life of faith, not a merely superior natural life of sense-impressions, feelings and emotions. 'Luther, and still more Calvin, have ruined this spirit of faith, unloosing in the Christian world the passion of feeling, of experiencing the new life of the converted and regenerated man,'³ so that to-day large numbers of professing Christians practise a religion which is centred in self and is dependent upon the emotions of the moment. It is entirely pragmatic; worship, prayer, Sacraments, truths, all are judged by the feelings they do or do not evoke in the individual. Sensible devotion and comfort, 'uplift,' the stirring of surface emotions, are made the test of the truth of a doctrine, the value of a practice or the good of prayer.

All this is as demoralising as it is un-Christian and untrue. 'The just shall live by faith,' and faith is a habit of the soul which holds on to God in sunshine and dark alike, which puts no trust in feelings, which, whilst it will welcome and use consolation when it is given by God, does not depend on it, nor is to be drawn aside from its upward path when the way grows hard and lonely. For the man of faith seeks not himself or his own satisfaction, nor even the gifts of God, but God Himself for His own sake. He worships as the Church commands, not because or when he likes to do so, but because worship is his primary duty as a creature; he receives the Sacraments not because or when he experiences some sensible feeling of good, but because they are the means of his union - felt or not - with God: he prays with the same regularity and constancy as he breathes, knowing that no felt emotion is required to convince him that his spiritual life depends upon the first as his physical does upon the second.

It will be well, then, to devote some attention, first, to considering in what true devotion consists, and, second, to a very necessary distinction between 'sensible devotion' and those spiritual consolations with which God is wont at times to visit the soul.

Those who are familiar with the Spiritual Combat generally attributed to Lorenzo Scupoli (1530-1610), and with the Devout Life of St. François de Sales, will remember that both writers begin by defining the nature of true devotion. 'True and living devotion,' says the latter, 'is no other thing than a true love of

God; yet not any kind of love; for in so far as Divine love beautifies our souls, and makes us pleasing to His Divine Majesty, it is called grace; in so far as it gives us strength to do good, it is called charity; but when it reaches such a degree of perfection that it makes us not only do good, but do so carefully, frequently and readily, then it is called devotion' (Devout Life, Pt. I., chap. i.). So also St. Pedro of Alcantara, quoting St. Thomas: 'Devotion is nothing else than a certain promptitude and facility in well-doing' (On Prayer and Meditation, Pt. I., chap. i.), which, he goes on to say, is gained 'by means of meditation and contemplation on Divine things.'

Devotion lies in the will, not in the affections and feelings; it is directed toward God, not toward His gifts. 'Love, in order to be pure, ought not to be occupied with any sensible impression or sentiment. It loves because God is infinitely lovable in Himself, not because of His gifts, nor for any consolation in His service.'

Thus 'it is most important that those who would love God should see that the sanctity and fidelity of love do not consist in visits and sensible impressions of God to the soul, but in the pleasure which God has in the soul . . . not desiring satisfaction for herself but for Him' (Ven. Frère Jean de St. Sampson, Vray Esprit du Carmel, chap. xvi.).

For 'progress in the spiritual life does not consist so much in having the grace of consolation, as in bearing the withdrawal of it with humility, self-denial and patience; so as not then to grow slack in the exercise of prayer, nor to suffer thyself to relax from any of thy accustomed good works, but according to thy ability and understanding to do willingly what lieth in thee, and not, through any dryness or anxiety of mind which thou feelest, wholly to neglect thyself' (Imitation, Bk. III. vii. 1).

So St. Teresa teaches the soul should come to prayer with a great courage, not ' expecting to reap a reward at the beginning,' for ' the sole aim of one beginning to practise prayer should be to endure trials, and to resolve to the utmost of her power to conform her own will to the will of God,' in which our whole welfare consists (Inter. Castle, M. II., chap. i. 13, 15). This is the constant teaching of the Saints ; true devotion is not a matter of the feelings, emotions, sentiments, but simply a readiness to conform our will to God's will in all things.

In the Interior Castle St. Teresa says : ' There may appear no difference except in name between sensible devotion and consolations : I think there is a very great difference . . . it appears to me that we may term "sweetness in devotion" that which we acquire for ourselves in meditations and petitions to our Lord. It is natural, although, ultimately, it comes from the grace of God.' Such sweetness is of the same character as the pleasure we derive from some good fortune which may befall us. ' Spiritual consolations, on the contrary, arise from God.' The first we gain ' by our thoughts, by meditating on created things . . . it is the result of our endeavours ' ; the second is a supernatural favour, produced in the depth of our souls, which cannot be gained by our wishing for it or by any act of our own (except so far as all fidelity, etc., prepares us for the reception of grace), for ' it does not rise from the base coin of human nature, but from the most pure gold of Divine Wisdom ' (M. III., chap. ii. 13 ; M. IV., chap. i. 4-6 ; M. IV., chap. ii. 4-5). ' Sensible devotion is very desirable ; if the soul is humble enough to understand that it is not better on account of these sentiments, which cannot with certainty always be ascribed to charity, and even if they are, they are the gift of God.' That ' if ' should be emphasised, lest such sensible feeling be mistaken for Divine graces, which are seldom, if ever, bestowed upon beginners, and so excite spiritual pride.⁴ They are, as St. John of the Cross points out, but destined to help us in the beginning of the spiritual life – ‘milk for babes’ – and may easily lead us astray. We must not be disappointed, or imagine that all is going wrong when we do not have them, for the loss of them may, on the one hand, be due to some natural cause, or, on the other, if it is the act of God, ‘the more our Lord subtracts His sensible consolations the more perfections He prepares for us, provided that we humble ourselves before Him, and cast all our hope upon Him’ (St. François de Sales, Letters to Persons in Religion, xviii.).

‘Touching meditation, I pray you not to distress yourself, if sometimes, and even very often, you do not find consolation in it; go quietly on, with humility and patience, not on this account doing violence to your spirit. . . . Take it as a rule that the grace of meditation cannot be gained by any effort of the mind; but there must be a gentle and earnest perseverance” (ibid., Letter ix.). He advises that at such times we should follow the practice of St. Teresa, which was also his own, of taking a book and alternating reading with meditation until our time is up. St. Teresa also recommends the use of pictures, etc. ‘Do you know when the gazing on a representation of Christ is a good and holy practice in which I take great pleasure? It is when our Lord is absent, and makes us feel His loss by aridities. . . . To gaze on His picture rouses the soul to fervour’ (Way of Perfection, cxxxiv. 10). Or we may quietly and slowly recite well-known vocal prayers – the Paternoster, Ave Maria, Anima Christi, etc. – in the way St. Ignatius suggests, ‘by rhythmical beats,’ saying one word only between one breath and another,

' and in the length of time between, one is to look chiefly to the meaning of such word, or to the person to whom one recites it, or to one's own lowly estate, or to the difference between such high estate and such lowliness of my own ' (Spiritual Exercises : Third Method of Prayer). In cases where the aridity is complete and one cannot think at all, vocal prayers may be recited by a sheer act of will, but remember St. Teresa's advice as to what should be done when ' God permits a tempest of difficulties to assault His servants for their greater good.' We should not trouble about it, nor tire ourselves trying to get rid of the evil by force, but pray as best we can, or leave off praying and rest our brains as if in illness, doing some other good work (Way, xxiv. 3). Care, however, must be exercised about this, lest whenever prayer is found difficult or dry, we hastily abandon it for active work. For, as St. Teresa adds, ' This advice applies to persons who watch carefully over themselves, and who grasp the truth that they cannot speak both to God and to the world at the same time.'

Those who are yet in the early stages of prayer will need usually to follow the advice given by St. Ignatius in the thirteenth Annotation to the Spiritual Exercises, that when we find it hard to complete our time of prayer we should ' act against the desolation ' and extend the time for a little in order to gain the habit, not only of resisting, but of overcoming the enemy.

In another letter (ii.) he gives certain signs by which we may know whether these feelings come from the evil or the good spirit. It is a good sign when we do not rest in and simply enjoy them, but use them as a recreation to enable us to do our work better ; if they make us more humble, for if they come from the evil one they would cause us to think that we deserved them as a reward ; if, when they depart, we are not discouraged but strengthened, whereas those that are not of

God give us a little joy only to leave us cast down; if they cause us to love God more, and not merely these feelings in themselves. ' Receive them with this sole condition, that you be ready not to receive them . . . and are ready to live without them, when God shall consider you worthy and able.' For, as Fr. Sebastian Bowden says : ' It is when we are in darkness and solitude - when God seems not to be there - when we are without devotion - frozen, we may say - when there seems not a word or a sigh to help us - that we learn our utter nothingness before God, and that we are also making progress and being purified in a way we know not ' (Spiritual Teaching, p. 112).

There is yet another reason why we should have a clear estimate of the true place of sensible devotion in the spiritual life. These feelings affect both soul and body, with the not infrequent result that, unless they are rightly understood and used, they may plunge the latter into the most grievous sin. ' For when sense and spirit are both delighted together, the whole nature of man is moved to that delectation according to its measure and character. For then the spirit, that is the higher part of our nature, is moved to delight itself in God ; and sensuality, which is the lower part, is moved towards sensible gratification, because it knows and admits no other ' (St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I., chap. iv.). Hence arises the phenomenon of apparently devout men and women, whose lives are a constant alternation between prayer and passion, who on one day are wrapped in pious emotions and the next in the satisfaction of physical desires. We talk of such as leading a double life, but in reality it is but one, now directed toward God, now turned toward the creature, and this is to a large extent due to a wrong estimation and use of the emotions. Professor Thouless has pointed out that ' mysticism seems to result from the utilisation for higher ends of energy derived from the lowest instincts' (The Lady Julian, p. 11); and if this is so, it means that the whole of our nature, not merely the higher part of it, must be directed to one end. A religion of 'feelings' is always dangerous, as the records of many 'revivals' show, and those who are naturally emotional, who tend easily to sensible devotion, need particularly to guard themselves from that reaction, in which the physical nature asserts itself, which is so common. A thorough conversion of the will is necessary in such cases, together with sound teaching and reflection upon the true nature of devotion accompanied by real mortification. 'It does not take much of a man to be a Christian,' said Huxley, 'but it takes all there is of him.' It is the failure to recognise this which is the cause of so many breakdowns of those who seem most in earnest. The fact is that their efforts are but sectional and largely emotional; only part of them moves forward, leaving the lower instincts behind untouched, with the result that by and by these come hurrying up, intensified rather than calmed by the efforts made, and easily overtake and drag down the soul.

Aridity in the early stages of the Christian life principally arises from three causes: first, lukewarmness; second, various natural circumstances; third, from God.

St. John of the Cross gives three tests by which we are to know whether aridity comes from God, from sins and imperfections, lukewarmness or some physical indisposition. The first is 'that we find no comfort in the things of God, and none also in created things.' It is not only that prayer does not attract or satisfy us, but also that nothing else does, whereas if the aridity were caused by sin or carelessness, we should probably find pleasure in creatures. But since all this may have a physical cause, we must seek for a second test. This is found in the fact that the soul is alarmed at its state, the absence of any delight in prayer causing it to think that it is going back. This would be a sign that the aridity is not caused by lukewarmness, for, if this were so, there would not be this anxiety. The third sign is 'an inability to meditate and make reflections, and to excite the imagination as before, notwithstanding all the efforts we make.' The existence of three signs taken together show that the aridity is a gift of God destined to lead us to a higher state of prayer.

(1) 'What a farce it is! Here we are, with a thousand obstacles, drawbacks and imperfections in ourselves, our virtues so newly-born that they have scarcely the strength to act (and God grant that they exist at all!), yet we are not ashamed to expect sweetness in prayer, and to complain of feeling dryness in prayer' (Interior Castle, M. II., chap. i. 14). How shall we expect to be anything but 'bored' in our time of prayer if our real interests and inclinations are elsewhere, if there is no real mortification of our passions and will, no studied detachment from creatures, if our whole love and service of God are but mediocre and lukewarm? It is little short of astonishing, save that one knows the capacity for self-deception we possess, that, of all sins, we do not fly from that one which God has declared so pre-eminently hateful to Him – lukewarmness. To be, as so many are, content with mediocrity in that which demands all! And then to wonder why prayer is so difficult, meditation so dry, our desire for the things of God so weak! A dissipated, unmortified life, a life of half-service, a life where religion is but one of many interests, can only find aridity in prayer. There is but one cure – a thorough conversion to God. Let the soul who finds prayer dull, arid, distasteful, examine itself as to the wholeheartedness of its love for God; let it begin at once to practise detachment, mortification, penance; let its prayer be centred on the thought of who and what God is, Whom it has dared to treat in such a manner. Let it consider that ' the highest point of life is thought, the deepest root of life is likewise thought, the eternal life is thought, but in this mortal life we must strive through act to fit ourselves for highest thought, and the fruitful in thought are the ascetic in life, the servants girded in spirit, who watch for their Lord, who passes hidden and unseen ' (Mother Stuart, Highways and Byways in the Spiritual Life, p. 144).

(2) Aridity may arise from natural causes – e.g. bad health (indigestion and kindred troubles are not infrequently the source of what people imagine are 'spiritual' difficulties), the weather, conditions and circumstances of life. ' As long as thou livest thou art subject to change, even against thy will ; so as to be sometimes joyful, sometimes sad ; now at peace, again troubled ; at one time devout, at another indevout ; sometimes fervent, at other times sluggish ; one day heavy, another elated ' (Imitation III. xxxiii. 1). It may be something great – a serious illness or some deep sorrow – or very little – a slight physical derangement, a word, a look ; little things affect little people, and it takes but little to set in motion feelings of pride, vanity, envy, depression, sulkiness, impatience, etc., which will inevitably have an effect on our prayer. For physical ills physical remedies must be used, although we shall do well to remember that a little extra mortification is often the best cure ; ' prayer and self-indulgence will not go together,' insists St. Teresa ; ' little indispositions . . . are often only fancies suggested by the Devil, which come and go . . . the body possesses this defect – the more you give it the more it requires . . . when once we begin to subdue our wretched bodies, they do not trouble us so much ' (Way of Perfection, chap. xi.). In all other troubles which threaten to disturb our prayer we must abandon ourselves more completely to God, renewing our confidence that, to them that love Him, ' all things work together for good.'

(3) We have seen already how we may form an idea as to the cause of aridity; it now remains to be seen why God often plunges the soul into this state and how we should act when He does so. It is, indeed, one of the most necessary lessons of the spiritual life, nowhere better elucidated than by St. John of the Cross in the opening chapters of The Dark Night of the Soul. He tells that God treats beginners as children who need to be 'spiritually nursed and caressed' so that they may be drawn to the practice of prayer and of the virtues, and may 'taste and see that the Lord is gracious.' But since they are yet weak and imperfect these very spiritual delights may easily become a danger by their being 'drawn to these things and to their spiritual exercises by the comfort and satisfaction they find therein,' which leads them to regard them as ends rather than as means, and to love the gifts more than the Giver. Then God withdraws these consolations, partly because the soul is becoming too centred upon them and they are in danger of becoming sources of pride, vanity, etc., or because He wishes to lead us to a higher state of prayer for which it is necessary that our humility and the sense of our nothingness should be deepened, that we should be more detached, learning not to depend upon sensible impressions, led to a more spiritual appreciation of Divine things, and to a greater desire and more real endeavour to seek God for Himself alone. These consolations are not gone for good, but in order that we may ask why, may realise how much there is yet of self-satisfaction to be got rid of, that we may learn 'not to leave the Giver in order to regard and amuse ourselves with His gifts' (St. Jane Chantal, Œuvres, Tome III., p. 268). This withdrawal on God's part is not a punishment, though even His punishments are always acts of love, but an invitation to enter that dark night of faith in which the soul is purified and detached from creatures, and so progress through the

Night of Sense to the Night of Spirit in which the soul forsakes all to find God the All. Here are heights we need but know exist, we who are yet in the plains, or, at best, amongst the foothills, but we do need to realise that the greatest part of the journey is yet before us, and that the withdrawal of consolations and the state of dryness which results mean that we are on the way, not that we have lost it. There is cause for thankfulness, not for discouragement, for this is the school of the friends and apostles of God.

How, then, are we to behave when we are reasonably conscious that aridity is not due to any at least deliberate fault of our own or to merely natural conditions? We are apt to think that the first thing to do is to discover the cause, but this often leads us into seeking consolation from creatures, and so defeats the end we are aiming at. Actually, a time of dryness is also a time of darkness in which we are scarcely able to see what is wrong with us, much less to know why, and to throw ourselves into an energetic self-examination will probably do more harm than good. We must, if necessary, consult our director, provided that we know him to be possessed of the requisite knowledge to diagnose our case and help us. But an ignorant director is worse than none. The signs already given will help us, but above all it is necessary to realise that dryness is an ordinary feature in the spiritual life, not an alarming symptom peculiar to ourselves, and that it is always of far greater advantage to the soul than consolation. So we should meet aridity with calmness, patience and confidence in our Lord, Who in His own time will show us whence it comes and why. We must go on faithfully with our ordinary exercises even though we feel not the slightest benefit from them. ' The longing of a loving heart for God and its endurance of unwelcome difficulties is one of the most perfect prayers . . . when we pray we should be as empty vessels before God, into which His grace may be poured drop by drop if He so wills, and we should be as ready to go home with our vessel empty as if it had been filled to the brim' (St. Jane Chantal, Entretien xxx). Again she says, ' In aridity it is possible to make all the acts of prayer, and if it is without taste or sentiment, it will not be without utility and profit. For the prayer of patience, of submission, and of abandonment to the good pleasure of God, which should be practised on these occasions, is not less agreeable to His Divine Majesty' (R. 515).

To a religious suffering from ill health and much disquietude of spirit, Père Ginhac writes : ' Your incapacity to taste anything in prayer does not prevent your being dear to Jesus, of making progress in virtue, or of contributing to the glory of God . . . you want to serve God in your own way, that is to say, without distractions, dispensations, interruptions or bodily indispositions. If it could be so, all would be according to your own desires ; but you would not die to self, to your own will and judgment ; you would seem to be very virtuous, but it would only be, at the bottom, a seeming virtue, whilst, on receiving from the hand of our Lord all that afflicts your nature, you really do what advances you most in true and solid sanctity' (Choix de Lettres de Direction, cxvi., p. 172).

There is much of real help in the advice which a Dominican, Fr. Raymond Hocking, gave to young Baron von Hügel. ' You want to grow in virtue, to serve God, to love Christ ? Well, you will grow in and attain to these things if you will make them a slow and sure, an utterly real, a mountain step-plod and ascent, willing to have to camp for weeks or months in spiritual desolation, darkness and emptiness at different stages in your march and growth' (Selected Letters, January 26th, 1919, p. 266). In another letter he writes, ' The stress of darkness and dryness . . . peculiarly trying . . .

but irreplaceably profitable.' He goes on to give three examples or 'images which have helped me along many a flinty furlong.' First, the climbing of a mountain, enveloped in mist for days on end, in which the mountaineer halts and camps, quietly waiting until it has cleared away. Second, that the spiritual life is like a long sea voyage, for which one must choose some few and appropriate things, selected in view of 'dirty' weather. Third, travelling across a desert. On windless days all is well, but when the sirocco blows there is only one thing to do – dismount, lie down in the sand, cover your head and wait until the storm is over. And whatever it be, 'whether cloud-mists on the mountain-side, or huge, mountain-high waves on the ocean, or blinding sandstorms in the desert; there is each time one crucial point – to form no conclusions, to take no decisions, to change nothing during such crises and, especially at such times, not to force any particularly religious mood or idea in oneself. To turn gently to other things, to maintain a vague, general attitude of resignation – to be very meek, with oneself and with others; the crisis goes by, thus, with great fruit' (Selected Letters, pp. 304-305).

Especial note should be taken of the advice that we must never make any changes when in a state of aridity. 'One ought never to make a change in time of desolation, but to stand firm and steady in the resolutions and determination in which one was on the day previous to such desolation, or in the determination in which one was in the previous consolation (Spiritual Exercises : Sixth Rule for the Discernment of Spirits). But, continues St. Ignatius, 'it is very helpful heartily to change ourselves in the contrary direction, by insisting more on prayer, meditation, much examination, and putting out our strength in some suitable manner of doing penance.' Yet the saint, who was so careful in leaving souls the fullest liberty, knowing the difference which exists between them, would not, we may be sure, always apply this latter rule, but would at times advise that gentle quiet resignation of which Baron von Hügel, following many approved teachers, speaks.

It would be impossible to sum up, in fewer or more incisive words, the whole traditions of the spiritual masters on this matter. Quiet, patient, humble, confident, persevering, waiting upon God, this is the one attitude of the soul in dryness and desolation, wherein we may gain comfort from the thought that, while we may not see or feel any good, God our Lord does see and is glorified, and that some day, by that mercy which is the fount of all He does, we shall see the progress that was made when, to our blinded eyes, we only seemed to be sitting still and wasting our time.

One fact emerges from all that has been said about the difficulties to be met with in mental prayer, and that is that it is impossible without mortification. ' To pray without mortification is simply to amuse oneself,' says Père Eymard. Fr. Baker makes all the practice of the Christian life consist in two acts, of which he says, ' Mortification without prayer will be but superficial, or, it is to be feared, hypocritical; and prayer with a neglect of mortification will be heartless, distracted and of small virtue ' (Holy Wisdom II. i. 1, 9.).

St. Jane Chantal says that ' the measure of our perfection is the measure of our mortification ' (Exhort. xiv.), and it cannot be otherwise, since our Lord explicitly tells us that if we would follow Him the first condition is that we deny ourselves. ' Perfection does not consist in taste or sentiment but in an entire mortification and a firm and unalterable resolution to be all for God ' (St. Jane Chantal, Entretien xxxiv.).

To imagine that we can live an interior life of prayer and union with God without mortification, interior and exterior, is to expose ourselves to the gravest dangers. For nowhere is a double life more easily led. It is possible to spend much time in prayer, to have a taste for spiritual things, to experience a great deal of sensible consolation in prayer and to imagine ourselves half-way up the steps of Carmel, whilst, in sober reality, we are living self-centred, dissipated and even grossly sinful lives. A good deal of present-day religious and devotional life is nothing but self-deception, a mere pandering to sensation and feelings, for it lacks that contra agere without which all religion becomes but a worship of self. Our spiritual life is suffering – as indeed is our whole life – from moral, mental and spiritual flabbiness, the result of that worship of comfort and ease, that avoidance of all that calls for real effort and the denial of self, that discounting of the Gospel of the Crucified which is preached on all sides, that endeavour to make the best of both worlds which St. Teresa ridicules as ‘ a general disposition to reconcile soul and body together, that we may not miss our ease in this world, and yet have the fruition of God in the next . . . the pace of a hen.’

We have but to recur to the object of prayer to see the necessity of mortification. To come into union with God we must go by the way, that is, by Jesus Christ; we must ‘ put on Christ,’ and there is no other Christ than Him Whose whole life was a putting away, not of sin, but of self, a willing, joyful, entire submission of His whole being, mind and will, to the will of God. It is to put on the Christ Who ‘ pleased not Himself,’ ‘ sought not His own will,’ chose poverty, humility, obedience, suffering for Himself, and demanded them from all who would follow Him.

Footnotes

1. On the distinction between venial sin and imperfections. A venial sin is a disordinate act which cannot be referred to the end of charity, in the order of means. It is a voluntary act at variance with the Divine law, and so is sinful, but it is not the deliberate choice of that which is contrary to the Divine law, as in the case of mortal sin, and so does not destroy or even diminish sanctifying grace in the soul. But it lessens the fervour and strength of the soul and leaves it more open to mortal sin. An imperfection is not sin at all, but is the lack, in an act morally good, of a certain perfection which ought to be there, a lack, as it were, of generosity and fulness in performing an action, or a choosing of a lesser good in a matter not sinful, being content with the mediocre when we might give the best, considering what duty requires rather than love. ↩

2. 'The mystery of birth renews itself in every morning . . . this living being becomes a prayer . . . Do you see how much depends on this first hour of the day? It is its beginning. Man can start at it without any beginning, without thought, without an act of the will - merely slipping into it. Then it is not truly a day, but a time of rags and tatters, without mind or face. But a day is a way : it needs direction. A day is a work : it demands definite resolution. A day is your whole life : your whole life is as your day - but that needs a countenance' (Romano Guardini, Sacred Signs, p. 82). ↩

3. Bremond. Histoire Litt., vol. iii., p. 380. ↩

4. It is not unnecessary to warn beginners not to read spiritual books treating of the higher states of prayer. There are few which are not liable to misunderstanding by those who have little knowledge of both theology and the spiritual life, and such may easily fall into delusions about their state. Experience shows that, even in some religious houses, insufficient discrimination is exercised in this matter. ↩