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Chapter IV: Direction of Souls in the Life of Prayer

It is hardly possible to speak of spiritual direction in its relation to prayer without some preliminary consideration of the whole purpose and scope of the office of a director. This, indeed, is the more necessary from the fact that the few works in English on this subject are more occupied with the treatment of sin than with advance in virtue, and also that some of them appear to have been written with an almost total disregard of the teaching and methods of the great spiritual directors. 'Anglo-Saxon common sense' and 'my experience,' mingled with the often debatable and sometimes already exploded theories of psycho-analysis, are not such safe guides to spiritual direction as some modern writers seem to believe. Of the great need there is of a sound knowledge of dogmatic, moral and ascetical theology, coupled with a constant study of the writings of the great spiritual masters, whom I shall enumerate particularly later, one cannot speak too strongly. I should not care to estimate the percentage of confessors whose direction often betrays a gross ignorance of the difficult and delicate task they have undertaken.1 No man would dare to practise as a physician or lawyer with so inadequate an equipment. It is true that the clergy with few exceptions have little training worth the name, but this only makes it the more incumbent that they should train themselves with the aids which are now abundantly to hand. And, unless a priest will do this, he had better confine himself to spheres of work in which, to say the least, he may do less harm to souls.

The director of souls in the spiritual life must have a very clear, definite and convinced knowledge (1) of the scope and limitations of his office; (2) the end which is to be sought; (3) the means to be used; (4) the manner of applying those means to various classes of souls.

(1) The office of a director is a subordinate, dependent one; he is no more than an instrument of the one Director, Jesus Christ. His sole work is to wait upon God, to seek to discern the Divine will for each soul, to follow the attraits and graces which God bestows upon souls, to co-operate with the Divine leading by aiding the soul to see, understand and follow it. Direction is not our own work upon which we invoke the help of God; it is His work which He calls us to aid Him in accomplishing. 'I have nothing of my own to put in souls,' says Père Condren. 'In the direction of souls we must place ourselves in the hands of our Lord as instruments which He chooses to use in order to make His will known to them, to make them walk freely in the way of perfection, to strengthen them in their weaknesses, to encourage them in their discouragement, to deliver them from the snares of their enemies, and to conduct them by a sure way to Heaven. In order to do this we must direct them by the light of our Lord not by our own; and this must be done by annihilating ourselves in order that we may be entirely filled with the spirit of the Son of God, being intimately and inseparably united to Him, that we may enter into the ways by which He wills to conduct souls, never directing them by our own ways, which will assuredly be of great harm to them. . . . For in the Church there is but one priest . . . one sole director, Jesus Christ, Who wills Himself to conduct all the faithful by the ministry of His priests, and to be in all directors in order to govern all whom He has confided to them' (M. Olier, Esprit d'un Directeur des Âmes, chap. i.). 'To direct a soul is to lead it in the ways of God; it is to teach the soul to listen for the Divine inspiration, and to respond to it; it is to suggest to the soul the practice of all the virtues proper for its particular state; it is not only to preserve that soul in purity and innocence, but to make it advance toward perfection: in a word, it is to contribute as much as possibly may be in raising that soul to the degree of sanctity which God has destined for it. . . . It is necessary that the confessor should be, as it were, the voice of God, the instrument of Divine grace, the co-operator with the work of the Holy Spirit, and, consequently, that he should be an interior man, a man of prayer, a man well versed in spiritual things, as much by his own experience as by study and reading; that he should have no purely natural designs, either of vanity or self-interest, but that he should only consider the glory of God and the good of souls; that he should never act according to the leadings of his own spirit, but that he should judge of the things of God by the spirit of God' (Grou, Manual for Interior Souls, p. 128).

The director, then, must have a high regard and deep reverence for souls, and for the designs of God for each soul. 'To direct a soul is to direct a world which has more secrets and diversities, more perfections and rarities, than the material universe, and a more perfect relation to the archetypal world, that is, to Him Who is both the Creator and the Idea of all that which exists outside the Divine Essence; so that God regards a soul in a manner far different from that with which He regards the rest of His creation. And we ought to honour, follow and imitate that regard so holy, so pure and Divine, looking upon God's work as He looks upon it' (Bérulle, La Direction Spirituelle, chap. i.).

This is as essential as it is not uncommonly forgotten.

Directors too often fall into the temptation of forcing souls according to their own predilections, of domineering and dictating, assuming a personal authority which is quite unjustifiable. 'There are,' says Père Surin, 'directors who get an idea and a plan into their heads, which they think much of, and apply to all the souls who come to them, thinking that they will accomplish something great if they bring them into line with it. So they have no other object than of carrying out what they have imagined like one who should wish all to wear the same clothes' (Spiritual Catechism, II. iii. 2). 'Let spiritual directors . . . remember that the Holy Ghost is the principal agent here, and the real guide of souls; that He never ceases to take care of them and never neglects any means by which they may profit and draw near to God as quickly as possible and in the best way. Let them remember that they are not the agents, but instruments only, to guide souls by the rule of faith and the law of God. . . . Their aim should be, then, not to guide souls by a way of their own suitable to themselves, but to ascertain, if they can, the way by which God Himself is guiding them. If they cannot ascertain it, let them leave these souls alone and not disquiet them' (St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame, Stanza iii.). Mgr. Gay, whom Mgr. d'Hulst calls 'the master of spiritual direction in the nineteenth century,' writes to a penitent who desired to follow his direction with the exact obedience of a servant to a master: 'I shall not employ, at least habitually, in spite of your desire, the imperative formulas of which you speak. It seems to you that so you would find peace. Yes, but a natural peace which is not what I wish. Such commands would relieve you of the burdens of life, but it is not good that you should not feel the weight of them. I will be to you as the Cyrenian, nothing more. I would help you, not substitute myself for you. Strong natures have need of obedience; weak ones, such as yours, have a gentleness which inclines to idleness. It is necessary to give to each according to their needs. I do not want you to be a slave – the word is your own – a word excessive and reprehensible. I wish you to be a son, and a son reasonable, enlightened by the counsels of his father . . . but walking as a man, not as a child' (Lettres, iv. 10).

It necessarily follows that a soul cannot be directed until it is known, and that what is principally to be known is the particular will of God for it, which is to be discerned in the vocation, graces and attraits. He has bestowed upon it and in its circumstances, conditions, character, temperament and so on, all of which are parts of God's designs for it. 'In the direction of a soul it is necessary to begin, and this is all-important, with an understanding of its interior, supernatural state, the state of grace and the action of grace in that soul; seeing how far the soul is responding to its grace, to what degree the life of our Lord, Divine grace, is dominant in the soul and its works. This first consideration is of the highest importance. If you know well the state of a soul, the operation of God and the action of grace within it, you have gained a very clear knowledge of the designs of God for it. But that is not all; the obstacles which grace finds there must also be seen, the action of the soul and its character, the vices and faults which exist. . . . Further, to cause a soul to advance it must be brought back to the principle of sanctity within it, to Divine grace, that it may become docile to it and enabled to triumph more and more by its power' (Libermann, Lettres, Tome iii., Letter cclviii., p. 97). In a later letter to a priest on the same subject he writes, 'Recognise as a fundamental principle of direction that the person directed must not be cramped or restricted; too many rules must not be prescribed; a too rigid system must not be followed, or harm may be done. If a director conducts and restricts you overmuch, holding too closely to principles, much evil may come. I regard it as essential in direction that one shall allow grace to act with a great freedom, seek to distinguish false attraits from the true, and prevent souls from wandering from, or going beyond, the limits of such attraits.'

(2) The end to be sought. This is nothing less than the end for which man was created, to seek, find, know, praise, reverence and serve God, and by this means to save his soul and to possess God in Heaven. The director's whole efforts are to be aimed at bringing souls to see this, at creating in them a desire for and an intention to seek this end, and of aiding them by all the means in their power. It matters not what state the soul is in, how far away from its end it may be, how little its comprehension and desire, there must never be any doubt in the director's mind as to whither the soul is to be led, no compromising or minimising of the Divine precept, 'Be ye therefore perfect.' It will be true that we shall often only succeed in obtaining a very low and mediocre degree of perfection, but it is essential to remember that we shall not even attain to that unless we see in each soul a potential Saint, one whom our Lord has called to perfection. 'Each soul . . . ought to be considered with humility as the work of the Divine power which created it, as an object of the Divine wisdom which conducts it, as a subject of the Divine sanctity, shining and operating in it by grace . . . as enclosed in the Divine providence, for His glory, as a hierarchy of Heaven and earth, which ought to be established in God' (Cardinal Bérulle, La Direction Spirituelle, chap. iii.).

Now this emphatically does not mean that we set before our eyes a certain ideal of sanctity and endeavour to force all souls into the paths by which that ideal was attained, for, although the end is one, it has to be reached in the particular way desired by our Lord.

The way of St. Augustine is not the way of St. Dominic; St. Teresa is very unlike St. Margaret Mary; St. Philip Neri treads another path from St. Paul of the Cross. The whole setting of a soul has to be considered, and what needs far more insistence upon than it commonly gets is the truth that the sanctification of a soul depends upon its fulfilling the duties of its state as perfectly as possible with the aid of grace. St. François de Sales makes this one of the capital points of all his direction, and amongst later directors who owe so much to the saintly bishop, Père Ravignan may be quoted. 'A wife, a mother, the mistress of a house have their perfection in their own hands. Prayer and piety will bear no better fruits than the attention to performing well of ordinary actions and the sanctification of the domestic life. It is there that we shall find precious occasions of abnegation, patience, devotion and zeal.' Only by recognising this truth can we make people see how it is possible for them to attain to perfection and enable them to practise perfection in the way God has designed for them. Without this the apparent gap between ordinary life and the life of worship, prayer and Sacraments will become real and no progress will be made.

Further, we must beware of demanding too much, of expecting from one soul what we should have a right to expect from another, owing to its very different circumstances, grace, etc.; of undervaluing the worth of what seem to be but feeble efforts and slow progress. We have to learn to be content at the moment with the least things, the faintest response to grace, the scarcely awakened comprehension of and desire for the one end. For so it is that God is often content with us, and always sees more of good in souls than do we, nor 'ever breaks the bruised reed or quenches the smoking flax.' That poor, struggling soul we so often despair of is very dear to the Sacred Heart, that 'hopeless' case may be one day raised to the altars of the Church. Thomas of Jesus, speaking of the way our Lord 'took to cure the weakness and frailties of His Apostles,' bids us note how He took care to 'suit the remedy and its degree to what He knew they could at the moment receive, never going beyond that, lest they should be made worse rather than better, and leaving their after-improvement and perfecting to the operation of the Holy Ghost.' So we must often, he says, pass over those imperfections of which sinners are themselves unconscious, gently and quietly leading them on to think more and more highly of virtue, without showing any disgust and contempt for their frailty and weakness. This is the best way to open their eyes, and dispose them to receive the grace of enlightenment' (Sufferings of Jesus, p. 350).

(3) The means to be used. Since man was created for a Divine and supernatural end, the means by which he is to attain that end must be Divine and supernatural. For He Who is the End is also the Way, and the Life of the Way; it is by His Way that souls must travel, by His Life they live in the Way. Direction, then, must be entirely supernatural, founded not 'on the things of men, but of God.' In the service of our neighbour we should abandon ourselves to the disposition of God, the times, the means and the manner of doing that good which He wills to accomplish by our ministry. He alone knows the manner in which His designs will best be furthered; He is the Master of the work and of its direction; He is Himself the accomplisher of His work; we are but the instruments. We are not to direct of ourselves, but to leave ourselves to be directed and conducted by Him. 'If any speak,' says the Apostle St. Peter, 'let him speak the words of God; if anyone minister, let him minister of the power God giveth, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.' So is it necessary that Jesus Christ should do all things in the order of grace by His spirit, as He has done all in the order of nature, and that He should be the soul and the life of all things. If we speak we should speak in Him and by Him; ... with an entire confidence in His assistance, submitting ourselves in all things to be conducted by Him alone, in order that we may act in His time and in the manner which pleases Him, according to His good pleasure and for His glory' (M. Olier, Esprit d'un Directeur, Art. i.).

The true direction of souls requires a conviction that the end sought is more easily attained by training them to desire and practise virtue than in directing all their energies towards the overcoming of temptation. Too much direction is moral rather than spiritual, more concerned with sin than with God, with self-examination and self-improvement rather than with the search for God. For God, Who is alone our End, can never be attained by merely negative means; 'it is the appreciation of good rather than the dread of evil which makes a soul advance toward perfection' (Janet Stuart, Society of the Sacred Heart, p. 50). Much more is done by teaching souls to think upon the Divine realities, to meditate upon the great Christian truths, to look at Jesus in the arms of Mary or upon the Cross, than by confining our advice to the need of avoiding sin, of fighting temptation and of making vocal prayer. This applies to gross sinners no less than to the more refined (and more guilty); that which drew Mary Magdalene and Dismas is always more efficacious than any mere exhortations to moral effort. 'It is a great grace from God to practise self-examination, but too much is as bad as too little, as they say, believe me, by God's help, we shall advance more by contemplating His divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves' (St. Teresa, Interior Castle, M. I., chap. ii. 9).

Fr. Baker says that souls recently converted ought 'not to dwell long upon the exercises that concern remorse for sin, or other matters of fear, as death, judgment and hell, but rather to fix upon affections contrary to their present disposition'; such acts are, he concludes, more beneficial to the soul and more acceptable to God (Holy Wisdom, Sect. iii., chap. ii. 10).

One of the chief causes of the poverty and mediocrity of spiritual life in our day is the failure of the clergy to live, act and speak supernaturally, sometimes through ignorance or the lack of a true conversion, sometimes through timidity. People of all classes are constantly suffering disappointment from this fact; hungering for bread, they are offered a stone; in place of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are given moral platitudes. That we have not a revival of religion is not the fault of the laity, but of the clergy. Let us but live, act and speak as 'ambassadors of Jesus Christ,' alteri Christi, priests in life as in name, filled, possessed and inebriated by the spirit of Jesus, and that revival would come to-morrow.

In this connection it should be noted that a director should always adopt a certain attitude of reserve toward those whom he directs. Frequent intercourse is undesirable; long visits, conversations and profuse correspondence to be avoided; the relation between director and directed should always be in the supernatural order, in Christo.

'Directors who attach themselves to souls are ordinarily the cause of far greater evil than they think; they deprive God of that which He would have received by His Son in those souls if they had been perfectly established in grace. Finding them attached to earthly things, our Lord does not communicate Himself to them so abundantly; and this is the reason we see so little progress in them, so few graces and solid virtues, so little union with God, but, on the contrary, so much inconstancy, lightness and self-love. Thus, directors who encourage such attachments, instead of being "men of God" are in reality "men of the

Devil," since in place of destroying the enemies of Jesus Christ in hearts that He may reign there, they diminish His royalty and increase that of His enemy, whose power over souls is always strengthened by these attachments' (M. Olier, Esprit d'un Directeur, Art. ii.).

An equal danger is caused by those directors who forbid souls to seek another priest or show jealousy and anger when they do so. 'Thus,' says St. John of the Cross, 'thou art become a tyrant of souls, the robber of their liberties, claiming for thyself all the freedom of evangelical doctrine, and taking care that none of thy penitents leave thee – yea, still further, and much worse, should it come to thy knowledge that any of them have gone elsewhere for direction, or to discuss a question which it was not convenient to submit to thee, or if God hath led them for the purpose of learning what thou teachest not – I say it with shame – thou art jealous, like a husband of his wife. This is not zeal for the honour of God, but the zeal which cometh of thine own pride and presumption' (St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame, Stanza iii.).

Far from attaching souls to himself, the director must do all that lies in his power to enable them to walk in entire dependence upon the guidance and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Far from always telling them what to do, he should exhort them to choose for themselves under the leading of the same Spirit, assured that if they are earnestly and desiringly seeking to do God's will they will receive the light necessary. People will ask, for instance, what particular mortification they should undertake, and it is often better to answer by pointing out that, the end of all mortification being the bringing of our will into union with the Divine Will, they can probably think of something which they have not yet done, and which they need to do, to effect this more completely. Such mortification will nearly always be allied to the subject of their particular examen. This throwing them back upon themselves, as it were, not only strengthens the will, but will often reveal to them the fact that, in asking advice, they were, in reality, endeavouring to evade what our Lord had already demanded of them. Behind the question there lay, perhaps unconsciously, the hope that something more pleasing to self would be imposed. ' I am not, ' wrote Dom C. Marmion, ' a great partisan of much direction. I feel that the Holy Spirit is the unique Director capable of giving true light and inspiration. Yet it is God's way to direct us by His ministers . . . it is necessary that the director should know the soul perfectly, and this once done, he ought to indicate the way to be followed and then leave her to the Holy Spirit. From time to time, at long intervals, he should control her progress, and if anything arises outside the ordinary way he ought to know it, but, to my mind, long and frequent letters of direction do more harm than good ' (Dom R. Thibaut, Un Maître de la Vie Spirituelle, p. 264).

In order that a soul should not only begin well, but also advance in the way of perfection, there are certain essential points which directors should keep in mind. The first is the need of establishing the soul in a true peace. To this end not only is a general confession advisable, but also a full and frank account of one's life, circumstances, difficulties, graces received, etc. A soul cannot be directed, as I have said, unless it is known, and many go on making routine confessions for years without ever knowing themselves or making themselves known in such a way that any adequate direction can be given. There is always an unknown region in which, consciously or unconsciously, lie the roots of sins confessed again and again, and this suffices to prevent that peace without which no progress can be made.

Since the importance of this primary need of the soul seems to be so little understood, a little consideration of it is necessary. It is one of the continuous and repeated lessons of Holy Scripture and of the Saints that peace of soul is essential to any true, deep intimacy with God. 'Dominus non in commotione.' 'Be still, then, and know that I am God.' 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass.' 'He that believeth shall not make haste' – shall not fuss, is the nearer meaning. The constant prayer of St. Paul for his converts is that the peace of God may dwell in their hearts. It is one of the chief gifts our Lord makes to His Apostles in His Passion, 'Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you.'

All disquiet, fear, impatience, violence, haste, excitement, scrupulosity sap the energies of the soul. 'We must in all things and everywhere live peacefully. If trouble, exterior or interior, comes upon us, we must receive it peacefully. If joy comes, we must receive it peacefully, and without throbbings of heart. Have we to avoid evil? – we must do so peacefully, without disquieting ourselves; for otherwise we may fall as we run away and give time to our enemy to kill us. Is there some good to be done? – we must do it peacefully, otherwise we should commit many faults in our hurry. Even our repentance must be made peaceful' (St. François de Sales, Letters to Persons in Religion, I. viii.). In the same letter the Saint says that peace is to be gained by our having a thoroughly pure intention of willing in all things the glory of God; by doing the little we can to that end under the advice of our spiritual father, and by leaving all the rest to God. 'Accept with a great heart,' writes Père Ginhac to Mother Mary of St. Francis Borgia, 'the truth that you are nothing and can do nothing, that you are possessed only of misery and incapacity. But, at the same time, rejoice that God our Lord is all, has all perfections and a power without limits . . . peace is the possession of the soul which endeavours in all things to do the will of God, giving itself without reserve and refusing nothing to grace' (Choix de Lettres de Direction, xvii., p. 29). Père Grou teaches that 'this peace is the effect of the presence of God in the soul . . . the principle of our advancement.' In order to preserve and increase it we must act towards it as we do with good health – enjoy it without thinking about it ; do all our actions with simplicity, without anxiety or trouble as to how we have done them (this is a characteristic of Père Libermann, who also insists that we must not worry ourselves about doing them too well : 'It is no doubt necessary to do things as well as we can ; but without torturing oneself or being in a perpetual qui vive') ; we must put away all vain fears as to our state, for these never come from God, but only from our imagination ; God never troubles a soul which is sincere. He may reprove or warn it, and that severely, but all agitated or troubled thoughts come of the imagination or the Devil (cf. 'Rules for the Discernment of Spirits,' Ignatian Exercises) ; that when troubled in mind we must never change our conduct ; that we must never go against our director, but always live in obedience (Manual for Interior Souls, xlvii.).

In our prayer, says St. Nilus, we must not wish that our petitions should be answered in the way which seems good to us, but 'follow the good pleasure of God ; then thy prayer will ever be made in tranquillity and thanksgiving.'

This interior peace, then, which enables the soul to remain calm and tranquil, even when the lower part is moved by the passions, is founded in an entire renouncement of self, in detachment from creatures, in a care to moderate all interior movements and imaginations, in avoiding all solicitude and precipitation, and in an unbounded confidence in God. Interior as all this is, it will not be accomplished without attention to the exterior, and there is great virtue in seemingly small acts which tend to restrain natural tendencies to haste, excitement and so on.

Second, the director's work being to further the will of God in souls, he must, whilst making all due allowances for the state, circumstances, etc., of each, never allow any considerations of human prudence, calculation or compromise to obscure either the supernatural end which is to be sought, or the need of entire, courageous use of the necessary means. He must seek to inspire them with the desire of surrendering themselves entirely to our Lord, he must make them see the personal nature of religion, personal love, devotion and service for God in Jesus Christ; not a mere tame acquiescence in a moral code, but a burning enthusiasm for a Master, a passion of the lover for the beloved. For – strange as it may sound in our unsupernatural days and ways – the Christian religion is this, the joyous, heroic, magnificent thing the Saints have seen and lived, not the dull, cold, safe, respectable and comfortable travesty to which the English eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reduced it. Directors should steep themselves in the spirit of the Ignatian exercises, especially those of the Second Week, as well as in the lives and writings of the great spiritual directors, for that enthusiasm and passion may only be communicated by those who, at least in some small way, have experienced it for and in themselves.

Particularly should they respect and develop the early aspirations of the young. There has been, and there is, far too much 'throwing cold water' upon the fires kindled by the Holy Ghost in the hearts of children. A lack of supernatural vision in priests (and parents) is one of the main causes of the loss of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life as of the fact that so many churches are sparsely filled with the old and middle-aged, youth being conspicuously absent. The desire for God and special vocations normally manifests itself in early years, and needs watching and directing instead of, as is too common, being smiled at as childish dreams which the years will dispel, or, at the most, dismissed with the injunction to wait until one has grown up, seen the world, etc. It is not knowledge of the world, or the clouded vision of a later age, that is needed, but the knowledge of God and of Divine realities, more often 'revealed to babes' than to our dull, commonsense and utterly unsupernatural eyes.

At the same time, whilst welcoming and encouraging the generous desires of beginners, young or old, the director must see that these are exercised with discretion. In the first fervours of conversion, everything seems not only desirable but possible, and souls often lade themselves with a number of practices which tend to assume the nature of obligations and, sooner or later, become a drag upon the soul's progress. With the more or less uninstructed, it is always well to point out how few – and how stringent – are the actual obligations which the Church imposes upon her children, for people only too easily come to regard certain practices they take up – e.g. confraternity rules and prayers – as 'obligations' comparable with hearing Mass on Sunday or performing their Easter duties. The common desire, too, to immerse themselves in active works should be closely watched, for their chief concern at first must be with their own souls, their most necessary practices, prayer and mortification. If some active work seems to be desirable, it should be of as hard and as hidden a nature as possible. There are already too many unspiritual amateurs doing 'parochial work'; priests will be well advised to see that any work done for God and for souls can only be done by humble, obedient, loving, practising Christians, and to spend some of the time in producing such, being content to wait, seeing many things left undone, until he has trained souls who are in some degree capable of being the instruments of Divine grace. Third, to establish a true peace in souls and to nourish their good desires means that their prayer-life must be the director's first and continuous concern. Unless such are taught to pray, they are taught nothing. To inspire a soul with the true idea of prayer, to get it interested in its prayer, is the greatest thing we can do for it. The director, then, must inquire as to the knowledge of the end, value and practice of prayer possessed, the kind of prayer made, the particular difficulties encountered, the attraits and special devotions to which the soul is led, and, where necessary, he must choose for and direct the soul in such methods of prayer as seem most suitable.

Now nothing of this can be done unless the director is himself convinced of the necessity and value of prayer, and this will be in proportion to his own practice and experience of prayer. Study of the science of prayer, of methods, of the great guides in the paths of prayer, is most necessary, as necessary as it is wanting, but no degree of study alone will give that sense of conviction which is needed in order to be convincing. 'Without prayer, our work will be sterile, our words dry, our direction altogether unfruitful. Without prayer we shall never be able to support souls in their weaknesses. They have given themselves to us as those upon whom they may rest, but without prayer we shall but be the cause of their falls, since they will not find in us the power and light they need. Being of ourselves but darkness and weakness, it is only by the means of prayer (oraison) that we can be enlightened and made strong in Christ Jesus. All the faults which arise in the direction of souls come from the fact that directors do not apply themselves to the holy exercise of prayer' (M. Olier, op. cit., Art. i.).

The fourth point is the need of renunciation of self in every form. 'Fight self, and you need fear nothing else,' says St. Catherine of Genoa, and directors should constantly underline this. Too often directors are content with teaching the need of fighting temptation, with the result that souls carry on a long, weary warfare without ever attacking the real citadel of evil – the will. In the first seven chapters of The Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross ruthlessly exposes the ways in which self intrudes into and spoils the early stages of the spiritual life, and it is against this most dangerous enemy that the contra agere must be waged continuously. The state of a soul once known, at any rate in its broad outlines, the director will be able to advise how best the battle must be fought, and here his direction must be precise, definite and practical. All cannot be done at once, nor must he be in a hurry. The regular practice of the particular examen, in which one fault is taken at a time, resolved against on rising, and then taken as the subject of an examen at noon and again in the evening, is most valuable. One experienced director goes so far as to say that without it 'we shall be in twenty years what we are to-day, not one vice the less, not one virtue more.' The further suggestion which St. Ignatius makes – that a book ruled with two lines for each day of the week, on which are marked the results of the two examens, should be used – may be helpful to some, but is not advisable for all.

But behind this attack upon our faults must lie the constant daily, hourly abnegation and renunciation of self, practised, for most souls, in little ways and little things. 'Nothing is so opposed to spiritual advancement and to union with God than attachment to oneself, to one's own will, one's own mind, one's interests, one's goods. It is for that reason that our Saviour counsels us, 'If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself.' Renunciation and abnegation is a vast field of battle, where there is a long combat against many enemies; a combat much more important and difficult than that against exterior foes' (Père Ginhac, Lettre lix.).

A point very necessary to be emphasised is that all this takes time, 'we cannot be made saints in a day,' that all true progress is slow and almost imperceptible at the time. It is enough that a soul keep on in the right direction, steadily, with resolution and generosity, content to be fed by the Holy Spirit. We must not desire to see and understand our progress, but walk in faith and confidence. 'Leave yourself to Jesus Christ and to His holy leading in the spirit of faith, detached from all adherence to your feelings and impressions, without ever dwelling on that which passes within you. . . . We cannot see or know that natural and animal life we live in the body, and yet we often desire to see and know that spiritual and incomprehensible life which God lives by grace in our souls; all this must be avoided; we must not seek to know, by any interior experience, the movements of the life of grace in the soul' (Condren, Lettres ccxxxiv., ccxxxv.). To a Superioress of the Visitation order St. François de Sales writes, 'You go considering your steps too much, for fear of falling. You make too much reflection on the movements of your self-love, which are doubtless frequent, but which will never be dangerous so long as, tranquilly, not letting yourself be annoyed by their importunity nor alarmed by their number, you say no. Walk simply, do not desire repose of spirit too earnestly, and you will have the more of it' (Letters, Bk. III. xvi.).

Discouragement arising from slow progress or from failures should be seen as the greatest of evils in the spiritual life. John of Bonella, in his Pax Animæ, but echoes what every spiritual writer has said since Cassian: 'Take, then, this rule and method in all the falls you shall make, be they great or little; yes, though ten thousand times in the same day you shall have committed the same fault, and that not unwillingly, but voluntarily and deliberately; observe, I say, this advice: that as soon as you see your fault, instantly, without troubling or disquieting yourself, as soon as you realise what you have done, turn in humility and confidence towards God, beholding your own weakness, and, fixing your love upon Him, say with heart and mouth, " Lord, I have done that which is like what I am, nor can anything be expected at my hands but these and the like transgressions. . . . Pardon me for Thine own sake, and for what Thou art, and give me grace not to offend Thee again, but admit me once more to the favour of Thy friendship " . . . Note this well, it is the key to all spiritual advancement' (Pax Animæ, chap. xv.).

The truth is that sins do not hinder our spiritual progress so long as we do not remain in them for long. The true remedy for sin is not disquietude, but contrition, and the right way to treat our sins is to make an act of contrition, beg for grace and go on again as if nothing had happened. This is one of the most necessary lessons to be learnt.

' Be diligent and careful to set thy heart upon one thing, and that is naught else but a spiritual desire after God, how to please Him, love Him, know Him and see Him, and to enjoy this by grace here in a little feeling and in the bliss of Heaven in a full being. This desire - if thou keep it - will tell thee what is sin and what is not; and what thing is good and what better; and if thou wilt but fasten thy thoughts to this same desire, it shall teach thee all thou needest and it shall procure thee all thou wantest. Therefore, when thou risest against the ground of sin in general, or against the ground of any particular sin, hang fast upon this desire, and set the point of thy thoughts more upon God whom thou desirest than upon the sin which thou abhorrest; for, if thou do so, then God fighteth for thee and will destroy sin within thee. And thou shalt much sooner come to thy purpose if thou doest this, than if thou shouldst leave thy humble desire after God and set thy heart only against the striving of sin, as though thou wouldst destroy it by thine own mastering, but thou shalt never so bring it to pass' (Hilton, Scale of Perfection).

So from another age and land comes the same teaching: 'The Spouse . . . loves well their falls – not as falls – but because of what they practise, profound humility, abnegation, rectitude, stability and a simple and loving union with Him, and we must believe that He would not allow them to fall were it not for this. . . . The faithful soul, then, who desires uniquely to please Him, of giving Him that contentment so desired, will raise himself from those falls with the same love as if he had not fallen; and go on again as if nothing had happened' (Ven. Frère Jean de Saint-Samson, Vray Esprit du Carmel).

The director should never tend to rigorism. The Saints, ever hard upon themselves, were ever tender towards others. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Alphonsus, St. Paul of the Cross, noted for the severity of their austerities, had the greatest compassion for sinners, using all their efforts to comfort and encourage their penitents. In the Sommaire des Procès Apostoliques of the latter, one of the witnesses records that the Saint once said to him, 'It is necessary to hearten and encourage souls and to make them walk with confidence in God; without this they will never advance in the way of perfection,' and St. Paul's letters are full of such encouragement. 'Treat sinners with the greatest sweetness and tenderness, nothing of hardness or stiffness, make them feel the evil they have done, but without wounding them; never reprove with severity. Pray to God, have recourse to Mary, that they may touch the hearts of sinners. Do not teach a severe doctrine. I am not a theologian and ought not to speak of that. But I dare to assure you that severe principles are ruinous to souls. Follow St. Liguori boldly' (Libermann, Lettres, vol. iii. cclii.).

So also Mgr. Segur : 'Severity is never necessary; it is impossible to try and produce goodness except by kindness.' He held that rigour may be able to extort promises from souls, but it will never give them that love for God which, more powerful than fear, causes them to be kept. Our Lord does not wish souls to be fed by such means; we must overcome them by charity and patience and by leaving much to the Divine mercy. Segur, it is worth remembering, spoke from an experience gained in dealing with the lowest classes, numbers of whom were converted by his zeal during the terrible days of the revolution of 1848.

A later director, noted for his life of severe mortification and penance, Père Ginhac, S.J., says, 'Severe directors teach virtue rather than perfection. To acquire virtue, fear is useful, but to progress toward perfection, love is necessary. Fear makes servants, love the children of God' (Cagnac, Lettres Spirituelles en France, II. 262).

Of the most important questions concerning direction in prayer the following need attention :

(1) Beginners must be taught to see that mental prayer is but the first step, yet a first step upon which further advance depends. Only by discursive prayer will souls learn to pray well. Prayer is an art and a science, and the rules cannot be dispensed with until, by knowledge and use of them, we have passed beyond the need of them. Some method is then necessary both for the reasons already given and to train the soul how to pray. It will be noticed that of the methods given in Part II. each contains all the essential parts of prayer as well as employing all the various faculties of the soul. This is important, for just as where, for instance, creeds are abolished or made little of there soon emerges an over-emphasis on one doctrine and a minimising of another, so, without a method, there will be a tendency for prayer to become one-sided, e.g. as in the present day, in which prayer practically means intercession and petition.2

The question of 'what method' depends upon the particular conditions and circumstances of each soul, and a director should spare no pains to see that each one has the method most suitable for it in every way.

(2) The director must watch the progress made so as to be able to give aid when necessary; he must know his subject well, so as to be able to answer questions, often of the most unexpected kind. He will be careful not to confine himself to one guide or one school of spirituality, but know something of them all, so as to be able to deal with the diversity of souls who come to him. In no case is it truer, 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.'

(3) In directing persons living in the world, the question of the amount of time actually available for mental prayer has to be considered. There are often real difficulties here, though seldom any that cannot be met by a director who clearly sees the end to be sought. With the ordinary person in the world, we cannot go far wrong in demanding a minimum of fifteen minutes daily. Daily, I say, for it is absolutely necessary that a definite period of time should be prescribed, and that daily. Any general rule, as, for instance, 'two hours a week,' which one has heard of being advised by directors, is obviously useless, and always proves to be so. Even a quarter of an hour daily may mean real and persevering effort and sacrifice to many in these strenuous days, but directors must insist on sacrifice as an essential element of Christian practice. When there is lack of time, vocal prayers, intercessions, particular devotions and the like may give way to, or be merged in, mental prayer, the soul's intimate intercourse with its God. There will be, too, moments during the day when such matters can be attended to, if one is alert to seize them. Much should be made of the fact that those fifteen minutes with God at the beginning of each day set the scene in which the soul is to dwell during the hours which succeed, so that, however one may be immersed in the necessary activity of a busy life, one's 'conversation is in Heaven.' Those fifteen minutes, together with our other spiritual exercises, especially ejaculatory prayers and aspirations, serve toward that prayer 'without ceasing' which is nothing else but the retaining and keeping up of that attitude deliberately taken in our mental prayer. And nothing will be found more valuable than this for ensuring the guard of the senses, and that instant resistance to temptation which is so necessary. Clad in this armour, the soul may safely pass through busy distracting days, hearing without hearing, seeing without seeing, since its gaze and its attention are fixed on God.3

The method of prayer prescribed for such persons will necessarily be of the simplest, with but the barest time given to the exercise of the understanding. Let the essentials suffice; the Act of Faith and Adoration; a brief glance at the subject, sufficient to move the soul to acts of prayer; the general and particular resolution, as in the Liguorian method, and a thanksgiving. Priests and lay persons of some leisure should give at least half an hour daily to mental prayer. The more active a priest's life is, the more he needs resolutely to keep to his prayer. Every priest should possess, read and re-read, Dom Chautard's L'Âme de Tout Apostolat, in which are exposed with clarity and vigour the sterility, perils and ultimate failure of all work not rooted in and proceeding from an interior life of prayer.

(4) What knowledge does the soul possess? Has it any true conception of God, Jesus Christ, the end of man? Are its conceptions clear, or only vague and general? Is it capable of much use of the understanding?

These are some fundamental questions which, especially in these days, the director must ask. People are profoundly lacking in any true conception of God and of their relation to Him. The truth that He is all and man is nothing is almost unknown. St. Paul's 'ut simus in laudem gloriæ ejus nos,' re-echoed in the Church's 'per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso,' comes as a shock to them. There is need of insisting repeatedly on the facts that we need God, not that God needs us, that 'religion is adoration,' that 'man was created to praise, reverence and serve God,' for our servers, M.C.s and devout women are often ignorant of them.

As to the Incarnation, one may find every heresy ever propounded believed in by regular communicants. I have had to convince a religious that 'the Word was made flesh' did not mean 'God was changed into a man.' Errors concerning the Sacred Humanity, the union of the Divine and the human natures in one Person, of the inseparable nature of that union, etc., all of which are truths affecting the bases of the Christian life, are common. The Catholic faith as to the position of Mary in the economy of redemption, her relation to her Son, and, through Him, to us, is rarely understood. Even Bishops and priests are guilty of statements which a reading of the treatises De Deo and De Incarnatione would have rendered impossible.

With regard to the idea and practice of the Christian life, one meets with little better than a morality with pious additions. Great use needs to be made of the distinctive features of the Oratorian spirituality, deeply rooted as it is in Pauline and Johannine teaching. The conception of 'intercessions' as the main work of prayer should be eliminated. The fact is that intercession can only be made by souls in union with our Lord, and that, as a matter of experience, only after education in mental prayer is it possible to perceive one's particular attraits in this matter and really to begin to intercede in the real sense of the word. ' In My Name ' does not mean long lists of intercessions ending with a collect ' through Jesus Christ our Lord,' but 'in Me,' in My person, My mind, My will, My way.

Further, we must not forget, either in practice or teaching, that prayer will accomplish little without mortification. There must always be the element of sacrifice in our prayer. Is there not something of the truth of this in St. James's ' Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it upon your pleasures.' Prayer may become little more than a spiritual picnic, an ' amusing oneself,' as more than one writer terms it, and it will always be shallow in the proportion that it lacks that spirit of mortification which alone renders it worthy. St. Ignatius constantly insists upon mortification, true sign of generosity, as the base of all prayer. ' For a man truly mortified,' he said, ' a quarter of an hour is sufficient to unite himself to God in prayer.' Fr. Gonsales da Camara says of him, ' Whenever the father spoke of prayer he always supposed the passions subdued and mortified. Speaking to him of a good religious whom he knew, I said, " He is a man of great prayer." He corrected me, saying, " He is a man truly mortified " ' (Scripta de Sancto Ignatio, vol. i., p. 250).

(5) The question of the reading of spiritual books – and, indeed, of all reading – is so closely related to prayer that it cannot safely be neglected or ignored. It is not too much to say that, with necessary exceptions, the incessant reading of newspapers, ephemeral magazines and journals (even, or especially, ' religious ' ones) makes impossible any real life of prayer. Not only are so many of them absolutely worthless, both as to matter and form, so that the reading of them is the worst possible waste of time, but, being what they are, they tend to weaken the mind, distract the imagination and render any real application to things that matter more and more difficult. Modern civilisation presents hardly any more pitiable sight than the absorption displayed in the pages of the daily Press, an absorption which might be excusable if it pointed to – as normally it does not – an intelligent interest in matters of real moment. I do not claim that the practising Christian should confine his reading to ‘spiritual’ books or magazines, far from it, but that he should read books of worth, of permanent value, books which tend to form and inform the mind and to stimulate thought. For in all such reading, which may be as wide as life’s interests, the mind will gain material which will often become fruitful in prayer.

With regard to spiritual reading, one great function of which is to supply material for our prayer, Holy Scripture must be brought back to its rightful position. These ‘letters from our heavenly country,’ as one of the Fathers calls them, need to be rescued from the hands of critics and commentators and used once more for the purpose they were primarily given for. Direction should be given as to the reading of the Gospels, Psalter, such books as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, the Epistles, etc., without commentaries, ‘those parasitical glosses which hide the Word of the Master,’ difficult passages being passed over or referred to the director for explanation. For here, as nowhere else, will the soul ‘tasting and savouring the Divine Food’ – for, as à Kempis says, there are two tables in the house of God, not merely one – find that which will nourish the Divine life within him.

Then one spiritual book, suited to the soul’s needs, and kept continually at hand, as St. François de Sales kept the Spiritual Combat for fifteen years. For most people this book, the Introduction to a Devout Life of St. François de Sales, the Confessions of St. Augustine (not, perhaps, the most suitable for young people), the Imitation, Fr. Baker's Holy Wisdom (for the more educated in spiritual things), St. John Eudes's Reign of Jesus, and Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, will be found most useful, especially the first two. As a guide to prayer for ordinary folk, the Treatise of Prayer on Prayer and Meditation of St. Pedro of Alcantara is unsurpassed.

Modern books, with few exceptions, especially those purporting to deal with mystic states of prayer, should be avoided, and many earlier ones need reading with caution. Such works as the Exercises of St. Ignatius, which, as I have said, is not a book to be read indiscriminately, but one to be used by directors, and the Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich, should not be recommended, except at least in editions which supply the necessary guidance to the ordinary reader, or by directors who know enough theology to supply it.

Many persons are more helped by lives of the Saints and biographies of holy souls than by books dealing with the spiritual life in general. Unfortunately, not many such are well written, and too often they lay overmuch stress on the extraordinary graces manifested. But there is a growing number of really admirable books of this class which are worthy of being even more known than they are. Amongst them I would particularly note Maud Monahan's Life and Letters of Janet Stuart, perhaps the most fascinating and helpful book of its kind there is; Von Hügel's Selected Letters and Letters to a Niece – the former contains most of the letters reproduced in the latter, but not the introduction, which is well worth having; Rahilly's Life of Father Doyle; René Bazin's Charles de Foucauld; Father Martindale's Aloysius Gonzaga; Huvelin's Some Spiritual Guides of the Seventeenth Century; Alice Curtayne's St. Catherine of Siena; Ghéon's Secret of the Curé d'Ars; Mackay's Saints and Leaders; Chesterton's

St. Francis of Assisi; Fr. Burton's St. Francis de Sales.

Of recent books on the spiritual life there is nothing to equal the Abbot Marmion's Christ the Life of the Soul and Christ in His Mysteries. Exact theology, wide use of Holy Scripture and a deep devotion here combine to form real masterpieces of spiritual literature.

(6) Treatises on moral and ascetic theology alone are not sufficient for the director himself; he should make himself familiar with the teaching given by à Kempis (Imitation, Bk. III., chaps. liv. and lv.) on the movements of nature and grace, with St. Ignatius's Rules for the Discernment of Spirits and Rules for thinking with the Church, as well as the Annotations, Additions and other suggestions scattered throughout the Exercises; with the invaluable guidance given in Scupoli's Spiritual Combat, St. François de Sales's Devout Life and his letters, with Fr. Baker's Holy Wisdom, with the spiritual teaching of St. John of the Cross, especially in The Dark Night; with everything that St. Teresa wrote, especially the Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle; with St. Jane Frances de Chantal's writings; the Treatise on Meditation of St. Pedro of Alcantara; the Direction Spirituelle of Bérulle; the letters of Père Libermann, Surin (to be read with caution in the critical edition by Michel and Cavallera); the Doctrine Spirituelle of Père Lallemant, St. John Eudes, St. Vincent de Paul, M. Olier and St. Alphonsus. The asterisks denote that some of the author's works are procurable in English. Mgr. Cagnac's Les Lettres Spirituelles en France is a valuable introduction to all the great French directors, from St. François to Mgr. Hulst.

Among more modern authors may be noted, in English, Saudreau's Degrees of the Spiritual Life, perhaps the best introduction to the whole subject one could have; De Besse's The Science of Prayer and Light on Mount Carmel; Lehodey's The Ways of Mental Prayer, exceptionally good; Poulain's Graces of Interior Prayer, in which many valuable hints may be gained, even in the chapters dealing with the mystic states of prayer ; Fr. Morris's Instructions for Novices ; Tissot's The Interior Life ; Madame Bruyère's The Spiritual Life and Prayer ; a little book, Prayer and Intelligence, by Jacques Maritain, is a veritable treasure-house of thought and experience.

In French, the works of Père Desurmont, Redemptorist ; Letorneau, Sulpician ; Dom Chautard, Carmelite ; the Lettres de Direction of Père Ginhac ; Canon L. Beaudenom and other directors ; Père Grandmaison's La Religion Personelle ; Paulot's L'Esprit de Sagesse, and especially La Véritable Disciple by the Abbé Chevrier, invaluable for priests, may be mentioned from an abundance of spiritual literature which pours from the French press and a great part of which is intensely valuable. Such reviews, too, as La Vie Spirituelle, the Revue d'Ascétique et de Mystique, L'Ami du Clergé, the Nouvelle Revue Théologique are especially worthy of note.

In Italian, Confessione e Direzione, by Can. L. Boccardo, and in Spanish the third volume of P. Arintero's Evolution Mistica.

In order that the director should be able to guide souls when they come to the passage from ordinary mental prayer to affective prayer and contemplation, he should prepare himself by a careful study of the subject in such works as Saudreau's Degrees of the Spiritual Life, De Besse's Science of Prayer and Light on Mount Carmel, Lehodey's Ways of Mental Prayer, which are founded on and contain ample reference to the teaching of St. John of the Cross, who is the great authority in this matter, and to St. Teresa.

I have been asked whether children – the ordinary children of the Catechism – can be taught to practise mental prayer. Certainly, and they should be so taught ; a great deal of the failure of the Catechism method of St. Sulpice as adopted among us is due to the fact that whilst the dogmatic instruction has been all that could be desired, insufficient attention has been paid to the devotional side – the prayers, the homily and the teaching, public and private, of how to pray. The mere acceptance of dogma and the punctual fulfilling of obligations will never produce convinced, loving, humble souls. Nothing but prayer based on and proceeding from dogma will do this; the Faith must be translated into living experience; the Incarnation must not only be known, it must be lived.

Any priest who studies the methods will, no doubt, evolve his own way of teaching children how to make mental prayer, but the following suggestions may be useful. The true conception of prayer, the right idea of God, of what it means to be a creature, the need of adoration, of union with our Lord as the condition of prayer 'in My Name,' and so on, must be continuously inculcated, so that the child grows up in a supernatural atmosphere. It should be encouraged to pray in its own words, and, in using common forms of prayer, to do so slowly; children are quite capable of understanding and practising the prayer by beats and pauses of St. Ignatius. The less they use books the better, for they tend to constrain the free and individual action of the soul. (So also are questions for self-examination and confession to be avoided; they will be unnecessary if the priest take the trouble to instruct properly.) They should be taught to make short acts of prayer; to practise kneeling in silence before God, the meaning and value of intentions, especially of the Morning Offering; the practice of ejaculations and of offering their actions to God. All this helps to create an attitude of soul which will be receptive to higher things. A simple explanation of the meaning and object of mental prayer may be followed by a more scientific and precise description of a method, consisting of Preparation, Meditation, Conclusion, something as follows :

I. Preparation.

The Act of Adoration.

The Act of Humility.

The Prayer for Help.

II. Meditation.

' Picturing out ' of the subject by the memory and imagination. Subjects might be given out in Catechism or class. The right and wrong use of the imagination explained. The visualisation of a Mystery may be done in much the same way that we can recall some scene we have witnessed, seeing it ' with our mind's eye.' Children's imaginations are usually vivid, and there will be little difficulty in teaching them how to see the subject ' as present before their eyes,' and putting themselves into it as actors as well as spectators. So looking, considering what they see, they will be taught to enter into it and take part in it by prayers and resolutions.

III. Conclusion.

The general and the particular resolution ' just for to-day.' The offering of their meditation to our Lord. A brief thanksgiving in the form of a colloquy or intimate talk with our Lord or His Mother, etc.

With teaching something on these lines and an occasional ' How are you getting on with your prayer ? ' which will afford opportunity for more individual aid, it is quite possible to train children to make mental prayer. And the results are more than worth the necessary care involved.

Finally, the question as to whether knowledge or sanctity is most necessary in a director may be answered by saying that he will accomplish little unless he is seeking both. ' We must acquire virtue,' says Père

Lallemant, 'before we can do much for others. . . . We shall have fruit to our labours only in proportion to our union with God and our detachment from self,' for spiritual direction is 'an art and a science, not of mind, but of spirit; not of study, but of prayer; not of preaching, but of practice; not of contention, but of humility; not of speculation, but of love; of the love of Jesus, Who gives and abandons Himself, forgets and exhausts Himself for the salvation of souls,' (Bérulle, La Direction Spirituelle, chap. xi.). The Gospel must be lived before it can be preached or taught.

Finally, he whom God calls to direct souls must be prepared to experience in himself, not only many temptations, but in particular the severe trial of aridity in prayer and the suffering caused by the necessary exercise of pure faith unaided by consolation and that feeling of certitude which so buoys one up in the face of external difficulties. The apparent abandonment of the soul by God, at times accompanied by physical suffering, is one of the marked characteristics of the lives of the great directors of souls. They, more than others, dwell in the wilderness in silence, obscurity and suffering: of them Baron von Hügel's words are particularly true: 'In sufferings and dryness a more experienced soul can sustain the less. . . . All deepened life is deepened suffering, deepened dreariness, deepened joy. . . . Dulness, dreariness and loneliness. East winds always blowing: desolation, with certain lucid intervals and dim assurances' (Letters to a Niece, p. xv.).

It must be so, for he who would direct a single soul enters upon a work of God, a work only to be done by him who is willing to share the Passion of the Divine Director Whose instrument, Whose hand, Whose voice, Whose heart he is. 'Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.' Only then may be said, 'Docebo iniquos vias tuas, et impii ad te convertentur.'

' An instant of pure love is more precious in the sight of God and more profitable to the Church than all other good works put together, though it may seem as if nothing were done. . . . Let those men of zeal who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more pleasing to God - to say nothing of the example they would give - if they would spend at least one-half of their time in prayer, even though they may not have attained to unitive love. Certainly they would do more, and with less trouble, by one single good work than by a thousand; because of the merit of their prayer, and the spiritual strength which it supplies' (St. John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza xxviii., note.)

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Footnotes

  1. Such ignorance is not confined to our own time or country. Both St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross witness to it in their day, and similar criticisms of bad or inefficient directors might be quoted in later writers down to our own day. ↩

  2. The fundamental truth underlying the practice of intercessory prayer is that of the personal union and identification of the soul with Christ from which springs the desire to share in and advance His interests. 'If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you' (St. John xv. 7). 'For,' asks St. Augustine, 'abiding in Christ, how can they wish for anything but what befits Christ?' Our intercession is none other than that of our Lord: 'Who ever liveth to make intercession for us,' and, like His must be one primarily of life, not of words; an act or state of being, not a list of needs. Indeed, we can only rightly and fruitfully intercede when we have made some progress in the earlier stages of prayer, 'for we know not what to pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us . . . according to the will of God' (Romans viii. 26, 27). / The common idea that intercession is an elementary stage of prayer in which anyone may join is completely alien to that of the New Testament. Confronted with the many needs of the Church and of the world, the first impulse of to-day is to fly to intercession, public and private. The real remedy is the deepening of the soul's union with God, so that 'in My Name' may have its actual meaning 'in My Person.' God does not see less than we do, nor has He need of being told of what is lacking in the world, as teaches St. Augustine. 'Similiter et nos cum oramus, non Deum docemus, quasi nesciat quid velimus, et quo indigeamus: sed necesse habet rationalis creatura temporales causas ad aeternam veritatem referre, sive petendo quid erga se fiat, sive consulendo quid faciat' (De diligendo Deo, ed. Mauri, 1240), and St. Thomas, 'We need to pray to God, not in order to make known to Him our needs or desires, but that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God's help in these matters.' (Summa Theol. II. ii., Q. lxxxiii, A. 2, Obj. 1). What God does need, not from any necessity in Himself, but because He has so willed to act in human affairs, is instruments through whom He can act. Hence, before intercession must come the prayer which establishes the soul in union with God and so makes it an instrument of His Will. 'Prayer which is mainly occupied with a result to be obtained is comparatively powerless to obtain results' (Archbishop W. Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 40). Ever we must come back to 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God' and 'Delight thou in the Lord, and He shall give thee thy heart's desire.' ↩

  3. Spiritual writers all insist on the need of keeping exactly to the allotted time of prayer, especially when it is seemingly less fruitful. St. Ignatius bids us even lengthen it a little on such occasions. The often-felt difficulty of spending our time of prayer to advantage is greatly lessened by a punctual adherence to a method. Half an hour without a method may seem intolerably long; with one it passes rapidly. The same applies to thanksgiving after Communion, where it is often accentuated both by a natural and a spiritual fatigue. A good plan is to divide the quarter of an hour, say, of one's thanksgiving, into five three-minute acts, which may vary on different days. Thus, Sunday: Adoration; Thanksgiving; Oblation; Desire; Petition. Monday: Adoration; Gratitude; Humility; Imitation; Petition. And so on – the first and last acts being invariable and the other three according to one's own feelings and needs. The liturgical thanksgiving should not, of course, be omitted, but it is desirable that in the first moments after Communion we should not 'lose this golden opportunity,' as St. Teresa calls it, 'but remain in His company . . . for this hour is of the utmost value to your soul, and the good Jesus desires you to spend it with Him: take great care not to waste it' (Way, xxxiv.). ↩

Chapter 18 of 19