XI — MEDITATION

Presence of God. — Infuse into me, O Lord, a living spirit of piety, so that I may learn to converse with you with a child’s affection.

Meditation

1 — The doctrine of St. John of the Cross and of St. Teresa of Jesus offers us a method of meditation particularly suited to lead souls to intimacy with God and to prepare them for contemplation.

St. John of the Cross gives its tone: “the purpose of meditation and mental discourse on divine things is to draw from them some loving knowledge of God” (A. II, 14, 2). We see at once that the accent is not on the work of the intellect, on the “speculative knowledge” of God and of the truths of faith, but on “loving knowledge,” which certainly rests on thought, yet on an affectionate thought, permeated with love, springing from a loving heart. Whoever loves a person manages to know and intuit that person much better and with greater ease than one who perhaps studies more minutely but without love.

St. Teresa of Jesus speaks in the same sense and affirms that prayer consists “not in thinking much, but in loving much” (M. IV, 1, 7). Thought is always subordinate to love; evidently, in meditation one thinks, but one does not think in order to become more learned, but rather to place oneself in a position to love the Lord more. Therefore the work of the mind must serve above all to make us aware of God’s love for us by reflecting on its manifestations; and one can well say that there is no divine mystery or truth of faith that does not, in one way or another, speak to us of the Lord’s excessive charity. The more we are convinced of such love, the more we shall acquire a “loving knowledge” of God, and at the same time we shall feel ourselves ever more impelled to love in return Him who so greatly and first has loved us. Thus, spontaneously, meditation — that is, the discourse of the intellect — will introduce itself into the exercise of love. Therefore in our prayer we shall not give the principal place to reflections and reasoning, however sublime and elevated they may be, but we shall use these only insofar as necessary to awaken love in us, to place us in and keep us in the actual exercise of love.

2 — If in meditation we must not give thought the principal part, neither must we fall into the opposite excess, that is, neglecting the effort and application required. Here then is the conduct to be followed.

Before even reading the point of meditation, the soul will take great care to place itself well in God’s presence, seeking by a firm act of the will to put away every extraneous thought, every concern, every haste.

Since mental prayer consists in intimate converse with the Lord, it is clear that we shall not be able to converse intimately with Him if He is far from our mind and from our heart. It is true that God is always present to us, but we are not always present to Him; therefore it is necessary to make contact with the Lord, to place ourselves near Him, and this is done by becoming conscious of his presence. Each one can make this exercise in the way most easy for him: either by considering the Most Holy Trinity present in his heart, or Jesus present in the tabernacles of our churches, or by representing inwardly some particular mystery of the Savior’s life or Passion. And thus, in God’s presence, under his gaze, one will begin calmly to read the point of meditation and apply oneself to reflect on it with calm and gentleness, not so much as if reasoning with oneself, but much more as if speaking with the Lord in whose presence one stands. The more the soul grows accustomed to reflecting thus, almost discussing and developing with God the subject of its meditation, the more this will attain its purpose, which is precisely to help it converse with the Lord, to speak affectionately with Him as a child speaks with his father, as a friend converses with a friend. In all this application and effort are certainly needed, but these must be more oriented to keeping the soul in living contact with God than to fixing it in abstract and tightly reasoned argument. The thoughts drawn from meditation - to whose text the soul may return when it feels the need - will serve it to nourish this contact and to give it a subject of conversation with the Lord. In short, the work of the intellect must not make us forget that the essence of prayer consists in intimate converse with God, a converse in which, more than thinking, one must love.

Colloquy

“Teach me, O Lord, to meditate; teach me to pray, for I do not know how to do either one or the other as is fitting, and only from you can I learn it. Give me an ear to listen to you in reading and meditation; give me a tongue to speak to you in prayer. Pour into me your divine Spirit, that He may instruct me as to what I should reflect on, what I should say and ask, and in what way I should ask in order to obtain it. May the Holy Spirit teach me to groan in your presence; rather, may He Himself form in me those holy groanings that He always hears and never rejects. Inspire in me, O Lord, a great love for your truths and doctrines, so that, reading them, I may understand and savor them. Open my mind, open my heart, and make me faithful in believing what You teach me and in practicing what You command me” (From an ancient author).

But above all, O Lord, grant that meditation on your mysteries may serve to inflame me in your holy love, so that I may come from it more capable of loving you, more disposed to give myself generously to your service. Teach me then to meditate not only with the mind, but much more with the heart; teach me to consider with a devout and loving soul, and then meditation will add new sparks of love to the love of my heart and - as I hope from your grace - there will be born from it a flame ever stronger and more ardent, ever more capable of purifying my soul and of impelling me ardently to the fulfillment of your will. How happy I would be, O Lord, if, under the powerful and gentle breath of your Holy Spirit, this flame were to blaze into a fire of charity! My coldness, my pettiness make me unworthy and incapable of it, but You, who can raise up children of Abraham even from stones, have pity on my heart so hard and cold and awaken in it the living flame of your love.

“O eternal God, You are eternal and infinite goodness; no one can understand You nor savor You more than You give to be known. With our soul let us prepare the vessel of our soul to receive You. O sweetest love, I never loved you in all the course of my life... Yet my soul always desired you. The more it possesses You, the more it seeks You; and the more it desires You, the more it finds and savors You, O abyss of charity” (St. Catherine of Siena).