soul; kneel and make an act of faith and an act of adoration with all the intensity of your inmost being.
As to the remote preparation: Having read the subject of the meditation over night, reflect what fruit you may gather from it, considering the actual need of your soul. When in bed, dwell on no thought which might distract you from the subject of the meditation.
When you awake in the morning, after some appropriate ejaculatory prayers, and after offering to God your heart and your actions, banish every other thought; reflect before Whom you are about to appear, and try to excite in yourself some affection, analogous to the fruit which you desire to gather from the meditation.
The acts of faith and adoration need not occupy much time. They have for object to prepare you by devout recollection to commune with God. They form the immediate preparation, together with the preludes.
1st Prelude. — This is an exercise of the imagination which you can omit if you do not find it helpful. Picture to yourself some scene connected with the mystery which forms the subject of your meditation, i.e., form your composition of place.
2d Prelude. — Ask for a grace in keeping with the mystery on which you intend to meditate. Thus, if you have chosen the Passion of Our Lord, pray for a deep hatred of sin or perfect contrition.
II. The Meditation Proper.
Having called to mind very vividly, by acts of faith and adoration, that you are in the presence of God; having made your preparatory prayer; having formed your composition of place, if desirable, by means of the imagination, and having finished your preludes, you proceed to the meditation proper, namely, to the second part.
Here we consider the subject carefully and devoutly. If you have for subject some maxim of Our Lord, think
