late: because there is none that considereth in the heart. [1] On the other hand, the Lord says, that he who keeps before his eyes the truths of faith, that is, death, judgment, and the happy or unhappy eternity that awaits us, shall never fall into sin.[2] In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin. Draw near to God, says David, and you shall be enlightened. Come ye to him and be enlightened.[3] In another place our Saviour says: Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands.[4] These lamps are, according to St. Bonaventure, holy meditations;[5] for in prayer the Lord speaks to us, and enlightens, in order to show us the way of salvation. Thy word is a lamp to my feet.[6]
St. Bonaventure also says, that mental prayer is, as it were, a mirror, in which we see all the stains of the soul. In a letter to the Bishop of Osma, St. Teresa says: " Although it appears to us that we have no imperfections, still when God opens the eyes of the soul, as he usually does in prayer, our imperfections are then clearly seen."[7] He who does not make mental prayer does not even know his defects, and therefore, as St. Bernard says, he does not abhor them. He does not even know the dangers to which his eternal salvation is exposed, and therefore he does not even think of avoiding them.[8] But he that applies himself to meditation instantly sees his faults, and the dangers of perdition, and seeing them,
- ↑ "Desolatione desolata est omnis terra, quia nullus est qui recogitet corde." - Jer. xii, 11.
- ↑ "Memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis." - Ecclus. vii. 40.
- ↑ "Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini." - Ps. xxxiii. 6.
- ↑ "Sint lumbi vestri praecincti, et lucernae ardentes in manibus vestris." - Luke, xii. 35.
- ↑ "Oratio est lucerna."
- ↑ "Lucerna pedibus meis, verbum tuum." - Ps. cxviii. 105.
- ↑ Letter 8.
- ↑ "Seipsum non exhorret, quia nec sentit." - De Consid. I. 1, c. 2.
