Meditation, Ejaculatory, and Continual Prayer. These are subjects of vast importance in the spiritual life, and we made at least an honest effort to treat them in a practical, succinct, and comprehensive manner. These Introductory Reflections form a distinctive feature of this book of prayer; they are calculated, by the help of divine grace, to instruct and enlighten the faithful with regard to the different kinds of prayer, so that from a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of the necessity, value, and efficacy of prayer, they may be led to a more perfect, a more practical, a more continual, a more fervent and fruitful use of this great gift by means of which we raise our souls to God, and enjoy a sweet communion with our heavenly Father.
Father de Ravignan, S.J., in one of his famous exhortations, says:
Believe me, my dear friends, believe an experience ripened by thirty years in the sacred ministry. I do here affirm that all deceptions, all spiritual deficiencies, all miseries, all falls, all faults, and even the most serious wanderings out of the right path, all proceed from this single source — a want of constancy in prayer. Live the life of prayer; learn to bring everything, to change everything into prayer — pains and trials and temptations of all kinds.
"Pray in the calm, pray in the storm.
"Pray on awaking, and pray during the daytime.
"Going and coming, pray.
" Tired out and distracted, pray.
" Whatsoever your repugnance may be, pray.
"Pray, that you may learn to pray. "' Teach us, O Lord, how to pray. '
"'But I can not pray.' That is heresy. Yes, you can always pray. If you feel a disgust, nay, a horror
