The true spouse of Jesus Christ/Chapter 15

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The true spouse of Jesus Christ (1888)
by Alphonsus Liguori

Chapter XV. Mental Prayer

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4264997The true spouse of Jesus Christ — Chapter XV. Mental Prayer1888Alphonsus Liguori

CHAPTER XV.

MENTAL PRAYER.

I.

Moral Necessity of Mental Prayer for Religious.

The life of a religious must be a life of prayer. It is difficult, or to speak more correctly, it is morally impossible for a religious, who is not a lover of mental prayer, to be a good religious. If you see a tepid religious, say that she does not make mental prayer and you will say the truth. The devil labors hard to make religious lose the love for meditation; and should he conquer them in this, he will gain all. St. Philip Neri used to say, "A religious without mental prayer is a religious without reason." I add: she is not a religious, but the corpse of a religious. Let us examine what makes mental prayer so necessary.

I. In the first place, without mental prayer a religious is without light. They, says St. Augustine, who keep their eyes shut, cannot see the way to their country. The eternal truths are all spiritual things that are seen, not with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the mind, that is, by reflection and consideration. Now, they who do not make mental prayer do not see these truths, nor do they see the importance of eternal salvation, and the means that they must adopt in order to obtain it. The loss of so many souls arises from the neglect of considering the great affair of our salvation, and what we must do in order to be saved. With desolation, says the prophet Jeremias, is all the land made desolate: 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, he will reflect on the remedies for them. By meditating on eternity, David was excited to the practice of virtue, and to sorrow and works of penance for his sins. I thought upon the days of old, and I had in my mind the eternal years, . . . and I was exercised, and I swept my spirit.^[9] The spouse in the Canticles said: The flowers have appeared in our land: the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.^[10] When the soul, like the solitary turtle, retires and recollects itself in meditation to converse with God, then the flowers, that is, good desires, appear; then comes the time of pruning, that is, the correction of faults that are discovered in mental prayer. "Consider," says St. Bernard, "that the time of pruning is at hand, if the time of meditation has gone before." For, says the saint in another place, meditation regulates the affections, directs the actions, and corrects defects.

II. Besides, without meditation there is not strength to resist the temptations of our enemies, and to practise the virtues of the Gospel. Meditation, says the Venerable Bartholomew of the Martyrs, is like fire with regard to iron, which when cold is hard, and can be wrought only with difficulty, but placed in the fire it becomes soft, and the workman gives it any form he wishes. To observe the divine precepts and counsels, it is necessary to have a tender heart — that is, a heart docile and prepared to receive the impressions of celestial inspirations, and ready to obey them. It was this that Solomon asked of God: Give, therefore, to thy servant an understanding heart.^[11] Sin has made our heart hard and indocile; for being altogether inclined to sensual pleasures, it resists, as the Apostle complained, the laws of the spirit. But I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind.^[12] But the soul is rendered docile and tender to the influence of grace that is communicated in mental prayer. By the contemplation of the divine goodness, the great love which God has borne him, and the immense benefits that God has bestowed upon him, man is inflamed with love, his heart is softened, and made obedient to the divine inspirations. But without mental prayer his heart will remain hard and restive and disobedient, and thus he shall be lost. A hard heart shall fare evil at the last.^[13] Hence, St. Bernard exhorted Pope Eugene never to omit meditation on account of external occupations. " I fear for you, O Eugene, lest the multitude of affairs (prayer and consideration being intermitted), may bring you to a hard heart, which abhors not itself, because it perceives not."

Some may imagine that the long time which devout souls give to prayer, and which they could spend in useful works, is unprofitable and lost time. But such persons know not that in mental prayer souls acquire strength to conquer enemies and to practise virtue. "From this leisure," says St. Bernard, "strength comes forth." Hence the Lord commanded that his spouse should not be disturbed. I adjure you . . . that you stir not up, nor awake my beloved till she please. He says, until she please: for the sleep or repose which the soul takes in mental prayer is perfectly voluntary, but is at the same time necessary for its spiritual life. He who does not sleep, has not strength to work, nor to walk, but goes tottering along the way. The soul that does not repose and require strength in meditation is not able to resist temptations, and totters on the road. In the life of the Venerable Sister Mary Crucified we read that while at prayer she heard a devil boasting that he had made a nun omit the common meditation, and that afterwards, because he continued to tempt her, she was in danger of consenting to mortal sin. The servant of God ran to the nun, and with the divine aid rescued her from the criminal suggestion. Behold the danger to which one who omits meditation exposes h soul! St. Teresa used to say that he who neglects mental prayer needs not a devil to carry him to hell, but that he brings himself there with his own hands. And the Abbot Diocles said that " the man who omits mental prayer soon becomes either a beast or a devil."

↑ "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.
↑ Ps. lxxvi. 6.
↑ Cant. ii. 12.
↑ 3 Kings. iii. 9.
↑ Rom. vii. 23.
↑ Rom. vii. 23.

[1] "Desolatione desolata est omnis terra, quia nullus est qui recogitet corde." - Jer. xii, 11.

[2] "Memorare novissima tua, et in aeternum non peccabis." - Ecclus. vii. 40.

[3] "Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini." - Ps. xxxiii. 6.

[4] "Sint lumbi vestri praecincti, et lucernae ardentes in manibus vestris." - Luke, xii. 35.

[5] "Oratio est lucerna."

[6] "Lucerna pedibus meis, verbum tuum." - Ps. cxviii. 105.

[7] Letter 8.

[8] "Seipsum non exhorret, quia nec sentit." - De Consid. I. 1, c. 2.

[9] Ps. lxxvi. 6.

[10] Cant. ii. 12.

[11] 3 Kings. iii. 9.

[12] Rom. vii. 23.

[13] Rom. vii. 23.

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