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THE PRAYER OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD Dom Augustin Guillerand
PART III: The Prayer of Intimacy ->
PART IV: The Prayer of Praise ->
PART I: TRUE PRAYER 1 - Movement Towards Him Who Is ST. JOHN DAMASCENE's definition of prayer is well known. "Prayer," he says, "is asking God for what is fitting." We must probe this thought thoroughly, draw from the words their substance, separate its parts and, having done so, restore them to the deep life of this substance which sustains them and gives then life. This definition of prayer falls, then, into two parts which are, as it were, its matter and form. Prayer is an asking, but an asking of God, and consequently bears the impress of him to whom it is addressed. We can ask God only for what he wants us to ask of him, and he can will only what is conformable to his will. Now since God is one of the `terms' of prayer-that is, we pray to him-and since he is infinite Order, prayer is a request essentially "ordered," in other words consonant with the order of God himself. What is that order? It is what he is-Being himself: that Being from whom, by whom, and for whom all things are.(Cf. John 1.3 and Col. 1.16) He is our Beginning and our End.(Apoc. 1.8.) He is the light of our mind and the strength of our will. He is Truth, Goodness and Beauty unalloyed, the source of all joy and the ocean of all life. What is "fitting," therefore - what we must ask God for - is himself; to be united with him, to be transformed in him: to possess him and to be possessed by him. We should ask to enter, by grace, into such intimate relations with him as unite us to him; to become his sons by a communication as complete as possible of his Spirit of Love; to share in that joy and in that life which is his joy and his life: in short, to share in joy itself and Life itself. The Scriptures are full of this prayer, which is constantly bubbling up like water-springs on a high mountain. "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, says the Psalmist (Ps. 15.5) ... For what have I in heaven, and besides thee what do I desire upon earth ... Thou art the God of my heart, and my portion for ever."(Ps. 72, 25-6). In the case of the intelligent being, to possess is to see the object of one's love and to find one's complete happiness in it. What we see enters into us by an image, which makes the object present to us-we say expressly it 're-presents' it to us. This presence allows us to contemplate it, and that contemplation in turn engraves in us the features of what we see. Once engraved, these features are like a continual presence, which perpetually renews our joy. There is another kind of knowledge and presence which brings neither possession nor pleasure. The object is within us, but it is not part of ourselves. We do not make use of it, nor have we any desire to profit by it. We are content with the image, but we experience no conscious need for any immediate, direct contact with the reality it represents. We do not love that object, for it is not our `good'. We do not seek to be united with it, or to be transformed in it; we are content merely to know what it is and that it exists; but that knowledge awakens in us no desire for a more intimate union with it, or for mutual self-surrender. We rightly love what is "good," but that object does not seem to be our good. On the other hand, we recognize God as our supreme Good, and we long for the closest union with him, for the most complete possession and consequently for that clear, direct vision which brings joy-an intuitive vision, a direct contact with his Being giving himself, to which we respond by the total gift of ourself to his total gift of himself. This is what we ask for before everything else, and anything else we ask for is ordered towards this. It cannot be otherwise, because the one has always the end in view, the other only the means to that end. Our whole purpose is to arrive at that end. Now there are two kinds of means which lead to this desired union. The one clears the way of obstacles, the other puts us in touch with the object of our love. We pray to God to keep us from all that might separate us from him or delay our union; at the same time, we ask for what will bring about that union. It is vices and sins that separate, temptations that can hold us up. To obtain the mastery of them, therefore, should be the first object of our prayer, and we must not make light of this. Those who are proud or only (and more often) simple and inexperienced, content themselves with asking for union; many, indeed, try to live that union immediately. It does not occur to them that there is danger here. The enemy's blows, they say, cannot touch them. They consider themselves immune, whereas they are simply ignorant and blind. It would be an exaggeration to say that they are endangering their salvation, but they are very much exposed to mark time, and to become paralyzed. The first act of light is to be separated from darkness (Cf. Genesis 1.4: [God] divided the light from the darkness), and to light up all that it touches. It shines and is visible; it lights up the way and the end only in so far as it separates itself and the other objects from the night. When it emerges from the darkness and wrests a soul from it, the light reveals to that soul the love that has given it being and action. It is now that the Holy Spirit makes his power felt. He draws the soul to himself, and awakens a reciprocal movement toward union. He causes virtues to flourish in the soul, communicating his own dispositions to it, and becomes the hidden cause of all its activity. He prays in it, adores in it, utters cries of love, and pours himself forth in the most wonderful colloquies and unspeakable groanings (Romans 8.26), repeating unceasingly : "Abba, Father."(Romans 8.15 and Gal. 4.6). St. Augustine's definition of prayer suggests the same thought. "Prayer is a devout movement of the soul towards God," he says, thus putting into words what must have been most certainly his own form of prayer. In all movement there are two terms-the one from which we set out, the other towards which we tend. When we pray, one of the terms does not exist: it is `nothingness', or rather it is a being who exists solely by him towards whom it tends. To let our gaze, therefore, rest on this nothingness as on an end, is foolish. By not looking at ourselves we are, by that very fact continually moving in the direction of our true end, which is God, and our prayer is continuous and one which realizes our divine Master's command "to pray always." (Luke 18.1 and 21.38).
2 - Prayer the Duty of Every Moment PRAYER is the duty of every moment. 'We ought always to pray, said our Lord.(Luke 18.1) And what he said, he did: therein lay his great power. Action always accompanied his words, and corresponded with them. We must pray always in order to be on our guard (Matt. 26.41). Our life both of body and soul, our natural and supernatural life, is like a fragile flower. We live surrounded by enemies. Ever since man rejected the light that was meant to show him the way (John 1.5), everything has become for us an obstacle and a danger: we live in the shadow of death (Luke 1.79 and Ps. 106.10). Instead of pointing to the Creator and leading us to him, things show only themselves, with the result that we stop at them. The devil, to whom we stupidly gave them when we gave him ourselves, speaks to us through their many voices; his shadow darkens their transparence. Beyond their attractive forms we no longer seek the beauty they reflect, but merely the pleasure and satisfaction they are able to offer us. But the enemy is not only at our door, he is even more within us. And he is at our door, because he is within us. It is we who have invited him in. In turning towards him, we have turned the whole universe away from God. This is why the world is against us. It is inimical, hostile to us, and not without reason. Through the world and by it, we have let war loose within ourselves and in everything. This is only what one would expect, but it is terrible all the same. What a profound definition of peace is St. Augustine's! Above all, in these days, when the world is convulsed to its center (Translator's Note: These words were written during the second world War), when men and things (the latter through men) serve only to kill and destroy, how necessary it is to ponder well these words, the very sound of which is full of the calm they express: Peace is the tranquillity of order. Order means that everything is in its proper place. God made men superior to all things (Cf. Genesis 2.15), and all things turned to God as to their source, to receive from him their being moment by moment, and to thank him and bless him. That was the way God acted, and this is his order and his peace. It was this that fundamentally constituted the terrestrial Paradise, and will one day be the heavenly Paradise for those who have understood and taken up again this attitude (Genesis 3 passim). I remember seeing once a frightened and hunted animal that had lost its way. It rushed through an open gate that led into a garden full of flowers, with what disastrous results can be imagined. This is an image, though a very imperfect one, of a soul when it allows the wild beast of the world to enter into it, ever since our first parents turned away from God and listened to the voice of the Tempter. As a consequence, we live in a country occupied by the enemy, and it is our business to drive him out of it; to turn away from him and turn back to God, and so secure our liberty. And we have to do this without any armed or organized forces; with our faculties in disorder, our strength impaired, and surrounded by enemies on all sides or by those who are indifferent to out lot. No greater helplessness could be imagined, had we not God. And that is why prayer is so necessary, and why our Lord had to tell us so insistently to pray, and to pray always. Hence, too, his saying which can seem so overwhelming: "Without me, you can do nothing"(John 15.5), as well as his invitation so consoling and comforting: Come to me...(Matt. 11.28). Prayer is the soul's response to that invitation. It comes; it makes known its wretchedness, it pleads for help, for light for the mind and strength for the will. It asks for grace to bring its passions under the control of its higher will, and to submit that will to God, who is order and peace. And God says to the soul: "I am and always will be a Father: I love you and await your coming ... Come!" And the soul replies: "My God, I can do no more. Do you come to me."
THE reasons for praying are as numerous as they are imperative. They correspond to all our needs without exception, and to all occasions. They are also in accord with the favours we receive in answer to our prayers and to God's rights over his creatures. Our divine Master's word has explored and lighted up everything, our human world and God's world. He revealed the powerlessness of the first when he said: Without me, you can do nothing (John 15.5). We have read these words often enough, but without penetrating them. We no more understand the `nothing' than we do the `All'. The nature of our being does not allow us to understand it. We do not look at our tiny being as it actually is in the light of the `All'. We do not compare the hours of our life, so short and transient, with God's changeless eternity. We do not see the place we occupy in the universe as compared to his immensity, which infinitely overflows our tiny universe, and could embrace numberless others, far greater than ours. Above all, we forget that our being is not ours. Moment by moment we receive the tiny drop of being that God designs to give us. The only reason we have it is because he gives it to us; and having received it, immediately it begins to dissolve; it slips through our fingers and is replaced by another which escapes us with the same rapidity. All this being comes from God and returns to him; it depends upon him alone. We are like vessels into which he pours that being drop by drop, so as to create a bond of dependence upon him, whereby his Being is manifested and made known and, when lovingly welcomed, is glorified. Prayer is this intelligent vessel, which knows, loves, thanks and glorifies. It says, in effect: My God, the present moment and the light by which I am aware of it, comes from you. My mind, which appreciates it; the upward leaping of my heart which responds to that recognition and thanks you for it; the living bond created by this moment-all is from you. Everything comes from you. All that is within me, all that is not you; all created beings and their movements; my whole being and its activities all is from you. Without you nothing exists; apart from you is just nothingness; apart from your Being there is merely non- existence. How this complete dependence, upon which I have so often and so deeply meditated, ought to impress me! I feel that it plunges me into the depths of reality, into truth. Nevertheless, it does not completely express that reality. There was a time when this nothingness rose up in opposition to 'Him who is'. It wanted to be independent of him; it put itself forward, refused to obey him and cut itself off from him. It made war on him and became his enemy. It destroyed his image in the heart's citadel where hitherto he had reigned, and usurped his throne. These are only metaphors, and they do not do justice to the real horror of the plight created by sin; but we must be content with them, as they are all we have. We must remember, however, that they are completely inadequate. And every day we add to this predicament, already so grave. Every personal sin of ours is an acceptance of this state: we choose it, we love it and prefer it to union with God. We lap up, as it were, these sins like water. We take pleasure in plunging into them as into a stream, the waters of which rise persistently, and in time overwhelm us and carry us away. They toss us about like a straw, and submerge us. Thoughts, feelings, words, really bad acts and innumerable omissions fill our days and nights, and intermingle, more or less consciously, with our every movement, and at all hours. They spoil the purity of our ordinary actions such as eating and drinking; they introduce themselves into our sleep and mix with our waking movements, and with our external acts as with our most intimate thoughts. Because of our fallen state, everything becomes matter and occasion to drag us down further into evil.
THERE is in the soul of man a fire of concupiscence constantly burning, inherited from our first parents. It spreads its noxious heat to the soul's powers; it gives rise to sensuality in the flesh under a thousand varying forms; to error and illusion in the mind, so that we mistake what is not for the God who is. It causes us to seek as our good what in fact draws us away from it, while the will finds itself drawn to the transient pleasures offered us by our senses, leaving us powerless to follow its deeper urge to seek its true spiritual good. In the course of time, successive generations have greatly increased these tendencies, whilst our personal sins add to the burden daily. As a result, our whole being has been reduced to a state of disorder and anarchy, from which we continue to suffer so long as we retain any sense of order and discipline. We can unfortunately end up by becoming more or less accustomed to this state of affairs, and this is the worst misery of all. We walk on a downward and dangerous slope, and have done so ever since we were born. All our energies are inclined towards evil, and are drawn by it. Our mind is distorted and no longer faithfully reflects the truth. All too readily, ignorance, the love of falsehood and vain curiosities find a welcome in it. Our will is weakened and no longer takes command. Badly enlightened by the mind enticing it in wrong directions, and carried away by unchecked passions inflamed by external objects, at every moment it is mastered by servants who have ceased to obey, if they have not actually gone so far as to subject the will entirely to their caprices. What hope is there for us without help from on high, opposing its higher movement to this lower movement? We must pray, therefore, for this aid that we need so badly; f or the forgiveness of our sins, and f or that true contrition which blots them out. We must pray for the graces of expiation which offers all the reparation of which we are capable, and for that charity which gives us new life. We must have the courage to welcome that divine light which shows up our sins, more numerous than the sands of the shore, weighing us down with their load and crushing us like the suffocating air which presages a storm. Like the snows of an avalanche and the rocks they bring with them, our sins pile up one on the other, erecting a barrier between the soul and heaven, until we forget that there is a heaven at all! We must pray that we may realize all the horror of one single sin, and the great number of which we have been guilty. We must ask for that frightening light which reveals them all-the sins we have committed knowingly and those, far more numerous, which we have committed almost unconsciously, just as we take in the germs which fill the air we breathe.
THE saints and spiritual writers constantly return to this idea of the disorder within us, which is the consequence of sin, and they are right in doing so. Like them, I repeat: Life is not literature. Before we can assimilate anything, we have to turn it over in our minds again and again. To take in and to assimilate is a slow process. The mind has to concentrate on its object a long time, if it is to take on its form and live it. This object is a positive one: it is God, the ideal form and the perfect model. But it is also, on the other hand, all that is opposed to his pure image, and to his communication of life. God wants to transform us into sons of light, but he finds us children of darkness. He wants his Spirit, the Spirit of Love, who is the Gift of Self, to live in us, but he finds us possessed by another spirit which is the love of self. This negative element, which surrounds only after a struggle, must disappear. Life is a battle, a battle between God and the spirit of evil. When a soul ceases to fight, it may be counted as hopelessly lost. And a soul that does not pray is one that has given in without a struggle. It possesses a kind of peace, but it is the peace of an occupied territory, conquered by the invader and resigned to his domination. What we find blameworthy in spiritual writers is not that they insist on this too much, but that they do not insist on it enough. We are living in an age of knowledge rather than of understanding. Pure reasoning and memory hold the day. The whole object of so much of our writing is to satisfy these cravings, to provide men with ideas rather than to enrich their souls and deepen their lives. It is the fashion today to write popular works and articles in magazines for people living in the world. They must know everything, and be able to talk about the latest book or the most recent discovery. Men's minds are like those artificial floral displays we see on festive occasions. We arrange beautiful flowers, which we enjoy without having cultivated them. We do not even know their names and by the morrow we have forgotten all about them. With prayer it is not just a matter of having read and realized for the moment its necessity, its grandeur, the immense blessings it confers, its increasing comfort, the glory it gives to God and its mission to the world. We must return to these thoughts again and again; we must constantly reflect on them and live them. This is what the Holy Spirit does in the Scriptures, what the Church does in its offices, and the saints in their daily prayers and constant meditations. We must continually look for the essential Beauty behind the external beauty of things. We must turn from the weakness of our fallen nature to the strong tenderness of the Son of God, who became our Redeemer and is ever ready to receive us back into his favour. We must turn from the perpetual menace of the devil and of the world which hangs over us, to the unfailing help which is offered us by our Savior, whose great desire is to rescue us from their tyranny. Our principal danger is a spiritual one, the danger of losing our true life; all other dangers are directed towards this. They are the various ways in which each of us may be put to the test. We must pray, therefore, before all else, that God may live in us and we in him. We must pray that our trials may contribute to that divine life, which is the only true life and the only true good. We may ask that God will in his goodness preserve us from persecutions, injustices, calumnies, attacks of one kind and another on our interests and rights, illnesses of body and mind- but always subject to the designs of his love, which must be out chief rule in all we ask for. In his loving plan, God has foreseen that we must be tested, but he knows also that the patience with which we bear such trials in union with our divine Lord can prove an exceptionally rich and pure source of merit and of grace to expiate our sins. He knows that our natural and supernatural growth (the latter bringing the former within its scope) will in general be proportioned to such trials, and that the divine image, the reflection of the model of infinite Beauty, will shine resplendent in us as a result of these trials. In spite of myself, I return to these thoughts again and again; they do not exclude others, but they seem to me to embrace and assimilate them.
6 - Different Forms of True Prayer THERE is only one essential prayer-it is the movement drawing the soul upwards towards God, and the relationship which follows. As soon as the soul turns from the dark valley to the heights where there is light and gladness, it prays. It meets him who has never been absent and who is always turned toward the soul, his hands full of blessings, his heart overflowing with eternal love, and the relationship which is love and life begins. This relationship can assume very different forms, which vary according to persons, times, needs, with the varying circumstances of everyday life. There are times when we find comfort in the thought of God's greatness in general, or in some particular perfection of his. For instance, we invoke his love, his mercy, his goodness, his holiness and his truth. These perfections serve to raise us to the contemplation of those vast horizons where the God who is becomes ever greater in our eyes. We do well. God has only himself. He cannot resist such praise. We were made for that: to praise him eternally. Hearing on our lips this exiles' song of the Fatherland, he knows that we want him more than any created thing, and that we belong to him completely. The Scriptures are full of this prayer. "O my God, hear me" cries David, "for thou are all goodness and mercy."(Cf. Ps. 68.17: Hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is kind) And Daniel: "O Lord, hear (and) he appeased: hearken and do. Delay not for thy own sake." (Daniel 9.19). Often we turn to someone dear to the divine Majesty. Obviously our Lord's sacred humanity occupies the very first place, far above everyone and everything. In this respect the Litanies of the saints are wonderful. We first invoke God himself, then Jesus, his Mother, the great saints of our immense and loving family in Heaven. Then we recall the difficulties of the way and the dangers which threaten us and finally, gathering it all up in an immense and powerful finale, we recall the main details of all that our Redeemer has done for us in giving himself to us. We end on a note of supplication, on our own behalf and for others, for the souls in Purgatory as well as for those who are still on earth: We beseech thee, O Lord... The diversity of our requests also imparts to our prayer an infinite variety of shades. We can ask for the absolute Good which is God himself, and for the eventual possession of this supreme good. We can ask for the means that lead us to him. Among these means, some are directly and essentially directed to that end, others less so. Our prayer varies according to these objects. There is the prayer which consists solely of praise and adoration; another restricts itself to thanksgiving. But all are essential prayer, for they raise us up to God. And although in some cases we may not make our request explicitly, it is none the less hidden under the words, and even in the intention. Those who praise the divine greatness, those who thank him for favors received, know (although they may not advert to it explicitly) that at his feet we are always souls in need, and that his goodness cannot fail to be moved at the sight of our indigence. Often we collect together in one formula all the different kinds of prayer. In a word or two, we adore or thank, we ask for pardon and help, and approach the Father in the steps of the Son, in the arms of Mary, in union with all the company of heaven. I cannot think of anything that could be dearer to the God of Love or make a greater appeal to his love. In the Gospels there are many forms of prayer ideal for all circumstances. The most beautiful, needless to say, is our Lady's "They have no wine"(John 2.3). The request itself is lost in the perfect act of trust. Mary is so sure of being heard. She feels that it would wound her son's tenderness by asking directly for the wine. Jesus' love for her, his unfailing thoughtfulness for others, leave no doubt in her mind as to the answer. She speaks, and then waits, as all mothers do. And she invites us to do the same: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."(John 2.5). And so do those two beloved of Jesus whom the Gospel calls Martha and Mary, at the bedside of Lazarus their brother. They know that Jesus loves them, and so they ask for nothing. They simply say: "Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick."(John 11.3) There is no actual request, no word of their grief. They say, in effect: `You love ... and someone is suffering'. In that home, so united, the brother's sickness is their sickness, and they have not the slightest doubt that their common grief will find an echo in the heart of their Friend.
PRAYER should be continuous (Cf. Luke 21.36: Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times). It is the soul breathing. Just as we have to breathe continuously, so we must pray continuously. Prayer is the deep interior movement of which we are barely conscious. To become aware of it, so far as we can, is indeed a great grace. To live, conscious of this movement and of him who is both its source and term, is the greatest of all graces; indeed, it is heaven on earth. On to this deep movement, the continuity of which is unhappily perceived by so few, should be grafted special prayers: that is, those that are more conscious and willed. It is these we properly call "prayers," and which call for fixed times. The times for these prayers in the case of priests and religious are so precise that they are called `Hours' - that is to say, certain prayers are attached to certain hours during the day and night. They are so determined that the whole day is, as it were, one continuous prayer. The repetition of these prayers turns our vacillating mind, so easily and so often distracted, back to God. Just when our mind could be caught up by some superficial thing, the time for the Divine Office comes round, and our mind is called away from the pressing vanities that might have occupied it, and plunged again in God. The ordinary Christian is not held by so strict a tie. Regular hours for prayer, filling the day and canalizing everything toward God, is not for him a duty and a daily task. But what for him is not an obligation he may, of course, do out of love. I say out of love, but it is a love which is in his own interest. But even for him, there are fixed times when he ought to recollect himself and renew the divine contact. "In the morning, says the Psalmist, thou shalt hear my voice ... in the morning I will stand before thee (Ps. 5, 4-5) And the prophet Isaias: "In the morning early, i will watch to thee (Isaias 26.9); as if, for him, there could be no other awakening than this, and all time not so occupied was but night and sleep. Still more relevant is that other word of the son of Sirach, falling gently and spreading like dew: "[The wise man] will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and he will pray in the sight o f the Most High.(Ecclus. 39.6) Sleep brings renewal-that is what the word `rest' or repose implies. It revives us, provided we put entirely out of our mind everything that has disturbed us during the day. If on the other hand we pursue in our dreams the things that have attracted us during our waking hours, our sleep only wearies us still further, instead of bringing us rest. Night is thus like a new creation: it relaxes the limbs, gives assurance to the mind, renews the soul and restores our whole being. These hours of repose are hours of unconsciousness. We do not live this deep, restorative contact with our Source; the soul does not perceive him. It wants this contact, and indeed achieves it, but it is not conscious of it. During these hours of sleep, it does not offer to God, who is still its All, the homage of the whole being for which it is responsible. There is a kind of break in the divine intercourse, for although the soul holds the first place in our being, it does not constitute, as we must recognize, our all. When the body awakens in the morning, and the soul becomes again conscious of this "whole," it resumes command and becomes once more the link and interpreter of the created world, thus renewing its conscious contact with the Creator. That is why in the Psalms at Lauds, we invite the whole of creation to take up again its interrupted praise: All ye works o f the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever (Daniel 3.57). Thus sings the soul to all creation, which it salutes anew. These are images of him whom the soul loves, and all creation responds as with one voice: "We are, because he is; we are, because he gives us being, and we are what he gives us to be." During the night, these voices continue their praise, but the body, which is the link between the soul and creation and conveys these harmonies to the soul, is asleep. But once awake, those voices beat loudly but calmly at the gate of the body's senses; the soul hears them again, and the great hymn of praise - if man takes his place in it - is resumed. Yet how many do take their place in this mighty hymn; how many are conscious of their role in it, and execute it with love? How many, having rested and having awakened refreshed, put themselves once more in communion with this immense reservoir of energies that God offers them-physical energies of renewed light, so rich even in corporal resources; energies of the air refreshed and purified; energies of the vegetation which has renewed this air, carrying away all the unwholesome things accumulated by animal breathing; above all, spiritual energies. The very language of creation seems something new; everything comes to life, everything speaks, invites, pleads to make contact, to be admired and interpreted. Between this renewed world and the rested man a harmony, a perfect understanding, is created, which becomes a fullness when united to the Source from whom it proceeds. It is prayer that achieves this union, and completes the body's rest. It is the prelude to the day's movement, and is its preparation. Mankind dies through not understanding this. Thus plunged anew in God, who is in that creation to which he has given himself, man can take up again his daily toil. In this he is not alone. He leans upon Him who is: he draws from him both light and strength. Beyond what he does, he sees him for whom and by whom he acts, and is united with him in his task. His every act takes on an immense importance, outstrips the brief moment in which it is done, and is engraved in eternal duration. A day is no longer just a day, it is a preparation and already a participation in eternity. Upon these heights, men can face the difficulties of this quickly passing life. He is not crushed by the testing time, nor frightened by temptation. When these things come he renews, with one elevation of his soul, with one bound as it were toward God, his contact with the source of life, and resists the temptation. To obtain such a consummation, prayer must really be prayer: that is, a raising of the mind and heart to God, a turning away from all created and human attractions.
THIS is a difficult subject to write about, because it is so vast. And yet I must say something about it, because it reflects God's glory so much. History is full of the answers to prayer. All the saints of the Old and New Testaments were great supplicants. Their lives were a continuous colloquy with God. He entered into everything, and they sought his assistance in all their needs. And God, they said repeatedly, always heard them. The movement of their souls toward him, whether to ask for grace or to thank him for it; whether to beg for the forgiveness of their sins or to praise the greatness of this best of Fathers, so real to them and so solicitous for their good - this is invariably the theme running through the Scriptures, or at least the predominant one. The Psalms are full of the same idea. It runs through them like an incredibly rich and abundant sap, the sap of true life, simple yet strong, and expressive of all that is deepest in us. It is a theme we can repeat endlessly and, like all love's expressions, it never tires. It would seem to possess eternal youth and freshness and, ever new, grows with repetition ever greater and more splendid. At times, it seems to us as though God departs from the order he has established, when he hears the voices of his friends begging him to do so. This order is beautiful indeed. The divine perfections are reflected in lines we can barely discern, but which we are never tired of admiring. Dearly would I love to follow up this thought, but I would not know where to stop! Let the following suffice. ... Springs gush forth from rocks in the desert (Numbers 20.11); the waters of the sea of rivers divide to allow a vast concourse of people to pass over (Exodus 14.21; Heb. 11.29 and Josue 3.16). The walls of cities fall down (Josue 6.20 and Heb. 11.30), enemies are put to flight (Cf. Levit. 26.8), and manna descends daily from heaven (Exodus 16.15). The sick are healed, the lame walk (Matt. 8.16)," and the dead are raised to life (Luke 8, 54-5). Hardened sinners are touched by grace, while the minds of men are elevated so that they perceive beyond them perspectives of light by which they almost seem to enter into the very truth of God. Wills are strengthened, and at once take control of passions till then unleashed. Divine Love comes so near to souls that he seems almost to consume them, and to transform them into his own likeness (Cf. Deut. 4.24). Such and even more wonderful things which can only be revealed to my dazed sight by the light from beyond - this is what prayer can do. This is what it has done and is continually doing. In face of all this, I can only remain silent. When discussing these things it is easy enough to find words and phrases in which to express the movement of the mind when concerned with the things of God. But when it is a question of making known God's action to the world, above all to the world of souls, mere human language is altogether inadequate to describe the reality. We must either give up the attempt or return to the unfailing simplicity of what the Holy Spirit tells us in the sacred Scriptures.
WHEN praying to God, we can only ask for God, since he is everything, and in giving himself he gives us all. In asking for himself, we ask for all. When we possess him, we can wish and ask for nothing more. Once we grasp this truth, there is no point in writing or saying anything; we are content simply to pray, and even then we would ask for nothing. The whole of the first part of the Our Father keeps us on these silent heights. That is all we see there, for God is both the source and the object of our asking. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.... (Matt. 6, 9-10). What more can we ask? We could even do without the words, content with the interior movement of the soul which says all in silence. Or we can think of the words and develop them. This is what so many profitable prayers do in fact, both in public and in private, according to the temperaments of different people. In so far as they remain on this essential level of God's glory, the coming of his kingdom and the fulfillment of his will, they are good. The actual words or thoughts with which we clothe them matters little. When one loves, one is conscious only of love. Now God is our Father: that is to say, he is all love. Holy Scripture is never tired of telling us that he knows perfectly well what is good for us. We cannot do better, therefore, than leave all to him. We may nevertheless make known our needs and express our wishes to him, on this indispensable condition of our submission to his loving will. This is what our Lord would have us learn from the second part of the Pater Noster. This is what the innumerable and beautiful prayers of the Church, the collects of the Mass and the prayers of the Divine Office, teach us. For they all come from the Holy Spirit who has inspired them. The first question to be considered is what order we should follow in our prayers. This has been decided in principle long ago. The order to follow is God's order. We must ask for all that may contribute (and in the measure in which it will contribute) to his glory, and the advancement of his kingdom. That is why the first and essential object and the one we must never lose sight of, is our eternal salvation and our union with God. This is the end of all prayer and of every movement of the soul-to praise God, to be united with him, to be transformed into his likeness for ever; to become for ever his image and his child. This end necessitates certain means which lead to it. We cannot ask for our salvation without asking for virtues and grace. Grace is divine life in the soul, the virtues are the means through which grace is effective. Grace is given to us in the form of a seed, and we are, as it were, newly-born children. In us, as in a child just born, is the seed of all subsequent development of life, and this seed is given to us in baptism. As yet the developments have not taken place, but they are there just as the stem, the branches, the leaves and the blossoms are in the seed cast into the ground. We cannot, therefore, reasonably ask for union with God without asking also for these developments, which will go to the making of the desired union. To do otherwise would be to prevent ourselves growing in him (Cf. Eph. 4.15: "But, doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the bead, even Christ"), or to want grace to remain an undeveloped seed in the depths of our soul. So far all is clear, and the object of our prayer is obvious. But there are certain things which may or may not serve to bring us closer to God: we do not know. It is the same with what we call natural evil. I have gold in my keeping. I can use it for the glory of God and the good of my soul, or the precise opposite. An illness can help to sanctify me, provided I bear it with patience and for the love of our heavenly Father, since he permits it. Or I can accept it, but in a spirit of rebellion and hating God for sending it. In view of all this, what attitude must I adopt when I pray? I must wait quietly in a spirit of confiding trust, without wasting any time in reasoning on vain suppositions, but rest in the great reality. That great reality is this: God is good, and he is love. He wants only my happiness, and I entrust to him the care of obtaining it for me. It is the same even with supernatural values. A very young child-what does it do? It nestles against his father's heart, happy in his love. It just stays there, content to wait. This quiet expectancy is not a passive indifference; it is an unwavering trust, which is the form desire takes. Only the desire must be there always, and it must be the real source of the repose; otherwise this repose would be mere idleness. As a rule, the Holy Spirit who inspires our prayers, tells us to make them more explicit. There are advantages in this. The thought of the supernatural happiness awaiting us, of how enviable it is, stimulates the desire, which must always be ardent yet always remaining calm. All the saints possessed ardent desires. Ardor, however, is not the same as violence. What we should keep before our minds is the wonderful power of grace and virtue; of what grace is accomplishing in our souls; of the eternal salvation which is our goal, of the glory it will give to God and the boundless happiness in store for us. To contemplate long these truths is one of the highest forms of prayer that we can have in this life, and it will pass one day easily into the vision of God in the life to come.
THERE are certain exterior aids which help the soul to rise above itself and above things, in its ascent toward the sacred heights. One's physical posture is one which can be of considerable assistance. The reason for this is the close link between the soul and the body. We are all familiar with the joined hands, the outstretched arms and the eyes raised to heaven. Moses, during the fierce battle between his people and the Amaleckites, remained with his hands outstretched. As he grew weary, Aaron and Hur supported them rather than he should abandon this gesture of supplication (Exodus 17, 11-12). When our Lord came to the tomb where lay the body of Lazarus, intending to raise him up to life, he lifted up his eyes to heaven but remained standing (John 11.12). During his agony he knelt and then prostrated himself (Mark 14.35 and Luke 22.41). He came as close as possible to that earth to which he had descended, in order to raise it up with him above its nature, and to take it with him to his Father. All these different variants show us how necessary it is to be always ready to adopt the attitude the Holy Spirit suggests to us, and not feel constrained to assume any particular posture unless it is clearly indicated. There are other aids that are interior and more spiritual. They are of two kinds, or rather they come from two different sources. One source is within us. The sight of our misery gives birth in us to the desire to be delivered from it, and to call upon him from whom alone can come this aid. If the thought of our helplessness, which is continually asserting itself by repeated falls, becomes permanent, prayer becomes little by little the habitual movement of the soul, and gradually we approach the idea proposed by our Lord, when he said: "We ought always to pray, and not to faint (Luke 18.1). Thus we lift ourselves above the short moment of this fleeting life, and enter God's eternal duration. The thought of ourselves causes us to go out of ourselves and lose ourselves in God. Other motives we find outside ourselves. The most important of these is the need to glorify God. Indeed, one can say not only that it is the principal source, but that it is the only source, for all others come back to it. Such is the thought of the divine Master who came to teach us how to pray; who gave us the perfect model and whose whole life was a prayer-a prayer, however, which was not a raising of the mind and heart, since he never left the summit where God dwells. It is equally profitable to have recourse to those who have closely imitated this perfect model, such as St. John the solitary of Patmos, or St. Mary Magdalen in her wild grotto. To think of such as these strongly encourages us to follow their example. In asking their aid, we feel certain that it will be given at once, and that their hands uplifted to God on our behalf, are also outstretched towards us to support and raise us up. Indeed, the whole of the heavenly court is ready to assist the faltering steps of God's children.
MUCH has been written on this subject, and very fine things too. At first sight, their diversity places us rather at a disadvantage. Writers speak of two wings, because that would seem to be required by the comparison. But they differ widely when it comes to describing them. For St. John Chrysostom it is alms- giving and fasting; for Hugh of St. Victor it is the thought of our weakness and of the divine mercy. For others it is compunction and tears; for others again, trust and obedience, justice and humility. All of them are right; these are all divine energies which come to our aid and lead us to God. Alms-giving, the giving of what we possess and of our love f or these possessions, to such as are in need, is a divine resemblance, which gives us a strong claim on divine Love himself, whose greatest desire is precisely union in resemblance. God gives to those who give, and in the measure in which they give. This is what our Lord so often emphasized in short and striking phrases: "Give and it shall be given to you"(Luke 6.38). Every act of kindness is yet another feather in the wings of prayer, which makes them all the stronger. Fasting is an alms given directly to God. It is for his sake that we fast. It is in order that we may become more strongly attached to him that we deprive ourselves of that food which comes from him, and of which we can only partake for his sake. To offer him the sacrifice of what is not absolutely indispensable for our physical well being is thus to raise ourselves from our level to his. This is itself a prayer: it raises us up to his level, to his presence, and is the prelude to many intimate colloquies of the highest form of prayer. The thought of our own misery, and of the unfathomable divine mercy, also lifts us up to the same heights. They are, as it were, two oceans spreading beyond the narrowness of our individual selves and meeting in the infinite. For we can see our nothingness only in the light of the divine greatness. Otherwise we see only a very superficial part of it, and this is more than we can bear. In the light of this immense love which stoops down to it in order to raise it up and enfold it with his greatness, our misery becomes the greatest of realities. That reality opens to the soul horizons of love, where he who is the Truth and the Life awaits us, and says to the soul: "Come and stay here for ever." The source of all true prayer is there. To admit our misery is to be truly humble, with that humility which has its roots in love and is nourished and perfected by it-that humility which says: "I am nothing, God is all; yet he offers himself to me, and in him I possess all things." The act of believing in God's mercy is an act of Justice (which is rendering to others what is due to them). That act of faith is due to God. He loves to give himself to our nothingness, even if that nothingness has offended him. And so all these ideas meet in a point. One or other is put forward by various writers, according to the insights given them by the Holy Spirit. For it is he who directs their secret thoughts (Cf. John 3.8: 'The Spirit breatheth where he will'). Thus all souls, the diversity of which is known to the same Spirit, come there to drink the water they need.
PART II: PRAYER SET FREE THE soul that prays raises itself up to God, stands in his presence and speaks to him-a raising up and holy converse: otherwise it is not prayer. Arrived at these heights, the soul speaks. The very movement which accomplishes this is already a kind of speech: it is an answer to God's love and is, as it were, the whisperings of that love in us. The Spirit, Love himself, inspires, raises and bears upward the soul, drawn by these heights. There follows a weaning from all earthy things which is simplicity. The soul is henceforth indifferent to everything except this one infinitely pure object. It leaves everything, is indifferent to everything, for the sake of this object. It wills to be united with him, to enter into intimate relations with him that will be unfettered; to be alone with him alone. The soul is purified by this detachment -- here is a thought of inexhaustible depth. The soul is a mirror -- a living mirror, which gives itself to things and is united to them, causing them to enter into itself. Inferior to the soul, these external objects drag it down and spoil its purity, like a speck of dust on a spotless garment. The soul is made for God. He alone is great enough and noble enough for it. Everything else strains and belittles it, and drags it down to a lower level. The soul is no longer in God's presence, and any kind of intimate relationship is impossible. If the soul speaks to God, it is from afar, like people who do not as yet know one another, and remain at a distance.
THERE is a very simple way to attain to this divine height. It is perfect submission to all that God wills. Distances disappear, and true union results. When the soul wishes only what the loved one wills, there is perfect union, and prayer becomes the soul's very life. Everything becomes prayer, and the soul prays always. This is probably the meaning of our Lord's counsel: We ought always to pray. It is certainly the simplest and surest way to do so. This union of wills makes for conformity: the human will becomes identified with the divine will. It is always one with God's will, and therefore always as pure as God himself. In the midst of complications it remains simple, for we no longer want either the many things in which we are involved or the works we do, but simply him who wills the things and asks these acts of us. Unity, purity, simplicity -- if we probe beneath the surface of the multiplicity of these expressions, we always find again the unique reality which expresses itself in these different ways, and which through them leads us to 'Him who is'. And that reality is Love's Breath, who comes from him and returns to him. It is the Spirit of Love praying in the soul who, in order that it may pray, makes the soul submissive, pure, simple, adoring and loving; and makes it pray in order that it may become so more and more.
LOVE and fear are not opposed to one another. Fear is born of love and protects and develops it. When we love we fear: we fear to lose the one we love; we fear to displease him, to see him go away; we fear to see his love grow less. Fear is the measure of love, which in turn is proportioned to fear. They act in consort and produce the balanced harmony of our relations with the august Majesty, who is infinite compassion. Before the greatness that offers itself we feel small and unworthy. We forget the wonder of the perfection which would overwhelm us with dismay, before the compassionate goodness which invites us to take refuge in its outstretched arms. The one safeguards us from carelessness and want of respect, the other draws us and gives us confidence. And our prayer finds, without any effort under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the happy balance between dismay and presumption. A want of reverence in prayer is by no means rare. It paralyses the majority of souls. It is what wounds God's relations with his children; the idea of a Father is spoiled. He is a companion, a friend, a confidant whom we treat as an equal. A father is altogether different. He is someone from whom we receive everything; to whom we give only what he gives to us. In his presence a child remains, and must remain, one who comes from him, and can act only by his power. The father is the source, the author, without whom the child is nothing and can do nothing. The child depends on him for everything and in everything, and lives in a state of complete and constant submission to him. Love changes nothing of this: it tempers the submission with a confiding love, but it does not do away with it or diminish it in any way. How the angels and truly devout souls realize this! For them, God remains God. They surround his throne and an invincible power binds them to him, draws them and holds them, forcing them to lose themselves in the abyss of his love, which is his very being. It evokes from them hymns of praise, of ardent adoration. But that same power makes them prostrate themselves before him, veiling their faces (1). It causes a tremour to pass through their whole being, which is never one of dismay but remains always one of deep respect. Yet for his earthly children God is a judge, a Father whom we have aggrieved. The soul that prays can never forget this. The divine face is truth and life. The soul has turned away from it, preferring untruth and death. And God has received the soul back and has effaced its sins; but the tendencies and the potentialities remain, reminding the soul of what it has done and can do again. These sins have left their mark on the face of the man of sorrows-deep marks caused by suffering, the price of the soul's sins, recalling Love's pursuit in the steps of the soul's wanderings. For love of the soul Love had to become Mercy - a Love ever bent towards the soul's misery, in order to lift it up. And the soul has evaded the embrace of the open arms. Under whatever form the soul pictures divine Love, God always remains the most misunderstood and the most repulsed of beings. So when we pray, we must stand in his presence, on his level. We must see his suffering in the same way that we see his greatness, and as we picture his compassion. But we must also remember that that suffering, that greatness and that compassion will one day judge us. We shall be weighed in the balance by them; and if we are found wanting in any way, we shall hear the words: "Depart from me...."(2) "Go elsewhere; go to those who refused to be my friends." (1) Cf. Isaias 6.2.
THESE thoughts, born of love, draw us towards him to whom they are directed, and this we call attention. An attentive soul is a soul powerfully drawn towards the object that attracts it. A careless soul is one that allows itself to be drawn by other objects. Attention depends upon the importance we attach to the object which beckons us, and on the degree of attraction it exercises. If we know it as something important and beautiful, as something good and powerful; if we know that it is without flaw and rich enough to satisfy all our desires, then our attention becomes very great. Attention to God is rare, because very few really know him. Sin has drawn us away from him. We live surrounded by created things; their images fill our minds; they grip us and make attention to God difficult. We have to turn round again-that is what the word "conversion" means. There are many degrees in conversion. Only the saints are truly converted; they alone have "turned round" completely. This complete turning round means that henceforth we only want to attend to God. Gradually, with the help of grace and after many attempts more or less prolonged, we fix our attention on him. The daily-and often more than daily-repetition of the same acts and of the same formulas, is a danger. Habit can easily become routine. Prayer becomes a mechanical process, without reference to the mind or heart. Only our lips speak to God. But he is a Spirit, and wants to communicate to us his spiritual life. While our lips move thoughtlessly, we are carried away by our imagination in a thousand directions, and it is with all sorts of things and persons-above all with ourselvesthat we hold converse. Our attention wanders because love is wanting; and prayer, which should set us on fire, merely deepens the rift between God and ourselves, which our negligence has gradually created. Coldness begets inattention, and itself begotten of ignorance, and so we slip-more rapidly than we think-down the slopes of lukewarmness at the end of which may be death. What is important, however, much more than inattention of the mind is inattention of the will. The former is often beyond our control. There are inattentive prayers which delight the heart of our Lord. When we make an effort to place and keep ourselves in his presence, and certain dispositions of body and soul repeatedly prevent us, in spite of ourselves, from perceiving and retaining that beloved presence; when our desire for the Beloved suffers tortures from our powerlessness; when we humbly accept that distress-the distraction becomes an exceptionally precious and powerful means to union. For, in our relations with God, all is measured by love; and any feeling of repugnance for created objects in order to be united with the Uncreated God is love. Attention to the words we pronounce and to our actions is good, and is almost always sufficient, and often to be preferred; sometimes it is all we can manage.The important thing is to realize the definition of prayer-the soul, freed from what is transitory, turns and tends to our heavenly Father, by whatsoever ways and means it can. As soon as contact is made, the soul prays; when that contact is fervent, the prayer is excellent.
CREATURES-and the devil who uses them -do not let themselves be ousted without a struggle. The life of prayer calls for continuous battles: it is the most important and the longest effort in a life dedicated to God. This effort has been given a beautiful name: it is called The Guard of the Heart. The human heart is a city: it was meant to be a stronghold. Sin surrendered it. Henceforth it is an open city, the walls of which have to be built up again (1). The enemy never ceases to do all he can to prevent this. He does this with his accustomed cleverness and strength, with stratagem and fury. He puts before us such happy thoughts (and occasionally useful ones), pictures so attractive or frightening, and he clothes it all with reasons so impressive that he succeeds all along the line to distract us, and entice us away from the divine presence. We have always to be starting again. These continual recoveries, this endless beginning again, tires and disheartens us far more than the actual fighting. We would much prefer a real battle, fierce and decisive. But God, as a rule, thinks otherwise. He would rather we were in a constant state of war. He prefers these ambuscades and snares; these precautions and the need for constant vigilance. He is Love, and this continuous warfare' calls for more love and develops that love still further. Besides, he is there: he conducts the fight himself. He holds the enemy in check, watches his every movement and out-maneuvers him. He plays with him, allows him to advance in order the better to attack and overcome him. He prefers striking victories, in spite of temporary setbacks, and sometimes even real disasters. We must detach ourselves from this world. The simple, mechanical repetition of words is not enough. Distractions voluntarily entertained paralyze it; occupations become preoccupations and are an obstacle. We do not give God his due. We give him nothing unless we give him all the attention of which we are capable. To what tasks, what cares, what useless preoccupations do we not attach undue importance, and what a place they take up in our prayers. We think we are seeking only the kingdom of God and his glory, and all the while we are seeking ourselves. Such things are not inspired by the Holy Spirit but by nature. The devil is at hand to tell us how extremely profitable they are. Indeed, he encourages and helps us, and actually makes them with us, for they weaken the divine union and the heart's sweet contact. For a heart that is calm and free: that keeps itself detached and turned towards God, all occupation is prayer. For the heart that gives itself up completely to its tasks and thus forgets God, even prayer is sterile and a waste of time. (1) Ps. 50.20.
TRUE prayer is perhaps very rare, because of the lack of this necessary basis-the placing of oneself in the presence of the divine Person whom we are addressing. We do not know, we do not think, we do not sufficiently realize that he is there with us, looking at us, listening, speaking, loving and giving himself. Too often he is only someone present to our mind, soon replaced by others. He is not "the soul's sweet Guest," our friend and Father. Before beginning to pray, we should remind ourselves of this emphatically again and again; we should make it live, just as we make other things live by becoming absorbed in them. Our act of faith at that moment must be an act of the soul, and not merely a mental act, which says: "This is so." The soul says nothing; it opens out to welcome and surrender itself to the light. It allows itself to be taken and invaded; it becomes what it receives. Then God is present to it, just as it is present to itself although in a different manner. Then prayer becomes a living reality. The Holy Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, prays in us, uttering the inexpressible cry: Abba, Father.(1) And he makes us understand what this means. He reveals the divine communication of life in progress at that moment in the soul through him. He reveals it "in the face of Christ Jesus"(2). The soul sees Jesus; it sees his veritable and glorious countenance, "the glory of the only-begotten of the Father"(3). He reveals Jesus: "He shall glorify me"(4). He reveals him in a clear and blinding light, and the soul sees in him the Father giving himself. The Son does what the Father does (5). If he gives himself unreservedly, it is because he sees the Father giving himself unreservedly. It is thus that the Spirit proceeding from them both, places them before one another, illuminating one another, unceasingly pouring themselves into one another, and, without confusion of substance -- indeed maintaining and manifesting their distinction -- makes them "perfected in one"(6). Then prayer is true prayer. (1) Gal. 4.6.
MAN is subject to a severe trial, which comes from his very nature. He has all the potentialities of a spirit, but has to realize them in a body. While the spirit is quick, matter is cumbersome. The spirit perceives in a flash, and at once desires what it sees. By this dual act, it achieves its end and rests in it. Matter only slowly receives what acts on it. These external actions have to be passed on from molecule to molecule, from cell to cell, from the muscles to the nerves, from them to the nerve centers and thence by one's sensitivity, a channel neither wholly material nor wholly spiritual, and thus by the intermediary of the internal senses, rejoin the spiritual parts of our being, where they become ideas. These ideas, in turn, are by the same channels passed on to the executive organs. It needs any number of such impressions coming from without to constitute ourselves, and it needs as many again for our personality to realize itself in act. Now our relations with God follow the same law. As a rule, our understanding of faith comes from outside us, and progresses according to the movement of our nature. The Holy Spirit may intervene personally, following higher laws, and often does. Then the approach to God assumes an easier and quicker pace, altogether special and delightful. But this is not the normal way, and we cannot count on it. Usually, we follow our own slow pace, which the Holy Spirit directs and aids, but without suppressing or modifying it. We must go, therefore, to God by the supernatural, which takes control of human knowledge and the natural virtues, and follow (if we would find him) the way that leads to the development of our nature. During the course of this development, we are more or less sustained in the natural order by the need to find a place in the sun, and to provide for our wants; by the desire for success and tangible results. But even with these incentives, few become really zealous, while those who are disheartened are all too numerous. For the most part, we do just what is necessary ( when we do anything at all!). In the spiritual order, the quest for God is not maintained, at least not to the same extent, by such tangible results. To the wayfarer on earth, God never refuses to give himself, but he does often hide himself. He likes us to seek him and go on seeking him, to have confidence in him. He would have us ask without receiving; to renew again and again our efforts that seem fruitless. In other words, it is perseverance in prayer that he loves (1). (1) Cf. Matt. 10.22: "He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall he saved."
PERSEVERANCE is the fruit of confidence, whilst confidence in our relations with God is the surest form of love. It is born of faith. It presupposes a right idea of God. The confident soul has had to develop in itself a knowledge of those divine perfections which are in fact the same as the divine Being and infinite Love, but which, as we see them, are as it were rays tempered by the prism of creatures. How we need to read and to meditate before these perfections can become present in us, living, powerful ideas and so come to the surface when the way is dark and we need them to light up a road which is at all times difficult. Only those who love, who are full and sustained by the Spirit of Love, have the courage to undertake and pursue a study which must be constantly renewed. Everything depends upon that. This study is the fertilizing spring which flows in the soul, causing the desert to blossom with spring flowers and autumn fruits (1). Our Lord repeatedly says in the Gospel: "Have confidence" (2); and he says the same thing again and again to the soul that loves: He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved (3). Confidence is not presumption. The confident soul does not forget that prayer is a relationship, and that, although one of the terms is infinitely powerful and good, the other is extremely weak and to be pitied. The knowledge of these two terms creates in the soul a just sense of the very subtle disposition which must govern these divine relations. The soul constantly hears our Lord's reiterated recommendation: "We ought always to pray" (4), and his other word: "Watch..." (5) Confidence in God in general and in particular is a disposition of the soul of which it is difficult to speak, because it is difficult to explain exactly what it is. There is nothing to compare it with, no landmarks, as it were, in the order of nature. It depends upon certain perfections of which the world offers us no equivalent. There are men who are really good and full of kindness and charity; who have a genuine affection for us and are always ready to do us a kindness. They will do their utmost to help. But their "utmost" is very restricted, extremely so; and even their dispositions can change. "And which of you, if he ask of his father bread, will he give him a stone?(6) In a father, the paternal instinct is always uncertain; with men, evil is always possible. In God, there is only good; he can only will and do what is good for us. And if we ask him for the Spirit of his Son, who is the supreme Good, how surely and abundantly will he grant our request. The proof has been given us: "He gave his only-begotten Son (7). After that, even the thought of a refusal to our prayer is impossible. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you."(8) (1) Cf. Isaias 35.1.
WHY does God, who is Love, keep us waiting? Because he is Love, and seeks Love. Love that does not know how to wait is not love. To love is to give oneself. Not only for a fraction of a lifetime, nor with a part of its strength: love is, and seeks, the total gift of self. Love is based on esteem. We only love what we value and admire. We love only the "good." What is too easily and too quickly come by does not attract deep souls. It becomes a superficial good, which cannot satisfy the rich capacity of their nature. And they are right. The relations between beings are governed by laws, which they guess at but cannot always define. It is a law that real treasures are deeply buried and carefully hidden; that serious acquisitions call for proportionate efforts. What exceptions there are do not weaken the argument. God is the treasure beyond price. Were he to give himself too easily, even the best would turn their backs upon him. St. John Climacus gives an almost similar reason, but with an interesting difference. "Prayer," he says, "is an activity which develops and enriches enormously. It is a source of merit and satisfaction, and of spiritual progress of every kind." God imposes repetitions and a certain persistence in prayer in order to increase our merit. Delays in union are not time lost: far from it. God sees very far ahead; he makes wonderful use of what we call evil-of our wanderings, our hesitations and detours, although he does not love them or want them. It is at these moments, above all, that we need confidence and perseverence. The prayer, whether for ourselves or for others, which is not discouraged, which persists and besieges heaven, touches God's heart: and that is why he tells us to persevere.
GOD is love (1). He loves, and wants to be loved; it is the basic law of his being. To realize this is to find the solution to all our problems. A soul that tends towards him cannot tire him. It always delights him and the soul should know this. Its persistency displeases him only when it is for something it wants inordinately. For example, I want good health, and I insist. Such a request could displease him, because I must want -- at all costs, that is -- only what he wills; and health is not in his eyes essential. He is saddened, not by my persistence, but because an irregular wish such as this separates me from him. When it is a question of the real good, of such things as he always wills and for which we can ask him without being separated from him, our persistence pleases him. It is what our Lord himself commended in two or three delightful parables -- the child asking his father for bread (2); the friend knocking repeatedly at his friend's door for the same reason; the widow who persevered in asking a judge (and a wicked one at that) for justice, until she obtained it (3). God is a Father, a friend and a judge. But he is a Father whose love is boundless, and whose power is as great as his love. He is a friend, whose friendship knows no change, and is at the mercy of all our needs. He is a judge, but always just, always moved by our appeals and quick to answer them. He loves our persistence, he wants us to appeal to him, to ask of him, so that he can be sure of our love, and taste the joy of having a proof of it, even if it be a selfish one. (1) John 4.16.
IT is not the length of our prayers that give them value, but their fervor or love. If love needs much time in which to express itself, by all means let it persist in its ardour and in the movement by which it expresses itself. If, on the other hand, a word or even a thought raises the soul up to God; if it remains there silent and rapt; if, called to other duties, it impregnates its outward activities with its inward atmosphere in which the divine Bridegroom gives himself with his "touches"-all this is unquestionably good. What about prescribed prayers? We must faithfully fulfill our obligations. What about prayers of our own choice? Here we must follow the divine movement which inspires and directs them. When that movement passes, we must cease. The soul may carry on for a little while, so as to make quite sure that the interior inspiration has ceased, and to show that it does not stop of its own accord. After that it can carry on with what it has to do, or rest, as the case may be; but it must always remain at the disposal of the Master and attentive to him.(1) Lengthy prayers can be dangerous. They tire us and open the door to distractions which, even though they may be involuntary, should be avoided as far as possible; they can lead to routine. A rapid movement carrying the soul upwards and often renewed, thus assuring the continuity of our ardour, is much better. That was the method used by the Fathers of the desert. It had to be abandoned for active work. Now, before entering on their duties, the monks who are vowed to work make a good foundation of union first thing in the morning, by staying an hour or so with their divine Lover. They set aside this time expressly for him, because they know they cannot count on coming back to him as they would like. It is a necessity. They are then able to master, as far as they can, the unreliability of human attention, and thus lay in a store of energies for the whole day. But the ancient method is still of value for contemplative souls. But these considerations are beside the point: they touch only on the fringe of prayer. The length of our personal prayers of devotion depend upon him who prays in us. They must be what he wants them to be. Now he wants to raise up the soul and keep it in his presence as long as possible. The soul that has put aside obstacles and keeps itself free so that God may take possession of it, is a soul that prays. It has been caught up in an upward movement -- a movement in God and towards God. To prolong it or to discontinue it is good; to resume and continue it is also good. All that is regulated by the divine movement is good. The Fathers of the desert prayed by short upliftings of the heart. They also prayed by long outpourings of their soul plunged in God. St. Anthony passed nights in this state, and reproached the sun for depriving him of his beloved light. Another father remained for fourteen consecutive days standing motionless with his hands uplifted and his arms outstretched. "What do we do now?" Abbot Loth asked an old anchorite named Joseph. Joseph stood up, stretched out his arms, raised his hands, and his fingers became like burning lamps. "That is what you can do," he said, "if you want to; your whole being can be transfigured into fire." Long prayers or short prayers, provided they are influenced and transformed by the Spirit of Love, all are according to God.' If we let our selves be overcome by distractions or drowsiness, then they can lose much of their value. (1) Cf. John 11.28: "The Master is come and calleth
for thee."
THE greatness of God, the nothingness of man -all religion is governed by this double reality, of which it makes a single whole, knit together and ruled by love. God is; man is not. God and being are one thing: man is only if God communicates being to him. Religion is born of that communication, and prayer which is only religion in act, is the movement of the soul recognizing that it is receiving something, and that it has only what it receives. To acknowledge this is essentially prayer, and it is humility. That is why the Pater Noster is the perfect prayer, and the perfect summary of the religious life. The Father is undoubtedly he who gives all, but he is also He who is. He gives only because he is, and he gives what he is. All the splendours of creation are gathered up in this word Love, and we should see them there when we pronounce it. With a rapid glance, we should picture to ourselves these innumerable created beings of whom we know so little: beings that enchant and dazzle us, and represent so much wisdom and power. We should adore these perfections in him who, in the depths of our being, gives himself, forms us and communicates to us all that we have of being and of life. Then we should remain in his presence, prostrate at his feet, conscious only of our nothingness. This is humility. God wants this attitude and cannot but want it. It is the point of departure of all he does in us, the foundation of the edifice he wants to build. He looks for that attitude and brings it about; and he must do this before he can commence his work; it is this which turns us toward him. Hitherto we have been turned toward ourselves. Humility is implicit in faith, in the respectful and adoring submission of the soul at prayer. I am afraid I am going to repeat myself. Formerly I should not have dared to do so: I would have thought it was to speak to no purpose. Now I find immense advantages and sweetness in doing so. We speak expressly of what we love and to the one we love. I love, then, to repeat that God is great; that he is Lord as well as Father; that all excellence is in him; that all the perf ections gathered together and prolonged infinitely cannot express the unique and full richness of his being. Every life spent in contemplating this mystery and in meditating on it, in going deeper into it, in seeing in the work of God images that can give us some idea of it, leaves us far, very far, infinitely far, from the reality. This reality is always beyond, very far beyond, all we can express or conceive. That is why we must be humble. Before this immensity, overflowing all times, all beings, all their characteristics and perf ections, the tiny minute I have to live, the small space I fill, the limits of my being and of my activity which I touch at every moment; the knowledge of my weakness, of my nothingness-all this is revealed and made obvious. It puts me in my place, and makes me feel quite tiny in that nothingness, to which God gives existence. If to that I add the thought of my sins; if I see this `nothingness' opposed to Him who is, daring to rebel against him or, what is perhaps worse, become indifferent to him, treating him as if he were not-then I feel myself in an abyss.
24 - The All-Powerfulness of Humility BUT that very abyss is my salvation, if I only knew. "He that shall humble himself shall be exalted," says Incarnate Truth.(1) "God, says St. James, resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.(2) I understand that, and I understand that Truth should speak thus, and that the Almighty should act in this way. Truth is an exact relationship between two terms that are being compared. The relationship between God and man is that God is Being himself and man nothingness. When I recognize this, I am in harmony with God who is Truth: we are in right relations. I am in a state of mind that he loves, and he has pity on me. God desires nothing so much as to have pity on us and to come to our aid. He wants-I might almost say `impatiently' were he capable of impatience -- to be allowed to help. For the name of Being that I give him is incomplete. This Being who is is essential Love, the Gift of Self. To give himself is his life: he does nothing else. Eternally the Father gives to the Son that infinite Being of which he is the source, the ocean, the principle and the term. Eternally, the Son, animated by this movement which this Father communicates to him, does the same thing toward his Father-or better, in his Father. He gives back this gift by which they are united and bound to one another, held the one in the other. Like an ardent fire, which would be at the same time a mirror, the Father is reproduced in the Son, who reproduces the Father. The Love who unites them proceeds from them both, and in his turn reproduces them, illumines them and manifests them. Thence he passes to overflow and communicate himself to beings who, animated by the same movement, will give themselves as they give themselves, being united to them by this giving, and themselves made one with them. The soul that prays, begs this communication of the Spirit of Love. It asks God to give himself to it. It then asks for what he most desires. Between this infinite desire of God and the soul's prayer there is a consonance, a harmony, a perfect understanding. The humble soul recognizes that it has not in itself that desire, essentially divine, to give itself; that it can have it only if Love himself gives it. The soul's humility thus touches the heart of God and gives him the glory he wants more than anything else. That is why humility is all-powerful: it is irresistible. Before that prayer he yields, he is moved dare I say so? he is conquered ... conquered by himself, of course, by that very love, that very need to give himself, to which our humble prayer appeals. The examples of this all-powerful humility are undoubtedly very impressive. Jesus, as is only fitting, heads the list, with his poor, broken body, his face covered with spittle, his whole being shamefully treated and no longer human in its form.(3) Having become man, he is "despised of men". He has touched the lowest depths of his abasement; "for which cause, says St. Paul, God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names."(4) Then comes the humble Virgin: "Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid."(5) Thus she spoke of him who had made her the Mother of God. It was her humility that he saw and loved and heard in her, and it is what he looks for and loves in us: that draws and constrains him in our regard. This 'looking' of God at the soul which humbles itself in his presence, communicating eternal light and infinite love to it -- what sweetness it brings to the soul in prayer, what strength. It was this that comforted the Canaanite woman at the feet of our Saviour,(6) and the centurion in search of a miracle.(7) Jesus heard their prayer which wrested from him, as if by sheer force, both the miracle they sought, and his delighted admiration. The humble soul that prays presents itself with the attractive power of emptiness to the Being who is longing to fill it. There is no resistance to break, no other presence to dispel, no transformation to effect. He has only to enter, to take possession, to respond fully to the soul's yearnings. The "humble man" referred to in the text of St. James is the `poor man' of whom the Psalmist is always speaking and mentioned in other parts of the Scriptures. God's wealth is his own, not because of a narrow and loveless justice, but because of the very profound nature of God himself, who is Love. "God is infinitely generous," says William of Auvergne. "He loves to give as much as he is. He is never so happy as when he is giving himself thus. Whoever tells him of needs to be satisfied, of a weakness to be relieved, of sufferings to be healed, delights him." (1) Matt. 23.12.
THERE are no sterile prayers, there are only dried-up souls. The prayer of a dried-up soul is not a prayer; it is not a raising up of the mind to God. Such a soul is not living in God's presence, on his heights. It remains preoccupied with itself, and may well die in that state. Only the lips mutter words, which could be prayers; or the arms are outstretched in a gesture which could be mistaken for one intended for God. But there is nothing of spiritual depth accompanying these external manifestations, which are deceptive. "With their lips (they) glorify me, but their heart is far from me." (1) Nothing displeases God more than such a deception. Elsewhere he calls it "absolutely execrable," and that I understand. This particular lie destroys human integrity; it gives to the body and soul that are substantially one, two divergent movements. By it we are debased lower than our real selves. St. Augustine compared it to the lowing of cattle, but even that is an understatement. A lowing or bellowing is the cry of a beast; prayer which is feigned is the word of a being divided in himself and reduced to a dried-up shell: it is not the prayer of a man. The prayer of a proud man is not much better. Such was the prayer of the Pharisee in the Temple.(2) He was not looking at God, he was looking at himself, and he expected God to do the same. The condemnation of the meek and humble Savior of this "other" is well known. It showed all too clearly what our Lord thought of such an attitude, which the commentators on the Gospel do not always make enough of. Our Lord's words were devastating: "I say to you: this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.(3) The prayer of the Pharisee followed the line of his thought. He assumed a place of preference on earth, and seemed to think he would occupy the same in heaven. The contrast between himself and the publican, the only representative of the human race present, showed up his superiority. Jesus took up the comparison but, with one word, turned the tables on the proud Pharisee. But what a word... He is now simply one who knew not how to achieve his being by freeing himself from himself and entering into the truth of God. "You thought you were rich and had need of nothing, and knew not that you were wretched and miserable, poor and blind and naked." (4) Yet humility is not diffidence. On the contrary, it is the very opposite. Humility is so fine a combination that it is not easy to define it exactly. Perhaps the best definition of it is that it is the same as truth. Humility is an equation; it is a just relationship, perceived, accepted and loved of the reality. And that reality is that God is essential Being, whereas we exist only in him. The soul that keeps in this place (that is, remains in the presence of Being himself) in order that the latter may communicate his own life to it and thus cause it to be, is true and consequently humble. Since the Fall, the truth is that man no longer lives in God's presence; he has turned away from him, and only God can turn him back. The prayer of a diffident soul speaks only half that truth. It forgets the other half, so important and so comforting. Such a soul, says St. James, is "like a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind.(5) God cannot impress his likeness upon it; it is not the perfect mirror in which he can reproduce and so give birth to his Son in us. What we must do when we pray is to place ourselves at our Lord's feet, and like children say: "Our Father." (1) Isaias 29.13.
THE heart is not the same as sensitivity, except in its higher stage, that of reason. It is well to distinguish between them. The heart of an animal is sensitive; it has plenty of "heart" in that sense. But the man who has no other heart, has not a heart at all! With all our knowledge today, we fail to appreciate this. We confuse the very inferior animal impressionability with that sensitivity which is essential to the real man whom only truth and good, justice and beauty can move. Compunction is that which pierces a man's heart when he remembers and reflects on these great realities, and especially on the greatest of realities - God. It takes on different forms, and can have different causes. The use of the word should be restricted really to the heart's sorrow at the thought or memory of sin, above all of one's own sins. But it can also be applied to lively impressions felt at the sins of others, or at the possibility of committing sin. We feel compunction when we realize the grave consequences sin can have; when we think of our Lord's Passion which blotted out our sins; of the presence within us of God giving himself and preserving us from evil; of the hope of our future union with him in our true homeland; or of the pain at seeing our exile, separating us from him, prolonged. The effect is the same in any case, except for slight differences which we alone can perceive. That is because the ultimate cause is the same - namely love. Whatever form it takes - regret, desire, hope or joy - compunction is always the fruit of divine love: it is marked by the same characteristics and has, in God's eyes, the merit of that love. In compunction God sees the love which emanates from his divine heart communicating itself to our heart, and returning whence it came, enriched by all our heart has loved. True and really supernatural compunction is a very special grace. It can come only with a genuine and rare understanding of God, of his greatness and his beauty, of his love and our relations with him, and from the joy of a life upheld by these relations. A soul that has received this understanding must possess a transparency that only a long life of loving detachment can obtain for it. The Fathers of the Church have praised this grace in the highest terms. "Humble tears of the heart," wrote St. Jerome, "you are a queen and allpowerful. You fear not the tribunal of the judge, and your presence silences those who accuse you. Nothing holds you back or keeps you from having access to the throne of grace, and never do you turn away with empty hands. The agony you cause the devil is even worse than the pains of hell. You triumph over the Unconquerable One; you bind and force the hand of the Almighty. Prayer alone can touch him and, when that prayer is accompanied by tears of compunction, then it is irresistible. Prayer is oil which disposes God to listen; tears of compunction wound him and oblige him to act." "The angels," says St. Bernard, "are deeply moved by our tears of compunction, and by our holy prayers. For them, they are like a wine which intoxicates; they see in them the perfume of a true life assured by divine grace, the savour of the forgiveness of sins; the strong vigor of innocence recovered; the joy of reconciliation with God and the serene peace of a conscience again set in order." "It is the fat and abundant holocaust of victims beloved of God," says St. Gregory. "The heart's tears sprinkle it with the perfume he prefers before all others." And St. John Climacus: "Tears lend wings to prayers, which fly straight to the heart of God." Clearly tears of the kind referred to here are not necessarily actual tears, as shallow souls might think. Such souls work up a kind of excitement; their imagination dwells on those things which move them. They are glad when they can call forth tears; they appraise their love by this external, and sometimes childish, sign. What these Fathers are referring to are the genuine tears of the heart, which can easily be smothered by the effort to produce what is merely their external sign. What they have in mind is a wholly internal and spiritual movement which only the Spirit of Love can excite in us, and we must ask him for it with full confidence and then quietly await it. It is a clear and pure flame, which suddenly leaps up as from a hidden brazier. It lights up the mind and touches the chords of the heart. It moves the soul to its depths, causing a kind of heavenly thrill to pass through it, which lifts it up above itself, so that it exclaims: My God, in a way which is altogether new to it. Then the distance separating it from him who thus makes himself known; the memory of its sins which were responsible for that gulf; Jesus on the Cross expiating our sins, with Mary standing at his feet; hell punishing the sin without relieving it of its debt - all these thoughts suddenly welling up before our eyes, ceasing to be thoughts and become images: all this compresses the soul like a ripe fruit, causing the sweet and intoxicating tears to flow. These tears, however, are not the end. The soul that weeps looks higher than its own self. It longs to attain the heights and already sees something of what it can and must attain. Nevertheless, it remains enclosed within the circle of its self, enlarged it is true, but still restrained and not destroyed. The Holy Spirit who wants to set it free, prepares the soul for the final rapture, which is its determined end. God wants the soul entire; he wants to free it from itself and from created objects and raise it to himself. Then the tears, tiny bouquets to cheer us on the way, cease, and the soul tastes in anticipation the joys of heaven. The gift of tears is always a most precious gift. We should desire it, ask for it and prepare ourselves for it. We must desire and ask for it with an assurance, a profound and lively conviction that God wishes to give it to us much more strongly than we can wish for it ourselves. We can be sure that our desire, however exalted we may be, is no more than a tiny spark in the immense desire that God has to grant it to us.
27 - Our Want of Sensitiveness WE must have the courage to look often at the horrible thing we call sin, as it actually is in the light of truth. Sin is a direct, violent, deliberate and maybe mortal blow given to Love within us, in order to get rid of him and put ourselves in his place. We must see this horrible thing becoming the daily nourishment of so many souls, who lap it up like water, establishing itself as master in a world which owes its very existence, and its continued existence, to that Love we crucify. We must stand before that Love on the Cross. He is a living Person, a man of three and thirty years and in the prime of life; endowed with an incomparable wealth of sensitiveness. He possesses a heart and mind of extreme delicacy. Heaven and earth, Creator and creature, the finite and the infinite are united in him-all rights, all greatness, all truth and all good; all that can call for admiration, respect, sympathy and love. For thirty years he has been ignored, and very possibly persecuted. For three years, men have envied him, attacked him, and have done their best to hinder his good works. For three hours of profound agony, he has borne in his filial soul the weight of the anger of his Father, whom man has offended. For twelve hours, his poor body has been beaten, broken in every sense, and under every form, and his heart reflects all the sufferings of his beloved friends gathered around him, whose pain but increases his own. Finally, when he is completely at the end of his strength, of his life's blood, his honor and his love, his Father, who remained to him his sole help, would seem to have forsaken him. This, indeed, is the final blow. Then, at last, "it is finished."(1) The debt of man's sin is paid, but at what a price! It is the price of a soul delivered up to wicked men. "We grieve," says St. Augustine, "over a soul abandoned by its body; but what sort of Christian feelings have we, not to grieve for a soul separated from God?" St. Augustine is right to denounce our want of spiritual sensitiveness. But he knows what we lack and how to obtain it: he who so long wept for his own sins. What we lack is the light of that Love, which makes us see our sins in their frightening truth, as God sees them. To obtain this light we must ask for it and wait. It does not always come all at once when we ask for it, but it will, sooner or later, come to those who know how to wait. (1) John 19.30.
PART III: THE PRAYER OF INTIMACY
PRAYER is, as it were, being alone with God. A soul prays only when it is turned towards God, and for so long as it remains so. As soon as it turns away, it stops praying. The preparation for prayer is thus the movement of turning to God and away from all that is not God. That is why we are so right when we define prayer as this movement. Prayer is essentially a "raising up," an elevation. We begin to pray when we detach ourselves from created objects and raise ourselves up to the Creator. Now this detachment is born when we clearly realize our nothingness. That is the real meaning of our Lord's words: "He that shall humble himself shall be exalted."(1) His whole life was a continual abasement, always more and more profound. St. Bernard does not hesitate to say that such an abasement brings us face to face with God. Hence the peace of souls that have fallen when, raised up by God, they find themselves in his presence. And it is precisely in their abasement, once they have recognized and admitted it, that they find him, because it is there he reveals himself. The only thing that prevents him from doing so is our "self." When we own to our nothingness, this "self" is broken down, and once that happens the mirror is pure, and God can produce his own image in the soul, which then faithfully reproduces his features that are revealed in all their harmony and perfect beauty. It is this our Lord meant in that vital passage in the Sermon on the Mount, and that all human considerations on prayer repeat endlessly but without arriving at its full splendor: But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber and, having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret. Enter this sacred chamber of your soul and there, having closed the door, speak to your Father, who sees you in these secret depths, and say to him: Our Father, who art in heaven.... This intimate presence; your faith in him who is the secret depth of it and gives himself there; the silence towards all that is not God in order to be all to him - here is the preparation for prayer. It is obvious that we do not reach such a state of soul without being prepared for it by quite a combination of circumstances. And this is just what we do not know sufficiently in practice. The way to prepare for prayer is by leading a divine life, and prayer, after all, is that divine life. Everything that reproduces God's image in us; everything that raises us beyond and above created things; every sacrifice which detaches us from them; every aspect of faith which reveals the Creator to us in creatures; every movement of true and disinterested love making us in unison with the Three in One-all this is prayer and prepares us for a still more intimate prayer. All this makes the divine word of the Sermon on the Mount real and the dual movement it recommends, Shut the door, and Pray to thy Father. When he spoke thus, the divine Word showed that he knew our being and its laws. He revealed himself as our Creator and made himself our Redeemer. He showed that he made us and that he alone can re-make us. We do not suffice to ourselves; we have not that in us which can complete us; we need to be completed. I know I am putting it badly when I say that this complementing thing is not in us. Actually, it is in within us, but it is in a part of us which is, as it were, outside of us. In us as in God, there are many mansions. God is within us in the depths of our soul, but by sin we no longer occupy those depths. When Eve looked at the forbidden fruit and stretched out her hand to take it and eat it, she went out of those secret depths in her soul. It was these depths which were the real terrestrial Paradise, where God visited our first parents and spoke to them. Since the Fall, God is in us, but we are not! The preparation for prayer consists in returning to those depths. Renunciation, detachment, recollection-whatever word we use, the reality is the same, and that reality is the true secret of prayer. Close the door, and enter. . . . It needs only these two phrases to explain this, but in reality they are only one thing. They represent a movement, for all that unites us to God is movement. The words are related to two `terms' or ends. If we speak of the terminus a quo (that is, from), they say (and they do what they say) : Close. If we think of the terminus ad quern (that is, to), they say: Enter. We have to close the door on all that is not, and enter into Him who is. There you have the secret of all prayer. (1) Matt. 23.12.
GOD is a brazier of love. Prayer brings us near to him, and in coming near to him we are caught by his fire. The soul is raised by the action of this fire, which is a kind of spiritual breath that spiritualizes and carries it away. The soul frees itself from all that weighs it down, keeping it attached to this wearisome earth. The Psalmist compares this Breath to incense.(1) Now incense is a symbol universally known and exceptionally rich. But from all the substances that fire penetrates under the form of flame or heat, there follows a movement by which it spreads, causing it to increase by communicating itself to all that surrounds it. The movement of the soul that prays has something special about it. It goes out from itself and yet remains in itself. It passes from its natural state to its supernatural state; from itself in itself to itself in God. At first glance, these expressions may seem strange. The mystery is not in the realities but in our understanding of them. Our mind is not used to these realities; we have to become accustomed to them. Our soul is a dwelling with many apartments. In the first, it is there with the body: that is to say, with all the body's sensitiveness. It sees when the eye sees, hears when the ear hears. It moves with the muscles; it remembers, imagines and appreciates distances, when we take part in all the activities which are the common ground of its action with the body. In the second, the soul is alone and acts alone. The body is there - it is always there - but it no longer acts, it has no part in the soul's action. The soul alone thinks and loves. The body with its senses prepares the matter and elements, the conditions of this spiritual activity, but it has no part in producing it. That room is closed: the soul is there alone, and dwells there alone. In that spiritual dwelling there is a part still more remote. It is the dwelling-place of Being, who communicates himself and makes us to "be." We are so accustomed to live turned outwards (and objects of sense keep us so turned) ; we hardly ever open the door of that chamber, and scarcely give it a glance; many die without ever suspecting its existence. Men ask: where is God? God is there - in the depths of their being, and he is there communicating being to them. They are not "Him who is" and who gives being to all other things. They receive being; they receive a part of being which does not depend upon themselves. They receive it for a certain time, and under certain forms. And from his "beyond" God gives them existence. They exist only by his power, and are only what he enables them to be. He is at the source of all they do and, no matter how much they may desire to continue those activities, they cannot do so if he is not there. To understand this, we have to think a great deal, and reflection -- perhaps the highest form human act can take -- has given place to exterior action and to local movement, both of which are common to animals and matter. The soul that prays enters into this upper room. It places itself in the presence of that Being who gives himself and enters into communication with him. To "communicate" means to have something in common, and by this common element to be made one. We touch, we speak, we open out to one another. Without this "something" we remain at a distance; we do not "communicate." God is Love. We enter into communication with him when we love, and in the measure of our love. The soul that loves and that has been introduced by Love into that dwelling-place where Love abides, can speak to him. Prayer is that colloquy. God will not resist that love which asks. He has promised to do the will of those who do his will.(2) It is to love that is due these divine communications which have drawn from those happy recipients the most amazing exclamations. "Lord, stay, I beg you, the torrent of your love: I can bear no more." The soul, submerged and ravished, has fainted under the weight of these great waters, and has asked to be allowed to take breath for an instant, in order the better to renew its welcome. The anchorite in the desert, when he prayed, had to forbear extending his arms, so as not to be rapt in his prayer. St. Mary the Egyptian, St. Francis of Assisi, were raised up from the ground and remained upheld by a power greater than the weight of their body. (1) Cf. Cf. Ps. 140.2: Let my prayer be directed as
incense in thy sight.
THE saints have written wonderful pages on this theme. "What dignity and what glory on the part of almighty God" says St. John Chrysostom, "to be ever attentive to listen to us." Weak creatures, poor beings of a day, tiny flowers born at dawn, only to fade by evening - we have but to turn to him, and at once he gives us audience. He speaks to us, caresses us, he gives himself. He stoops to our wretchedness and raises us up to his throne. He bid us enter his chamber - the chamber that is his love - the very movement of his being and life. I would tire the best of friends or the most leisured, were I to present myself thus at any hour. My unconstrained and easy-going manner would hurt the kindest of men. Yet God receives me always, and excuses and overlooks my lack of courtesy. Not only does he receive me, he spoils me. He shows me the splendors of his palace. He has always some new light to offer to my mind, some delight to my heart. And should that light be one already known to me, he clothes it with the freshness of an early spring flower. Should he think it necessary to leave me in darkness, that night becomes day, and the deepest shadows are transformed into the brightest light. And if he refuses me pleasures of the senses, he makes me find in the prayer of the desert superior delights which enchant my childlike faith in my Father. These divine relations would suffice me a thousand times, if he presented himself alone, for he is all, and all to me. But he is accompanied by a great and wondrous company. The greatest souls of all times, raised up and radiant with light which surrounds them, are there with him, as loving and as good as himself. They show me the same love, they offer to share with me their happiness, and the joy of their relations with Him who is and who gives himself. They take my prayers before they have risen from my heart to my lips. They present them to God, enriched with their fraternal supplication; they impart to them the perfume of their smile. They add to them their own merits. In such company we forget the earth, we no longer think of men and their littlenesses (and our own); we forget all that depresses or saddens us. We become serene and almost in heaven. We feel great, strong and consoled. How the adversaries of our salvation appear despicable - and indeed they are! God, his grace, the virtues with which he fortifies and ennobles us; the eternal happiness that he promises and of which he occasionally gives us a foretaste; heaven growing nearer and almost opening - all this can help us to forget the dangers and the hours of desolation of the way. Prayer brings the soul into the presence of these realities: indeed, more than in their presence, for we actually enter the divine presence-chamber. "Prayer," says St. John Climacus, "unites us to God, sustains the world, renders souls beautiful, blots out sin, preserves us from temptation and defends us in the time of battle. It consoles us when the storm breaks, is the mother of fertile tears, and changes tears of regret into tears of love. It feeds our spiritual joys, and nourishes our activities which give birth to them. The perfect virtues, the higher graces, the delights of hearts transformed and made one in God, the most profound lights, the quiet feeling of security and assured hopes, the great progress of souls and the striking divine interventions-all depend upon prayer."
BETWEEN the development of prayer and the elevation of souls, there exists an assured connection, universally admitted, which is essential. In being raised up, the soul arrives at regions untouched by the agitation of transitory things. All movement ceases or grows less. The passions are calmed, the noise of the world, its cares, even our thoughts, fade into the distance, and our attention is concentrated on him alone who is silence, repose and the God of peace. We feel invaded by calm, and as it were clothed in the divine immutability, which seems to communicate itself to our whole being. This is where prayer flourishes - that prayer which is a devout upsurge of love, which draws us towards God, who is unceasingly inclined towards us. His Spirit enfolds us, penetrates us, descends into our depths, and says: 'My son'.... Then, returning from the depths of our being that he turns back to its Source, he answers for us: 'Father'(1) There is no greater or more profound moment, no higher activity possible. In a soul praying thus, certain dispositions are necessary, requiring long exercise and sustained effort. Our sensitiveness, distorted as a result of the fall, rebels. It alternates between mad outbreaks and periods of discouragement. It does not want to take up its role of servant; it wants to be its own master, to follow its own caprices. And so it resists. Any opposition infuriates it. The more we try to discipline it, the more it throws off all restraint and goes mad. We have to re-orientate it, restore it to its proper place, which is that of a servant - useful but submissive. The wrecked harmony of the fine human edifice that God made must be re-established. We do not realize enough that he alone can do this. The absolute necessity for his aid is about the last idea to enter into our heads and persuade us to turn to him. We spend the whole of our lives trying to sanctify ourselves without his help, and we are convinced that we can manage it of ourselves. Properly understood and well carried out, prayer restores us to our position as a creature receiving all from the Creator. Without his aid we are not only weak, but completely helpless. Now we see clearly again and unmistakably; we see what we have to do, and we can do it, for God who is Truth is in us, and he is giving himself. Hitherto, we were in our nothingness and were content to remain there. The soul that prays may still be far from perfect, but it is on its way and it will arrive at perfection. It is united with the Source who will give it that perfection. It will welcome the knowledge of what it should do moment by moment. It follows a way that is sure, for this way is also the end. The soul is both traveling to | |