The Way of Perfection · 22 of 46

Chapter 22: She explains what mental prayer is

KNOW, daughters, that with regard to our prayer being mental or not, the difference does not consist in keeping the mouth shut; for if while uttering a prayer vocally, I do attentively consider and perceive that I am speaking with God, being more intent on this thought than on the words which I pronounce, then I use both mental prayer and vocal prayer together. But if they tell you, you may be speaking with God when you recite the Pater Noster, and yet be thinking of the world, here I am silent. For if you would conduct yourselves as you ought to do, in speaking to so great a Lord, it is proper you should consider to whom you speak, and who you are, if you wish to speak with due respect. For, how can you address a king, and style him “your Majesty,” or know the ceremonies which are used in speaking to a grandee, unless you are well acquainted with his dignity, and understand what yours is? He must receive honour according to his rank, and as custom gives it; and with this you should be well acquainted, otherwise you will be sent away as clowns, and gain nothing.

Now what is this? O my Lord! What is this? O my Sovereign! How can it be endured? Thou, my God, art an Eternal King, for the Kingdom which Thou hast is not a borrowed one.

I feel especial delight almost every time I hear it said in the Creed – “that your Kingdom hath no end.” I praise You, O Lord, and bless You for ever. Never allow any one, O Lord! who speaks of you, to do so only with his lips. What is this. Christians? Do you say, you need not mental prayer? Do you understand yourselves? I certainly think you do not, and therefore you would have us all mistaken with you: and neither do you know what mental prayer is, nor how vocal prayer is to be used, nor what contemplation is; for, did you understand it, you would not condemn on one hand, what you praise on the other.

When I think of it, I must always join mental with vocal prayer, and therefore be not frightened, daughters, for I know whither these matters tend, since I have endured some trouble on this account; hence I wish no one to disturb you, because to walk along this way in fear is very injurious. It is very important to know that you walk along very securely; for if you tell a traveller he is straying from the right way, and has lost the road, he turns from one side to the other; and he is wearied with all the trouble he has taken in seeking the right way; thus he wastes his time, and he only reaches his destination the later. Who can say it is wrong, if any one, beginning to recite the Hours or the Rosary, should first consider with whom he is about to speak, and who he is himself that speaks, in order that he may see how he is to conduct himself? Now, I tell you, sisters, that if you properly discharge the great obligation incumbent on you, for understanding these two points well, before you begin your vocal prayer, you would spend a good portion of time in mental prayer. We should not speak to a prince in the same unprepared manner as we should to a peasant, or poor persons like ourselves; there all is taken in good part, as if we were speaking one to another. It is proper, that though the King be gracious and humble, we should not be rude or unmannerly: and though He knows that I am so rude as not to understand how to speak to Him, yet He refuses not to hear me, nor does He deny me access to Him, nor do His guards repulse me, since the angels who attend Him know well the mind of their Sovereign, who is the more pleased with this rusticity of an humble shepherd, seeing that if he knew better he would speak better than if he used the language, however elegant, but not accompanied with humility, of the most able scholars. It is at least requisite, in order to testify our gratitude for the unpleasantness he endures, by permitting such a person as I am to be so near Him, that we should endeavour to understand His purity, and who He is. It is true, we soon discover Him by approaching to Him, as we do the great ones of this world; and with regard to these, when once we are informed who were their parents, what is their annual income, what their title, we need no more to know our duty; for in this world, no account is paid in general to the merit of the persons, but their riches only are the cause of their being honoured.

O! wretched world; my daughters, praise God exceedingly for having enabled you to abandon so base a place, where persons are not esteemed by what they are inwardly possessed of, but by what their farmers and vassals are worth; and hence, when these things fail, then the world refuses to honour the individuals. What a pleasant consideration, to make you merry, when you all meet at recreation! for it is a good source of amusement to consider, how blindly worldlings spend their days. O! my Emperor, Supreme Power, Supreme Goodness, Wisdom itself, without beginning, without end, without bounds to perfections, which are infinite and incomprehensible, a bottomless ocean of wonders, a Beauty including in itself all beauties. Strength itself. O my God! would that I had here, at once, all the eloquence of men, and wisdom also properly to understand (as far as can be understood in this world, which in reality is nothing) how to make known on this occasion some of those many things which we might consider for understanding, in some small degree, how great is this our Lord, and our Sovereign Good!

Continue, then, to consider and understand with whom you are going to speak, and with whom you are speaking. In a thousand such lives as ours are, we should never be able fully to comprehend how this Lord deserves to be treated, before whom the angels tremble: who commands all things, can do all things, whose will is the deed. It is proper then, my daughters, that we should endeavour to delight ourselves in these excellencies which our Spouse possesses, and that we understand to whom we are married; and also what kind of life we are to lead. O my God! since here in this life, when a person is married, she first knows with whom she is to live, and who her husband is, and what he has; shall not we, who are already contracted, think on our Spouse before the nuptials, when He is to conduct us to His house? Since then those who are espoused in the world are allowed to have such thoughts, why should we be forbidden from endeavouring to know who this person is, and who is his Father, and what kind of a country that is to which he is to conduct us, and what those good things are which he promises to bestow upon us, what his good qualities are, how I may best please him, and in what I can delight him, and to study how to make my will bend to His? Now, if a lady who is likely to make a good match is advised (omitting other points) to consider well these things, though her husband may be a very insignificant man, are they, O my Spouse! to esteem You less in everything, while others are made so much of? If men would not approve of such conduct towards others, let them leave your spouses to you, to spend their whole lives with you. It is true, when the husband is so jealous that he does not wish his spouse to converse with any other person, it would be very odd if she did not endeavour to comply with his request; it is but reasonable she should do so, since in him she has all that her heart can desire. To understand and practise these truths, my daughters, is mental prayer. If you wish to understand this, and also to pray vocally, you may do it. But do not speak with God, and be thinking of other things, for then you do not understand what “Mental prayer” is. I believe I have explained it sufficiently. God grant we may learn to practise it. Amen.