MENTAL PRAYER -- Challenge to the Lay Apostle
Preface
This book is designed to help Sodalists spend their 15 minutes of daily mental prayer in as easy and as profitable a way as possible. Prayer is, of course, always an intimate and personal experience. No one would dream of suggesting that one book could actually meet all the prayer needs of thousands of different people. But one book can be a great help for many people and can be for all at least more helpful than nothing.
In no sense is this book an attempt to force Sodalists or anyone else to pray to a pattern. We presuppose that the directors of the individual souls who will use this book will know from their own experience and their own reading in ascetica1 literature the dangers of any such attempt. Nevertheless, if all his Sodalists are working from the same book, the director will find it easier to give common explanations of prayer, and the Sodalists will find it easier to explain their difficulties and successes to the director.
The meditations in this book are arranged in an ordered series. It is recommended, therefore, that the Sodalist, at least his first time through the book, should follow this order. This does not imply that he ought to spend exactly one and only one day on each meditation. It is to be encouraged that he spend as many days on each meditation as he finds profit in the thoughts and affections it suggests to him, and that he be carefully taught the fundamental rule of prayer: "Stay where you seem to be finding food for your soul; and when you find it, enjoy it, without any worry about moving on to further points or meditations."
We urge the director above all to take the responsibility for constantly reminding and encouraging his Sodalists to keep trying. Faithfulness to mental prayer is the first, and in many ways the most important, of all means to success in prayer. If the Sodalist remains faithful, no matter what the difficulty, much of the rest can be safely be left in the hands of God. But if he does not, through prayer, continue to put himself daily into the hands of God, much of what God planned for him will never be accomplished.
Finally, the director will find it profitable to familiarize himself with outstanding works on prayer. Besides those listed in the closing notes of the book itself, two others especially helpful for his purposes will certainly be Tanquerey's The Spiritual Life and The Ways of Mental Prayer by Dom Lehodey.
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Three Methods of Prayer of Saint Ignatius
First Method of Prayer:
In this first method of prayer, we consider and think over the First Commandment, asking ourselves how we have observed it and in what manner we have failed. We will use as a measure of this consideration the space of time it takes to recite three times the OUR FATHER and the HAIL MARY. If during this time we should find faults we have committed, we will ask forgiveness and say an OUR FATHER. The same method will be followed with each of the Ten Commandments.
Second Method of Prayer:
We may kneel or sit, or use any position suited to our disposition and conducive to devotion. We then say, "Father," and continue meditating on this word as long as we find various meanings, comparisons, relish, and consolation in the consideration of it. The same method should be followed with each word of the OUR FATHER, or of any other prayer which we wish to use for this method.
Third Method of Prayer:
With each breath or respiration, we should pray mentally while saying a single word of the OUR FATHER, or other prayer that is being recited, in such a way that from one breath to another a single word is said. For this same space of time, the attention is chiefly directed to the meaning of the word, to the person who is addressed, to our own lowliness, or the difference between the greatness of the person and our own littleness. In this way, observing the same measure of time, we should go through the other words of the OUR FATHER. We can use this same method with any prayer.
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Don't Read This [Thread]!
How to Begin:
Don't read this [thread]! It's not meant to be read! This book is to help you pray in a special way, to make mental prayer-which is quite a different thing from reading. If you read this [thread], you may hurt your prayer. Don't read it.
First Steps:
Remember that prayer is talking to God. Mental prayer is talking to Him in your own words about things that are important to Him and to you. Sometimes this is very easy. Sometimes it is quite 'hard. But it is always very important.
If you want to spend 15 minutes with God every day, as the Sodality way of life challenges you to do, you will often need help. Each meditation in this book contains several built-in prayer-helps. These built-in helps are designed to make it easier for you to make mental prayer, easier to stay close to God and come to know and love Him better in the 15 minutes you have set aside daily just for Him.
- Take no more than one day's meditation at a time.
- Make up your mind to stick to it, once you have begun, for the full time you promised God, however long that was. Follow the advice of your director.
- Use the built-in prayer-helps, as you need them.
The Built-In Prayer-Helps:
Every meditation in this book opens by reminding you of the presence of God. It is very important, and you must never skip it. Follow the directions and prayer on page 14, thinking over what each word means.
This suggests something worthwhile for you to aim at and try for in your . mental prayer each day. Ask God in your own words to give you this grace and favor. Ask Him sincerely, no matter how you feel at the moment. All the later parts of each meditation are planned to help you get from God that definite grace you ask here at the beginning.
Here are suggested thoughts for you to think about and especially for you to talk about with God. It is always easier to talk when you have something definite to discuss. This Idea part of each meditation tries to remind you of something you might want or might find profitable to talk over with God.
Many meditations have a MENTAL PICTURE instead of the Idea. In these you simply follow the description slowly and try to build up in your mind the picture described. Both Idea and Picture meditations will help you to discover many things about God and yourself, important things, and will help you see more clearly and more deeply into things you know already.
4.
My Personal Application. |
The facts considered in each day's mental prayer can change your life. They should change it. That is one of the reasons mental prayer is so important. But in order that these facts and ideas can help your life, you have to take them and see for yourself what they should mean to you, here and now.
This built-in help, Personal Application, tries to help you get started seeing these real connections between the truths and you. But the real work in this part of your mental prayer is always going to be up to you and you alone. Nobody in the world can really apply personally any truth to your life except you yourself. Nobody knows you from the inside out the way you know yourself. But the man who is brave enough to try to look honestly at himself and strong enough to try to do something about really changing himself--that man can change the world.
This is not the fifth thing you do in mental prayer. This is something you do in mental prayer. This is something you do all the way through all your prayer-first, fifth, and last too. But this help number 5 tries to suggest some special things you might want to say to God in connection with the definite ideas in this one day's meditation. Of course, these are only suggestions. And your own words, your own thoughts, your own feelings will always be better. It's just good to have these to use when you're stuck.
Twenty-four hours can be a long time. To help stretch the good effects of a 15-minute mental prayer out over 24 hours, it's good to have one idea packed into one short sentence to carry with you through the day: something you can remember easily, something that will bring back to your mind and heart the things you said to God and God said to you in your last mental prayer. The Thought for Today tries to give you one short idea like this. It's just a suggestion; if you have a more striking one, use it.
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Presence of God
When it is time for my mental prayer, I will:
| STOP |
Whatever else I have been doing … find a place where I will not be disturbed or distracted… stand still for a moment and |
| THINK |
what a serious and important act I am now going to do… to speak to God… Think who I am… and who He is… Think slowly, seriously, of the fact that He is present… here… now… in me… and all around me… And I kneel down, bow my head and |
| PRAY |
My God, all great, all good – I adore you. Be merciful to me, a sinner. You know me… You made me… You want me here. Help me to pray. Let everything I do, now and forever, be done for YOU… |
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