Salesian Literature

Conference 18  :  The Sacraments and Divine Office

On the right way of receiving the Sacraments and of reciting the Divine Office, with some remarks on Prayer.

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before learning how we ought to prepare ourselves to receive the Sacraments, and what fruits we ought to derive from their reception, we must first understand what Sacraments are, and what their effects are.  The Sacraments, then, are channels through which, so to speak, God descends to us, as we through prayer ascend to Him, since prayer is nothing else than the lifting up of our mind and heart to God. The effects of the Sacraments are various, although they all have but one and the same aim and object, which is to unite us to God. By the sacrament of Baptism we unite ourselves to God, as a son to his father; by that of Confirmation, as the soldier to his captain, getting strength to fight and conquer our enemies in all temptations; by the sacrament of Penance we are united to God like reconciled friends; by that of the Eucharist, as food with the body; by that of Extreme Unction we unite ourselves to God like a child coining from a distant country, who, with one foot already in his father's house, reunites himself with his father, his mother, and all his family. Now, these are the different effects of the Sacraments, but they all demand the union of the soul with God.

 

At present we will only speak of two of the Sacraments — the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of the Eucharist; and, in the first place, it is most necessary for us to know why it is that, receiving these two sacraments so often, we do not, at the same time receive the graces which they bring to well-prepared souls, graces which am actually joined to the sacraments. I will toll you in a word; it is for want of due preparation. We must therefore know how we ought to prepare properly for the reception of these two sacraments, and indeed of all the others. Now, the first preparation is purity of intention; the second is attention; the third is humility.

 

As for purity of intention, that is absolutely necessary, not only in the reception of the Sacraments, but also in all that we do. Now, our intention is pure when we receive the Sacraments, or do any other thing, in order to unite ourselves to God, and render ourselves more pleasing to Him, without any admixture of private interest. You will know that you have this pure intention if, when you desire to communicate and are not allowed to do so, or when after Holy Communion you feel no consolation, you nevertheless can be at peace, without yielding to a feeling of disquietude which, without your consent, may assault you. If, on the contrary, you yield to disquietude because you are not allowed to communicate, or because you had no consolations, is it not evident that your intention was not pure? Is it not certain that you only sought to unite yourself to God for the sake of consolations? That union with Him which you pretended to desire, would certainly have been effected by practising the holy virtue of obedience; and in the same way, if we desire perfection, with a restless, impatient kind of desire, is it not quite plain that it is only a form of self-love, which cannot endure the idea of any imperfection being seen in us? If it were possible that we, when imperfect, could be as pleasing to God, and as closely united to Him, as when perfect, we ought to desire to be without perfection, so as to nourish in ourselves holy humility.

 

The second preparation is attention. Certainly we ought to approach the Sacraments with great attention, both on account of the vastness of the work wrought by them, and also because of what each sacrament demands of us.  For example, going to Confession, we should bring to it a heart lovingly sorrowful, and to Holy Communion a heart ardently loving.  I do not mean, when I speak of this great attention, that we must have no distractions, for that is not in our power.  But I do mean to say that we must be most specially careful not to dwell upon them voluntarily.

 

The third preparation is humility, which is a virtue most necessary to enable us to receive abundantly the graces which flow through the channels of the Sacraments. And this because waters, generally speaking, how much more swiftly and with greater force when the channels are situated in sloping and low-lying places. But besides these three preparations, I wish briefly to tell you that the chief of all is a total abandonment of ourselves to the mercy of God, the submission of our will and all our affections, without reserve, to His dominion. I say without reserve, because such miserable creatures are we, that we are always reserving something for ourselves. The most spiritual person n reserve to themselves the will of possessing certain virtues. When they go to Communion they say: "O Lord, I abandon myself entirely into Thy hands, but I entreat Thee to give me prudence so that I may live honourably." They never think of asking for simplicity. "O my God, I submit myself absolutely to Thy divine will, but give me great courage that, I may do excellent work in Thy service." As for gentleness, and what they need to enable them to live at peace with their neighbour, no mention is made of that. "Give me," others will say, "that humility which is so necessary in order to set a good example;" but they never seem to think that they have any need of that humility of heart which makes us love our own abjection. "O my God, since I am wholly Thine, grant that I may always have consolations in prayer." It is true, our aim and end is to be united to God, and therefore to obtain whatever will bring about that union; yet these people never ask for tribulations or mortifications. Now, it is certain that to make a reserve of their own will and desires, however excellent they may appear to be, is not the way to effect that union. Our Lord, desiring to give Himself wholly to us, wishes that we, on our part, should give ourselves entirely to Him; in order that the union of our soul with His divine Majesty may be more perfect, and that we may be able to say truly with the great Apostle of the Gentiles: I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me [Gal. 2:20].

 

The second part of this preparation consists in emptying our heart, that our Lord may fill it wholly with Himself.  Certainly, the reason why we do not receive the grace of sanctification (since one single Communion well made is sufficient to render us holy and perfect) is, that we do not allow Our Lord to reign in us, as His goodness desires. He comes unto us — this Beloved of our souls — and finds our hearts all full of desires, affections, and petty wishes. This is not what He seeks, for He hopes to find them empty, that He may make Himself their Master and Ruler. To show how much He desires this, He tells His sacred bride [Cant. 8:6], that she is to put Him as a seal upon her heart, so that nothing may enter there, except by His permission and according to His good pleasure.  Now, I know well that the centre of your hearts is empty — you would otherwise be guilty of too great faithlessness; what I mean is that you have detested and cast out, not only mortal sin, but also all sorts of evil affections; but, alas! all the corners and innermost recesses of your hearts are filled with a thousand things, unworthy of the presence of this sovereign king.  These are the things which bind His hands, and prevent Him bestowing on us the gifts and graces with which His goodness would have enriched us, if He had found us prepared for them. Let us then, on our part, do all that is in our power to prepare ourselves well to receive this Super-substantial Bread [Mt. 6:11], abandoning ourselves wholly to divine Providence, not only for what concerns our temporal, but far more, for our spiritual welfare. All our affections, desires, and inclinations must be entirely subjected to Him; since we know well that Our Lord on His part will fulfil His promise to transform us into Himself, raising our lowness even to a union with His infinite greatness.

 

We may communicate for various ends: such, for instance, as to ask God for deliverance from some temptation or affliction, either for ourselves or for our friends or neighbours; or to obtain some virtue, provided that we desire this as a means of uniting ourselves more perfectly with God. We shall find, however, in times of affliction we are; generally brought nearer to God, because we think oftener of Him. And as regards virtues, sometimes it is really better for us not to have them habitually, provided always that we make acts of such virtues when the opportunity of doing so presents itself; for the repugnance which we feel towards the practice of any virtue ought to humiliate us, and humility is worth more than all else.[1]

 

Remember, too, that in all the prayers and petitions you make to God, you are not urging them for yourselves alone. You must, therefore, always say we and us, as Our Lord has taught us in the Pater Noster, in which there is no mine, or my, or me. This means, that your intention is to ask God to give the virtue or grace which you ask of Him for yourself, to all those who have the same need of it, and this should always be done in order to unite yourself more closely to Him. Otherwise we ought not to ask or desire anything for ourselves or for our neighbours, union with God being the end for which the Sacraments are instituted. We therefore must correspond to this intention of Our Lord, receiving them for the same end.

 

We must never think that by going to Communion for others, or by praying for them, we lose anything. We need not fear that by offering to God this Communion or prayer in satisfaction for the sins of others, we shall not make satisfaction for our own. The merit of the Communion and of the prayer will remain with us, for we cannot merit grace for one another; it is Our Lord alone Who could do that. We can beg for graces for others, but we can never merit them. The prayer we have made for them increases our merit, both as regards the reward of grace in this life and of glory in the next. And even if a person did not offer up some particular action in satisfaction for his own sins, his very determination to do all that he does for the pure love of God would be sufficient to make satisfaction for them; since it is certain that whoever is able to make a fervent act of charity, or an act of perfect contrition, satisfies fully for all his sins.

 

You would, perhaps, like to be told how to know whether you are profiting by the reception of the Sacraments. Well, you will know if you advance in the virtues which are proper to them. For instance, if you derive from Confession humility and a love of your own abjection, you will know that you are profiting, for those are the virtues proper to that sacrament, and it is always by the measure of humility that we can gauge our advance­ment. Do you not remember that it is written: He that shall humble himself shall be exalted [Mt. 23:12; Lk. 14:11; 18:14], and to be exalted is to have advanced. If, through Holy Com­munion, you become gentle (since that is the virtue proper to this sacrament, which is all gentleness and honey), you will be drawing from it the fruit, which is proper to it, and thus you will be advancing. If, on the contrary, you do not become more gentle or more humble, you deserve to be deprived of the bread for which you will not work [2 Thess. 3:10].

 

When you wish to communicate, I should like you to act quite simply, asking permission of the Superior, resigning yourselves to accept humbly a refusal, if you are refused; or, if your request is granted, going to Communion with love. Although it may be mortifying to ask, you must not desist on that account, for the sisters who enter this Congregation enter only to mortify themselves, and the cross which they wear ought to remind them of this.  If, again, one of you should feel that she cannot com­municate so often as the others, on account of the knowledge she has of her own unworthiness, she may ask permission of the Superior to abstain, awaiting her decision with great calmness and humility.

 

I should like also to see that you are not at all disturbed when some fault which you possess, or some virtue which you lack, is mentioned. Instead of being disquieted, you ought to thank God for having shown you how to acquire that virtue, and how to correct yourself of that imperfection, and then take courage. We must have generous minds which cling to God alone, never consenting to the desires of our lower nature, but letting our higher nature reign and rule over us, since it is entirely in our power, by the grace of God, not to consent to the lower. Consolations and pleasing emotions ought not to be desired, since they are not necessary to make us love Our Lord more. We must not, then, stop to consider whether we have consolations, but we must act as we should do if we had them.

 

Again, I would not have you so scrupulous and anxious about confessing numbers of trifling imperfections, since we are not even obliged to confess venial sins if we do not wish to do so. If, however, we do confess them, we must firmly resolve to amend, otherwise it would be an abuse of Confession. Neither must we torment ourselves when we cannot remember our faults so as to confess them, for it is incredible that a soul who frequently examines herself should not have sufficiently noticed any faults of importance so as to remember them. As regards these many but trifling defects, you can speak about them with Our Lord whenever you perceive them; an act of self-humiliation, a sigh, will be enough for that.

 

You ask how you can make your act of contrition in a short time. I tell you that scarcely any time is required to make it well, since all that is necessary is to prostrate ourselves before God in a spirit of humility and repentance for having offended Him.

 

In the second place, you desire me to speak to you about the Office. I will gladly do so; and, in the first place, I must tell you that we ought to prepare ourselves for saying it the very moment we hear the bell which calls us to it, and we must, in imitation of St. Bernard, ask our heart what it is that it is going to do.[2] And not only on this occasion, but also on entering upon any of our exercises, in order that we may bring to each of them the spirit which is proper to it. For instance, it would not be suitable to go to Office as we go to recreation: to recreation we must take with us a lovingly joyous spirit, and to Office a seriously loving spirit. When we say: Deus in adjutorium meum intende, we must think that Our Lord on His part is saying to us: And be you attentive to Me[3].

 

Let those who understand a little of what they say in the Office, employ this talent faithfully according to the good pleasure of God. He has given it to help them in keeping recollected, through the good affections they may draw from it. On the other hand, let those who do not understand anything that they are saying, simply keep themselves in the presence of God, or make loving aspirations while the other side of the Choir repeats its verses and they themselves are silent. We must also remember that we are reciting the same Office as the Angels, though in a different language, and that we are in the presence of the same God before Whom the Angels tremble. And just as a man who was speaking to a king, would be most intent upon what he was about, for fear he should commit some fault; and if, in spite of all his care, he should happen to commit one, would blush with shame; so in like manner should we behave at Office, being always on our guard, lest we should transgress. It is also very important that we should be careful to pronounce our words well, and to say the Office exactly in the manner prescribed. Beginners must be especially attentive to this. If, however, we should make some mistake, we must humble our­selves for it, but without being astonished, for it is not at all surprising, considering we make many mistakes elsewhere. But if we should make several, and were to go on doing so, it looks very much as if we had not taken our first failure sufficiently to heart. It is this carelessness which ought to overwhelm us with confusion, not because of the presence of the Superior, but out of respect for the presence of God and of His Angels. Now, it is almost an invariable rule, that when we often commit the same fault, it is a sign that we are wanting in a loving desire of amendment; and if it is a matter about which we have been often admonished, it looks very much as if we had disregarded the admonition. If we should miss two or "three verses out of a whole Office by mistake, we must not torment ourselves with scruples, it not being voluntary. If you sleep throughout a good part of the Office, even though you may say all the verses with your side of the Choir, you are obliged to say it again; but if you are interrupted by coughing, or by the mistress of the ceremonies speaking on some matter concerning the Office, then you are not obliged to repeat.[4]

 

When you enter the Choir after the Office has begun, you must take your place among the others and follow the Office with them, in case your assistance should be really necessary; and after it in finished, you must say to yourself what the Choir had said before you came in, leaving off again at the point at which you took it up. Or else you must first say to yourself what the Choir has already said, and then join in with it.

 

You must not say your Office over again because you were distracted in saying it, provided, of course, that these distractions were not wilful. If at the end of a Psalm you should find that you are not quite certain whether you have said it, because you have been so distracted and thinking so little of it, still pass on, humbling yourself before God. For we must not always think that we have been careless because our distraction has been long; indeed, it might last throughout the whole Office from no fault of our own. Bad though it may be, we must not worry ourselves about it, but simply from time to time drive it away in the presence of God. I wish you never to be troubled about any bad feelings which you may have, but to make up your mind courageously and faithfully not to consent to them, remembering that there is a great deal of difference between feeling and consenting.

 

You would like me to tell you something about prayer.  Many people make great mistakes about how they should pray. They think that a great deal of method is required, and are eager in striving to find out this particular art which they fancy it is so necessary to know. They are continually, as it were, examining and prying into their prayer, to see how they make it, or how it could be improved upon, and they think that they must neither cough nor move during it, for fear the Spirit of God should withdraw.  Truly this is a great folly, as if the Spirit of God were so fastidious as to depend on the method and posture of those who pray. I do not say that we ought not to make use of the methods recommended to us, but we must not cling to them, as do those who think that they have never prayed well, unless they make their con­siderations before the affections which Our Lord gives them, whereas those affections are really the end for which we make the considerations. Such persons resemble people who, finding themselves at the very place to which they intended to go, yet turn back because they have not reached it by the road which was pointed out to them.

 

It is nevertheless necessary that we should be­have with the greatest reverence when speaking to the divine Majesty, since the Angels, who are so pure, tremble in His presence. "But, alas!" some will say, "I cannot always so realise the presence of God as to feel that humiliation of soul and that, deep, awe-struck reverence which prostrates me in a rapture of sweetness and devotion before Him." I am not talking about that at all; the reverence that I mean is that which keeps all the highest and noblest powers of our soul prostrate and humbled before God, in recognition of His infinite greatness and of our profound littleness and unworthiness.

 

We must also be resolutely determined never to give up prayer for any difficulty that we may encounter in it, and never to go to it preoccupied with desires of consolation and satisfaction; for that would not be uniting our will with that of Our Lord. His will is, that entering into prayer, we should be prepared to suffer the pain of continual distractions, dryness, and disgust which may come upon us, and that we should remain just as constant as if we had enjoyed much peace and consolation. It is quite certain that our prayer will be none the less pleasing to God, nor less useful to ourselves, for having been made with difficulty For, provided that we always put our will in accord with that of the divine Majesty, and that we be simply and steadily determined to accept lovingly all that is ordered by His good pleasure, whether in prayer or under any other circumstances, all that happens is certain to be profitable to us, and will make us pleasing in the sight of His divine Goodness. Therefore, my dear daughters, you  will be praying well if you keep yourselves in peace and tranquillity close to Our Lord, or at least in His sight, with no other desire or intention than to be with Him, and to content Him.

 

The first method, then, which we should adopt in our prayers is the consideration of some point, such as the mysteries of the Life, Passion, and Death of Our Lord, which are the most useful; for it is a very rare thing for us not to be able to profit by the consideration of what Our Lord has done. He is the sovereign Master, Whom the Eternal Father has sent into the world to teach us what we ought to do; and therefore, besides the obligation which is laid upon us to form ourselves upon this divine Model, we ought to be most exact in our consideration of all His actions so as to imitate them. One of the most excellent intentions that we can pos­sibly have in all our actions, is to do them because Our Lord did them — that is to say, to practise virtues because Our Father practised them, and as He practised them.

 

To understand this thoroughly, we must faithfully regard, weigh, and ponder these things in our prayer, for the child who really loves his father delights in copying his ways, and in imitating him in all that he does.

 

It is true, as you say, that there are souls who cannot pause and fix their thoughts on any special mystery, being attracted to a certain simplicity, full of sweetness, which keeps them in perfect tran­quillity before God, with no other consideration than the knowledge that they are before Him and that He is their only Good. They may remain thus with profit to themselves, for it is good; but, generally speaking, all the sisters should begin by the method of prayer and meditation which is the safest, and tends most surely to the reformation of life and change of behaviour — that which I have said circles round the mysteries of the Life and Death of Our Lord; in that path we may securely tread. We must, then, in good faith keep close to our Master to learn from Him what He wishes us to do. Those who can make use of their imagination may do so, but it must be done simply, soberly, and briefly. The holy Fathers have left to us many pious and devout considerations which we may use, for, since they were conceived by these great and holy personages, who will not venture to use them, and who would refuse to believe piously what they so piously believed? We must assuredly follow men of such authority. Some, however, are not content, with what comes to us from such sources; they have invented all kinds of other imaginations, and these are just what we must not use in our medita­tion, as indeed they might harm us.

 

We ought to make our resolutions in the fervour of prayer, when the Sun of Justice enlightens us, and incites us by His inspirations. I do not mean by this that we must have sublime feelings and consolations, although when God gives them to us it is our duty to profit by them and to correspond to His love. But even when He does not give them to us, we must not be wanting in fidelity, but must live according to reason and the divine Will, making our resolutions with the keenest and loftiest part of our mind and soul, not wearying in our efforts, or failing to put these resolutions into practice, on account of any dryness, repugnance, or contradiction which may present itself. So much for what concerns the first mode of meditating which many great saints have practised, and which is excellent when rightly made.

 

The second manner of meditating is to make no use of imagination, but to keep strictly to the letter—that is to say, to meditate purely and simply on the Gospel and on the mysteries of our Faith, conversing, as it were, familiarly and simply with Our Lord on all that He has done and suffered for us, but without trying to picture it to ourselves. Now, this is a much loftier and better method than the first, and more holy and safe for us; therefore, however little attraction we may have for it, we should incline towards it, taking care at every step in our meditation to keep our mind in a state of holy freedom, ready to follow the light and the impulses which God may give us.  As for other methods of more sublime prayer, unless God abso­lutely gives them, I entreat you not to meddle with them yourself, without the advice of those who direct you.

 

 

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[1] This passage confirms the remark made above, and brings out clearly the saint's idea. The disinclination which one may feel for the practice of virtue, even when it supposes the absence of the virtuous habit, may be a relative but very real good, in the case that this disinclination procures an increase of humility.

[2] Vita la S. Bern. Lib. I. i. c. iv. (Patrol. Lat., t. clxxxv.).

[3] attentive – to My love.  (MS. and Coll.).

[4] to repeat—nor the Sacristan when occupied with the duties of her charge, provided she does not leave the Choir. (MS. and Coll.)

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