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Prayer
Related Topics: Contemplation | Meditation | Inspirations
Prayer is necessary
Introduction to the Devout Life, 2:1. Prayer is opening our understanding to God’s brightness and light, and exposing our will to the warmth of his love.
Recalling God’s presence during the day
Introduction to the Devout Life, 2:12. In the course of the day, recall to mind the presence of God, as often as you can.
Introduction to the Devout Life, 2:13. This exercise is not difficult. It can be interwoven with all our occupations and work without causing the least disturbance. All the more so because, both in the awareness of God’s presence and in these interior longings, we turn aside only in a small way and briefly.
Longing for God, Ejaculatory Prayers, and Good Thoughts
Introduction to the Devout Life, 2:13. We recollect ourselves in God because we long for him, and we long for him in order to recollect ourselves in him. Thus, longing for God and recollection in God support one another. Both arise from and are born of good thoughts.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6
Prayer, a Heart to Heart with God
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:1. We express our love for God chiefly in two ways – spontaneously (affectively), and deliberately (effective; or, as St. Bernard puts it, actively). In the first of these ways we grow fond of God, of what he likes; in the second we serve God, do what he enjoins.
Meditation the first step in prayer
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:2. Meditating is an idea that finds a frequent place in holy Scripture. All it means is thinking intently and repeatedly about something in such a way as to give rise to good or bad emotions.
Contemplation and How it differs from Meditation
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:3. Contemplation is but a loving, artless, unremitting, mental preoccupation with the things of God.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:4. Love demands knowledge, for we can never love the unknown; the more thorough does our knowledge of something good become, the deeper grows our love for it – as long as the emotion meets with no impediment.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:5. Meditation is a reflection in great detail, point by point, on those things which are capable of touching our hearts; contemplation, however, takes a single concentrated look at what we love – a concentrated reflection that has greater energy, greater power to move the will.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:6. Contemplation’s simple survey is made in one of these three ways…
The Loving Recollection of a soul resting in God
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:7. By recollection, in this context, Theotimus, I do not mean the effort to be aware of God’s presence, which people make at the beginning of their prayers, when they rein in their souls (so to speak), to have a heartfelt talk with God.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:8. When the soul is inwardly recollected like that, in God or in his presence, it occasionally becomes so secretly attentive to its beloved’s goodness, as to give the appearance of scarcely being attentive at all – so artless its attention, so unobtrusive.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:9. A soul that knows stillness and tranquillity in God’s presence is like a baby at its mother’s breasts. As that tiny creature satisfies its hunger, its little eyes begin to close, and gradually it falls asleep.
How to preserve this prayer of quiet and tranquillity
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:10. Some people possess active minds, minds that are prolific, swarming with ideas. Others have minds that are flexible, introspective, minds that are greatly given to consciousness of their own working; they must sift all their mental processes; they must be constantly watching themselves to see how they are getting on.
Treatise on the Love of God, 6:11. It follows, from what I have been saying, that there are various degrees of holy tranquillity.
Treatise on the Love of God, 7
How Love unites the soul with God in prayer
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:1. Here, I am not going to discuss habitual union of soul with God, but those special actions, impulses, which are the prayers of a recollected soul – its efforts to become more and more united or joined to God’s goodness.
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:2. Occasionally union is achieved without any corresponding effort on our part; we merely go along unresistingly, allowing God, in his goodness, to unite us with him.
The highest degree of union: Ecstasy or Rapture
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:3. In whatever way union of soul with God is achieved, then – consciously or unconsciously – God is always responsible for it. No one can become one with God without going out towards him; nor can anyone go out towards God unless attracted by him.
Types of Ecstasy or Rapture
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:4. Ecstasy is given the name of rapture, since it is a state in which God attracts us and lifts us up to him. Rapture is called ecstasy, because it takes us out of ourselves, holds us above and beyond self, to make us one with God.
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Treatise on the Love of God, 7:5. The sun’s beauty and goodness are to be found in its light; but for that light, there would be nothing beautiful, nothing good, in this physical world of ours. By reason of its beauty the sunlight illuminates all things; by reason of its goodness it warms and quickens all.
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:6. In our own day, to be sure, there have been people convinced – and they were not alone in their belief – of being often rapt by God into ecstasy; yet, in the end, it turned out that they had been suffering from delusions, deceived by the devil.
How love is the life of the soul
Treatise on the Love of God, 7:7. Love is the active principle of the spiritual life, the life of devotion; it gives us vitality, sensitivity, emotion. Our spiritual lives are what love’s activity makes them: a heart devoid of emotion is devoid of love; while a loving heart cannot be devoid of love’s emotion.
Spiritual Directory
Prayer
Begin each prayer, the silent as well as the vocal, by being aware of the presence of God. Keep to this without exception. In all petitions and prayers, the “We” carries weight, as the Lord taught us in the Our Father. In it, no “I” or “for me” is found. [Sp. Directory]
The necessity of Prayer
Prayer is most necessary to help us to understand divine things and to open our wills to the warmth of heavenly love. It cleanses our souls of their imperfections and lessens our passions. [Sp. Directory]
Prayer of the heart throughout the day
There are five kinds of shorter prayers which flow out of our daily mental prayer. [Sp. Directory]
How should we receive inspirations
By inspirations we mean all the interior attractions, movements, reproaches, all the lights and rays of knowledge, which God causes within us through His Fatherly love and care. [Sp. Directory]
How we should carry our inspirations
Resolve to accept with a good heart all the inspirations God gives to you. Consider the love which inspired them. [Sp. Directory]
Living in God’s presence
Recall the presence of God as often as you can during the day by one of the four ways I pointed out to you. [Sp. Directory]
Quite interval with the Lord
Before the evening meal, take time to recollect yourself in some quiet place, or before the Blessed Sacrament. [Sp. Directory]
Atmosphere of Spiritual Retreat
It is here that I wish you very earnestly to follow my counsel, for in this exercise of spiritual retreat – short prayers, scripture phrases, speaking to Christ throughout the day – lies one of the surest means of your spiritual advancement and the great work of devotion. [Sp. Directory]
The use of aspirations – Short prayers and Scripture phrases
Aspirations to God proceed from and are born of good thoughts. Aspire then very often to God, by short but ardent movements of the heart. [Sp. Directory]
St. Bernard – whose memory is dear to those who have to speak on prayer – in writing to a bishop, advised him that all that was necessary for him was to speak well (meaning to instruct, to discourse); then to do well in giving good example; and finally, to devote himself to prayer. And we, addressing this to all Christians, shall dwell upon the third point, which is prayer.
We have now to speak of the efficient cause of prayer. It is necessary for us to know, then, who can and who ought to pray. The question would soon be decided were we to say that all can pray and that all ought to do so. But in order the better to satisfy the mind, we shall treat this subject at greater length.
We have shown that the end of prayer is our union with God, and that all who are on the way to salvation can and ought to pray. But there remained to us a difficulty in our last exhortation, namely, whether sinners can be heard.
I still have to point out the distinction that exists in prayer, whether mental or vocal prayer. In prayer we go to God in two ways, both of which have been recommended to us by Our Lord and commanded by our Holy Mother the Church – namely, sometimes we pray directly to God, and at other times indirectly, as when we say the anthems of Our Lady, the Salve Regina and others.
Letter to Madame de Soulfour: In prayer we approach God and place ourselves in His presence for two reasons.
Letter to Madame de Brûlart: You tell me you do nothing at all in prayer. But what would you want to do that you are not already doing, that is, presenting and re-presenting your nothingness and your misery to God.
Letter to Madame de Granieu: Your kind of prayer is very good, indeed much better than if you made many reflections and used many words, for these are only meant to arouse our affections; if God is pleased to give us affections without the reflections and words, this is a great grace. The secret of secrets in prayer is to follow our attraction in simplicity of heart.
Letter to Madame de Chantal: I’d like to say more about your prayer, for I reread your letter late last night. Go on doing as you described. Be careful not to intellectualise, because this can be harmful, not only in general, but especially at prayer. Approach the beloved object of your prayer with your affections quite simply and as gently as you can.
Two principal reasons for prayer
Letter to Madame de Soulfour. First, we pray in order to give God the honour and homage we owe Him. Second, we pray in order to speak with God, and to hear Him speak to us by inspirations and movements in the interior of our soul.
Little virtues prepare for contemplation of God
Letter to Madame de Chantal. Each one must love the virtues that are suitable to him, each according to his vocation. The virtues of a widow are humility, contempt of the world and of oneself, and simplicity. Her exercises are love of her abjection, the service of the poor and ill; her place, the foot of the Cross; her rank, the last; her glory, to be scorned; her crown must be her misery: these are small virtues.
We must remain in the presence of the Lord
Letter to Madame de Chantal. To keep ourselves in the presence of God and to place ourselves in the presence of God are, in my opinion, two different things. For to place ourselves in this presence it is necessary to recall our minds from every other object and render it actually attentive to the divine presence.
Living a life of prayer
Letter to Madame de Villesavin. Don’t ever believe, my dearest daughter, that great distances can separate those whom God has united by the bonds of His love. The children of this world are all separated one from another because their hearts are in different places; but the children of God whose hearts are where their treasure is and who all have the same treasure – which is the same God – are consequently always bound and united together.
A method of prayer
Letter to Angélique Arnauld. I hope I will be able to understand clearly what you will tell me about your prayer, although I don’t want you to be curious in observing your method of praying.
In the Midst of the World
Commentary on Prayer [Sp. Directory]: To find God, to experience His presence in our lives, and to make progress on our way to holiness, it is very important that we go apart some time every day to pray.
Commentary on Prayer of Praise [Sp. Directory]: Holiness, in the spirit of St. Francis de Sales, means happiness. As Christians, we are exhorted by St. Paul to rejoice always.
Studies in Salesian Spirituality
Prayer and Surrender to God: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13.
Traits of Salesian Spirituality: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Agnelo Fernandes].
Prayer: From St. Ignatius Loyola to St. Francis de Sales: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Armind Nazareth].
Ecstasy in St. Francis de Sales: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Joseph S. Kulathunkal].
“Cry of the Poor”: The Encounter between Human Need and Divine Generosity in the Exodus Story and in St. Francis de Sales: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Anthony Ceresko].
Prayer of Quiet: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Anthony D’Souza].
Types of Union in Prayer: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Sr. Celine Kunnel].
Transcending Self-trials in Prayer: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Antony Mookenthottam].
Love in Prayer: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Benedict D’Souza].
Mary, Model of Love and Union in Prayer: Studies in Salesian Spirituality, Nos. 12 & 13 [Midathada Mariadas].
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A Spirituality for Everyone
St. Francis de Sales presents a spirituality that can be practised by everyone in all walks of life
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VIEWS OF St. FRANCIS DE SALES