Salesian Literature

Chapter 10  :  Degrees in tranquillity, and how to preserve it

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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.  There are yet others who are not content with a contented mind, unless they notice, examine and enjoy its contentment; they are like people who will not believe themselves to be protected from cold until they know exactly how many garments they are wearing, who will not admit to being wealthy until they know the exact number of coins in their overfilled coffers.

 

Usually, people with such types of minds are easy prey to disturbances at prayer.  If God affords them the stillness of his presence, they deliberately renounce it by studying their own reactions, by scrutinizing their contentment to see if it is sufficient, anxious to discover whether their peace is really peaceful, their tranquillity really tranquil.

 

There is all the difference in the world, Theotimus, between being preoccupied with God who affords us contentment and being taken up with the contentment God affords.

 

Consequently, the man to whom God grants this loving tranquillity of soul in prayer must do all he can to refrain from examining either himself or the stillness he enjoys.  If we are to preserve that blissful rest, we must not peer into it inquisitively.  The man who is too fond of it loses it; the surest principle for loving it properly is not to become attached to it.

 

Still, it must not be thought that there is any danger of losing this blessed peace through physical or mental activity in which thoughtlessness or carelessness play no part.  It would be mere superstition, as the saintly Mother Teresa says[1], to be so jealous of this stillness as to try not to cough, or sneeze, or even breathe, for fear of losing it.  God, who gives this peace, does not take it back on account of essential activity, involuntary distractions or wool-gathering on our part.  Once the will has been captivated by God’s presence, it never gives up enjoying the happiness of it, even though intellect or memory turns deserters, stealing away in pursuit of irrelevant worthless thoughts.

 

Obviously, on such occasions, tranquillity of soul is not so deep as when intellect or memory act in concert with the will.  For all that, it is till a genuine spiritual peace; its influence pervades the will, and the will has control of all the other faculties.

 

I have actually seen a soul[2] deeply attached to God, closely united with him, whose intellect and memory remained so uninvolved that she clearly understood conversation going on around her, and remembered it perfectly afterwards; even though, at the time, she was unable to answer when anyone spoke to her, unable to disengage herself from God, secured to him by the attentiveness of her will.

 

Peace of soul, however, would be all the greater, all the sweeter for a man, if there were no external noise around him, if he had no need to make any exertion of body or mind, his heart set on concentrating solely on God’s presence.  Unable, now and then, to prevent distractions where the other faculties are concerned, at least he manages to preserve tranquillity in his will – the faculty which enables him to enjoy what is good.

 

And the will, notice, captive as it is to tranquillity through the gratification if finds in God’s presence, makes no effort to bring back the other distracted powers.  After all, that would involve loss of stillness, through tearing the will away from its loving; it would also mean a waste of effort in pursuit of those truant powers.  There is no better way of recalling them to their duty than for the will to persevere in its blessed peace.

 

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[1]  Way of Perfection, chapter 31.

[2]  Mother Anne-Marie Rosset; cf. Book 6, Chapter 7.

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