Short and Easy Method of Prayer — Chapters 18 & 19

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DRYNESS OF PREACHERS, AND THE VARIOUS EVILS WHICH ARISE FROM THEIR FAILING TO TEACH HEART-PRAYER--EXHORTATION TO PASTORS TO LEAD PEOPLE TOWARDS THIS FORM OF PRAYER, WITHOUT AMUSING THEM WITH STUDIED AND METHODICAL DEVOTION.

If all those who are working for the conquest of souls sought to win them _by the heart_, leading them first of all to prayer and to the inner life, they would see many and lasting conversions.

But so long as they only address themselves to the outside, and instead of drawing people to Christ by occupying their hearts with Him, they only give them a thousand precepts for outward observances, they will see but little fruit, and that will not be lasting.

When once the heart is won, other defects are easily corrected.

This is why God particularly asks for the _heart_.

By this means alone would be prevented the drunkenness, blasphemy, lewdness, enmity, and robbery which are prevalent in the world.

Jesus Christ would reign universally, and the Church everywhere would be revived.

Error only takes possession of the soul in the absence of faith and prayer.

If men could be taught to _believe simply_ and to _pray_, instead of disputing amongst themselves, they would be gently led to Christ.

Oh, how inestimable is the loss of those who neglect the inner life!

Oh, what an account will they have to render to God who have the charge of souls, for not having discovered this hidden treasure to all those whom they serve in the ministry of the Word!

The excuse given is that there is _danger_ in this way, or that ignorant people are incapable of spiritual things.

The oracle of truth assures us that God has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them to babes.

And what danger can there be in walking in the only true way, which is Jesus Christ, in giving ourselves to Him, looking to Him continually, putting all our trust in His grace, and tending, with all the forces of our souls, to His pure love?

Far from the simple ones being _incapable_ of this perfection, they are the most suitable for it, because they are more docile, more humble, and more innocent; and as they do not reason, they are not so attached to their own light.

Having no science, they more readily suffer themselves to be guided by the Spirit of God: while others who are blind in their own sufficiency resist the divine inspiration.

God tells us, too, that it is to the _simple_ He gives understanding by the entrance of His Word (Ps.

cxix.

130).

"The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the _simple_" (Ps.

xix.

7).

"The Lord preserveth the _simple_: I was brought low, and He helped me" (Ps.

cxvi.

6).

O ye who have the oversight of souls!

see that you do not prevent the little ones from going to Christ.

His words to His disciples were, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God" (Luke xviii.

16).

Jesus only said this to His disciples, because they wished to keep the children away from Him.

Often the remedy is applied to the body, when the disease is at the _heart_.

The reason why we have so little success in seeking to reform men, is that we direct our efforts to the outside, and all that we can do there soon passes off.

But if we were to give them first _the key of the interior_, the outside would be reformed at once with a natural facility.

And this is very easy.

To teach them to seek God in their heart, to think of Him, to return to Him when they find they have turned away, to do all and suffer all for the sake of pleasing Him--this is to direct them to the source of all grace, and to make them find there all that is necessary for their sanctification.

O you who serve souls!

I conjure you to put them first of all into this way, which is Jesus Christ; and it is He who conjures you to do this by the blood He has shed for the souls He confides to your care.

"Speak to the heart of Jerusalem" (Isa.

xl.

2, marg.

) O dispensers of His grace, preachers of His Word, ministers of sacraments!

establish His kingdom; and, in order to establish it truly, make it reign over HEARTS.

For as it is the heart alone which can oppose His empire, it is by the subjection of the heart that His sovereignty is most honoured.

Alas!

we seek to make _studied_ prayers; and by wishing to arrange them too much, we render them impossible.

We have alienated children from the best of Fathers, in seeking to teach them a polished language.

Go, poor children, and speak to your Heavenly Father in your natural language: however uncultivated it may be, it is not so to Him.

A

father loves best the speech which is put in disorder by love and respect, because he sees that it comes from the heart: it is more to him than a dry harangue, vain and unfruitful though well studied.

Oh, how certain glances of love charm and ravish Him!

They express infinitely more than all language and reason.

By wishing to teach how to love Love Himself with method, much of this love has been lost.

Oh!

it is not necessary to teach the art of loving.

The language of love is barbarous to him who does not love; and we cannot learn to love God better than by loving Him.

The Spirit of God does not need our arrangements; He takes shepherds at His pleasure to make them prophets; and, far from closing the palace of prayer to any, as it is imagined, He leaves the doors open to all, and Wisdom is ordered to cry in the public places, "Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled" (Prov.

ix.

4, 5).

Did not Christ thank His Father that He had hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and had revealed them to babes?

(Matt.

xi.

25. ) CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE PRECEDING WAYS, THERE REMAINS AN AFTER WAY, PREPARATORY TO DIVINE UNION, IN WHICH WISDOM AND JUSTICE MAKE THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL, ALL WHICH IS TREATED IN DETAIL IN THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, ENTITLED "SPIRITUAL TORRENTS."

It is impossible to attain divine union by the way of meditation alone, or even by the affections, or by any luminous or understood prayer.

There are several reasons.

These are the principal.

First, according to Scripture, "No man shall see God and live" (Exod.

xxxiii.

20).

Now all discursive exercises of prayer, or even of _active contemplation_, regarded as an end, and not as a preparation for the _passive_, are exercises of life by which we cannot see God, that is, become united to Him.

All that is of man, and of his own industry, however noble and elevated it may be, must die.

St John tells us that "there was silence in heaven."

Heaven represents the depths and centre of the soul, where all must be in silence when the majesty of God appears.

All that belongs to our own efforts, or to ourselves in any way, must be destroyed, because nothing is opposed to God but appropriation, and all the malignity of man is in this appropriation, which is the source of his evil; so that the more a soul loses its appropriation, the more it becomes pure.

Secondly, in order to unite two things so opposed as the purity of God and the impurity of the creature, the simplicity of God and the multiplicity of the creature, God must operate alone; for this can never be done by the effort of the creature, since two things cannot be united unless there is some relation or resemblance between them, as an impure metal would never unite with one that was pure and refined.

What does God do then?

He sends before Him His own Wisdom, as fire will be sent upon the earth to consume by its activity all the impurity that is there.

Fire consumes all things, and nothing resists its activity.

It is the same with Wisdom; it consumes all impurity in the creature, to prepare him for divine union.

This impurity, so opposed to union, is appropriation and activity.

_Appropriation_, because it is the source of the real impurity which can never be united to essential purity; as the sun's rays may touch the mud but cannot unite with it.

_Activity_, because God being in an infinite repose, in order that the soul may be united to Him, it must participate in His repose, without which there can be no union, because of the dissemblance; and to unite two things, they must be in a proportionate rest.

It is for this reason that the soul can only attain divine union by the rest of its will; and it can only be united to God when it is in a _central rest_ and in the purity of its creation.

To purify the soul God makes use of wisdom as fire is used for the purification of gold.

It is certain that gold can only be purified by fire, which gradually consumes all that is earthly and foreign, and separates it from the gold.

It is not sufficient that the earth should be changed into gold; it is necessary that the fire should melt and dissolve it, to remove from it all that is earthly; and this gold is put in the fire so many times that it loses its impurity, and all necessity of purification.

Then it is fit to be employed in the most excellent workmanship.

And if this gold is impure in the end, it is because it has contracted fresh defilement by coming in contact with other bodies.

But this impurity is only superficial, and does not prevent its being used;

whereas its former impurity was hidden within it, and, as it were, identified with its nature.

In addition to this, you will remark that gold of an inferior degree of purity cannot mix with that of a superior purity.

The one must contract the impurity of the other, or else impart its own purity to it.

Put a refined gold with an unrefined one, what can the goldsmith ever do with it?

He will have all the impurity taken from the second piece, that it may be able to mix with the first.

This is what St Paul tells us, that "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is;" he adds, that if any man's work should be found to deserve burning, he should be saved "so as by fire" (1 Cor.

iii.

13, 15).

That means, that though there are some works which are good, and which God receives, yet, so that he who has done them may be pure, they too must pass through the fire, in order that all appropriation, that is, all that was his own, may be taken from them.

God will judge our righteousness, because "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified," but by "the righteousness of God, which is by faith" (Rom.

iii.

20, 22).

This being understood, I say that, in order that man may be united to his God, wisdom and divine justice, like a pitiless and devouring fire, must take from him all appropriation, all that is terrestrial, carnal, and of his own activity; and having taken all this from him, they must unite him to God.

This is never brought about by the labours of the creature; on the contrary, it even causes him regret, because, as I have said, man so loves what is his own, and is so fearful of its destruction, that if God did not accomplish it Himself, and by His own authority, man would never consent to it.

It will be objected to this, that God never deprives man of his liberty, and that therefore he can always resist God; for which reason I ought not to say that _God acts absolutely, without the consent of man_.

In explanation I say, that it is sufficient that man should give a _passive consent_, that he may have entire and full liberty; because having at the beginning given himself to God, that He may do as He will both with him and in him, he gave from that time an _active_ and general assent to all that God might do.

But when God destroys, burns, and purifies, the soul does not see that all this is for its advantage; it rather believes the contrary: and as at first the fire seems to tarnish the gold, so this operation seems to despoil the soul of its purity.

So that if an _active_ and _explicit_ consent were required, the soul would find a difficulty in giving it, and often would not give it.

All that it does is to remain in a passive contentment, enduring this operation as well as it can, being neither able nor willing to prevent it.

God then so purifies this soul of all natural, distinct, and perceived operations, that at last He makes it more and more _conformed_ to Himself, and then _uniform_, raising the passive capacity of the creature, enlarging it and ennobling it, though in a hidden and unperceived manner, which is termed mystical.

But in all these operations the soul must concur passively, and in proportion as the working of God becomes stronger, the soul must continually yield to Him, until He absorbs it altogether.

We do not say, then, as some assert, that there must be no _action_; since, on the contrary, this is _the door_; but only that _we must not remain in it_, seeing that man should tend towards the perfection of his end, and that he can never reach it without quitting the first means, which, though they were necessary to introduce him into the way, would greatly hinder him afterwards, if he attached himself obstinately to them.

This is what Paul said, "I forget those things which are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are before; I press toward the mark" (Phil.

iii.

13, 14).

Should we not consider a person destitute of reason who, after undertaking a journey, stopped at the first inn, because he was assured that several had passed it, that a few had lodged there, and that the landlord lived there?

What the soul is required to do, then, is _to advance towards its end_, to take the shortest road, not to stop at the first point, and, following the advice of St Paul, to suffer itself to be "led by the Spirit of God" (Rom.

viii.

14), who will lead it to the end for which it was created, which is the enjoyment of God.

It is well known that the sovereign good is God; that essential blessedness consists in union with God, and that this union cannot be the result of our own efforts, since God only communicates Himself to the soul according to its capacity.

We cannot be united to God without passivity and simplicity; and this union being bliss, the way which leads to it must be the best, and there can be no risk in walking in it.

This way is not _dangerous_.

If it were, Christ would not have represented it as the most perfect and necessary of all ways.

All can walk in it; and as all are called to blessedness, all are called to the enjoyment of God, both in this life and in that which is to come, since the enjoyment of God is blessedness.

I say the enjoyment of God Himself, not of His gifts, which can never impart essential blessedness, not being able fully to satisfy the soul, which is so constituted that even the richest gifts of God cannot thoroughly content it.

The desire of God is to give Himself to us, according to the capacity with which He has endowed us; and yet we fear to leave ourselves to God!

We fear to possess Him, and to be prepared for divine union!

You say, _we must not bring ourselves to this condition_.

I agree to that; but I say too, that no one ever could bring himself to it, since no man could ever unite himself to God by his own efforts, and God Himself must do the work.

You say that some pretend to have attained it.

I say that this state cannot be feigned, any more than a man dying of hunger can for any length of time pretend to be satisfied.

It will soon be known whether or no men have attained this end.

Since, then, none can arrive at the end unless he be brought there, it is not a question of introducing people to it, but of showing them the way which leads to it, and begging them not to rest in those practices which must be relinquished at God's command.

Would it not be cruelty to show a fountain to a thirsty man, and then hold him bound, and prevent his going to it, leaving him to die of thirst?

That is what is being done now.

Let us all be agreed both as to the way and the end.

The way has its commencement, its progress, and its terminus.

The more we advance towards the terminus, the farther we go from the commencement; and it is impossible to reach the terminus but by constantly going farther from the starting-point, being unable to go from one place to another without passing through all that comes between them: this is incontestable.

Oh, how blind are the majority of men, who pride themselves upon their learning and talent!

O Lord!

how true it is that Thou hast hidden Thy secrets from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes!

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