Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/29

 will is that all shall be entirely subject to the correction of our holy mother the Catholic Church, which is the foundation and pillar of truth, from which whenever, either through ignorance or negligence, I shall depart, I forthwith revoke whatsoever I have said.

Mental prayer (of which we here treat) is a work of the three interior faculties of the soul, memory, understanding, and will, exercising, by God's assistance, their acts about those mysteries and truths which our holy Catholic faith teaches; and speaking within ourselves to God our Lord, conversing familiarly with Him, begging of Him His gifts, and negotiating all whatsoever is necessary for our salvation and perfection: insomuch that the substance of mental prayer consists principally in these four things.

1. The first is, with the memory to be mindful of God our Lord, with whom we are to speak, and to negotiate; and to be mindful also of the mystery that is to be meditated, passing briefly through the memory, with clearness and distinction, that which is to be the matter of the meditation, as it is taught by faith, and as it is divided into several points in the form that we shall hereafter explain. And that this memory or recordation be not dry, it is good to join to it the acts of faith, believing with the greatest liveliness that we can the verities of that mystery, because God, who is all truth, has revealed them, making of faith a ladder to mount up to perfect knowledge, seeing that (as Isaias says) " unless you believe, you shall not understand."

2. The second thing is, with the understanding to make several reasonings and considerations about that mystery,