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 and graces in which consists true wisdom and perfect justice and sanctity." The reason of this is, that as our Lord is very gracious and gentle, and inspires us to pray, He speaks to us when we speak to Him, and converses familiarly with those that enter into their heart to treat and converse with Him. And the conversation and speech of God is not of words alone hut of works; for (as St. Bernard says) " Locutio verbi est infusio doni." " For God to speak is to communicate gifts infusing his graces and virtues upon them to whom he speaks;" filling them with that spiritual " joy unspeakable," and with that " peace that surpasses all understanding." And upon this David said, " I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me; for He will speak peace unto His people, and unto His saints, and unto them that are converted to the heart."

It is for this cause that in prayer we must speak in such a manner to God, as to be attentive to hearken, and to hear what He speaks to us by His inspirations, to obey them, and to dispose ourselves to receive those gifts which thereby He intends to communicate to us; as we shall see in the second part in the twenty-sixth meditation.

By what has been said appears the excellency and necessity of mental prayer, of which Cassian says, that it has such a connexion with all virtues, that neither can they be perfectly obtained nor preserved without prayer, nor perfect prayer be obtained without them; for it is (says he) the end of all, and to it are directed all the labours and pains we take to gain them; inasmuch as prayer, of which we here treat, in its perfect degree embraces union with God, by the means of actual knowledge and love, with great joy in possessing Him. Hence it arises that God (as St. John Climacus says) in prayer pays in ready money