Page:Prayerbookforrel00lasa 0.djvu/71

 learning, but  rising,  by  God's  grace,  to  the  sublimest prayer.

In order  to  pray  with  fruit  and  without  distraction,  it is  very  useful  and  in  most  cases  necessary,  to  spend  some time in  meditation  or  pious  thought  on  some  definite subject, and  from  this  fact,  as  before  stated,  the  whole exercise is  often  called  meditation,  instead  of  mental prayer. This often  misleads  people  into  imagining  that meditation, that  is,  the  use  of  the  intellect  in  thinking  on a  holy  subject,  is  the  main  end  to  be  aimed  at,  whereas  in fact  it  is  only  a  means  to  the  end,  which  is  prayer  or  conversation with  God. Meditation furnishes  us  with  the matter for  conversation,  but  it  is  not  itself  prayer  at  all. When thinking  and  reflecting  the  soul  speaks  to  itself, reasons with  itself;  in  prayer  it  speaks  to  God.

Meditation in  its  wide  sense  is  any  kind  of  attentive and repeated  thought  upon  any  subject  and  with  any intention, but  in  the  more  restricted  sense  in  which  it  is understood  as  a  part  of  mental  prayer,  it  is,  as  St.  Francis de Sales  puts  it,  "an  attentive  thought,  voluntarily  repeated or  entertained  in  the  mind,  to  excite  the  will  to holy  and  salutary  reflections  and  resolutions." It differs from mere  study  in  its  object:  we  study  to  improve  our minds and  to  store  up  information,  we  meditate  to  move the will  to  pray  and  to  embrace  good. We study  that  we may  know,  we  meditate  that  we  may  pray.

We must  then  use  the  mind  in  thus  thinking  or  pondering on  a  sacred  subject  for  a  few  minutes,  and  in  order  to help  the  mind  in  this  exercise,  we  must  have  some  definite subject  of  thought  upon  which  it  is  well  to  read  either a text  of  Holy  Scripture  or  a  few  lines  out  of  some  other holy book. St. Teresa tells  us  that  she  thus  helped  herself with  a  book  for  seventeen  years. By this  short  reading, the  mind  is  rendered  attentive  and  is  set  on  a  train of thought. Further to  help  the  mind  you  can  ask  yourself some  such  questions  as  the  following:  What  does this mean? What lesson  does  it  teach  me? What have