Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/109

Rh and spirit, of one who, seven times a day, is in choir with the Saints, and before the face of God? Next to the Holy Mass, what greater help to sacerdotal perfection can there be than this?

8. A third help of the priest is mental prayer. The Divine Office is vocal prayer, but the mere recital of it fills the mind with the matter of mental prayer. A priest's life is the vita mixta of our Lord, and for our instruction Jesus spent days in toil and nights in prayer. A priest's life is both contemplative and active, and these two elements cannot be separated without loss and danger. Hæc meditare, in his esto, ut profectus tuus manifestus sit omnibus. The things Timothy was to meditate and to live in were all the truths and precepts of the faith, but most especially "reading, exhortation, and doctrine"—that is, the deposit of the revelation in all its fulness and detail. In reading, our minds terminate upon a book; in meditation, our intelligence and our heart terminate upon God. Prayer is a vital act of faith and desire, to attain a fuller knowledge of God and a closer union with Him in affection and in resolution—that is, in heart and will.

The first effect of mental prayer is the realisation of the objects of faith—that is, of the world unseen as if it were visible, and of the future as if it were