Mental Prayer Meditations and more

For the past year I have devoted (or at least tried to devote) enough time to post the daily meditation from the book, Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle by The Queen's Work,(© 1958). I made the observation that recently that I was beginning to repeat previous meditations and decided to replace those with meditations of another sort.

For those who would like to review the Mental Prayer meditations from the past year, click here. Also, If I have missed any, and you wish me to post it, please don't hesitate to ask.

As far as the new meditations, I am beginning with excerpts from "The Priest at Prayer" by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, a Spanish Vincentian priest who died in 1951.

These meditations are taken from his work, Meditaciones Sacerdotales which was published in 1928 and translated and published in English in 1954. The first volume of his Meditaciones Sacerdotales was held in such regard that several Spanish Bishops of the time recommended it to their clergy. The Preface relates that Fr. Escribano's writings strengthened the spiritual life of the clergy who were to be called to martyrdom in during the Spanish Civil War.

While the meditations are clearly for priests, the principles can be used by all, as all of us are called to a life of holiness, to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

And there are yet other reflections and meditations forthcoming from which Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle might have developed, at least in some measure.

These reflections will be based on the book, Sodality Director's Manual: Or, a collection of instructions for sodalities of the Blessed Virgin, by F.X. Schouppe, S.J., and published in 1882. Since Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle was also a Sodality book, this seems to be a natural continuation, as it were, and the "instructions" are excellent.

For more information (history, ideals, rules, etc.) on the Sodality of Our Lady, please click here.

The Sodality of Our Lady, an association formed by the Society of Jesus and approved by the Holy See, is a religious body which aims at fostering in its members an ardent devotion, reverence and filial love towards the Blessed Virgin Mary, and through this devotion and the protection of so good a Mother, it seeks to make the faithful, gathered together under her name, good Catholics sincerely bent on sanctifying themselves, each in his own state of life, and zealous, as far as their condition in life permits, to save and sanctify their neighbour and to defend the Church of Jesus Christ against the attacks of the wicked. (From Article I of the Common Rules for Sodalities of Our Lady)

The essential aims of the Sodality are personal holiness and Catholic Action - including working for the salvation and sanctification of one's neighbor, and the spread of the Faith and the defense of the Church.

I hope and pray that these future reflections, meditations, and instructions will be beneficial to all of us.