The School of Love, February 15

PRAYER
[continued from yesterday]

...Or, secondly, we find we have taken up a restful position of body. We are rather more than usually tired - how many mornings are we not able to say this! We are afraid of straining ourselves by a long vigil, we recall the warning of St. Teresa that no one can pray whose body is in torture.

Besides we have so often found, or at least we tell our­selves that we have often found, that a rest­ful attitude conduces to prayer. But as a matter of fact, whatever may be the prayer of the first half-minute, the restful attitude has led to an absolute blank; it has either soothed us into slumber or else has let our minds go wandering away to the moon.

The end comes, and we find ourselves, in body, and mind, and soul, exactly where we were when we sat down or reclined. Of how many morning meditations is this the history?

There is yet a third experience. It often happens that much as we desire and relish the thought of spiritual things at other times, in time of prayer this desire and this relish seem tttterly to vanish.

There succeeds nothing but weariness and languor; mean and shameful thoughts come careering through our brain which at other times are wholly absent; and we have scarcely begun our prayer, but we long with an almost irresistible longing for the end.

Any distraction becomes welcome, any excuse for limiting the time allotted is acceptable; instead of being the desire of our hearts, the time of prayer becomes the time of almost intolerable torture...
[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918