The School of Love, February 16

PRAYER
[continued from yesterday]

...These are three common experiences, which are perhaps the tale of the prayer of many, and from which very few indeed escape. But fortunately they have their remedy written right across them; we have but to acknow­ledge them, to discover the right relation that exists between prayer and mortification, that to some extent at least the one is the price of the other, and how far and in what coin that price must be paid.

For in the first place if excessive preoccupa­tion is a hindrance to prayer, then we must train ourselves, especially before the time of prayer, to resist this preoccupation. This does not, or at least need not, mean that we must do less work than before, or that we must be less interested in it, or that we must pay less attention to it than to ourselves, the example of all the saints of prayer, witness St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa, St. Vincent de Paul, is evidence in abundance that prayer never hinders work.

But it does mean that no matter how much, or how engrossing, or how urgent the work may be, it must never be allowed to master us. We must never let our­selves become the slaves of our surroundings or our circumstances. We must educate the mind by severe discipline, if necessary say to everything that threatens to engross and overwhelm us: "Thus far and no further."

It must learn to shut the door to interfer­ence, to preserve its command of its own castle; this is the active side of the virtue known as peace of mind, and such discipline, such mortification, will teach us to command our thoughts and affections in time of prayer....
[to be continued]
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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