The School of Love, February 26

SOME HINTS ON PRAYER, Part II
[continued from yesterday]

...This method is usually better than the last, chiefly because there is less danger of wander­ing, one act naturally leading to another.

But that this form of prayer may be made most fruitfully, it is always well that some plan be made beforehand of the road we pro­pose to follow.

Thus, before Communion, one may say to oneself:

"To-day I will exer­cise myself in Faith, Hope and Charity;"

in a visit to the Blessed Sacrament one may pro­pose:

"I will make Acts of Humility, Con­trition, and Love in His Presence;"

on a jour­ney, in a tram-car, during an empty ten minutes, one may begin:

"I will make an act of the presence of God to me, and of my pres­ence to Him, and let my heart speak to Him as my companion."

We need not always keep to the arrangement; but such preparation as this is splendid training, not only for prayer, but also in the an important matter of self control in all things.

Still there are some with whom even this form of prayer will not always be satisfying. There come times when no outward words will sufficiently express the depth of feeling in the soul; it must speak for itself or not at all. Especially is this the case when one is im­pressed with the sense of one's own nothing­ness, or when the misery of sin, especially of one's own sins, is deeply realised, or again, as a reaction to, or consequence of this, when one yearns towards a better way of living, greater truth and greater self-surrender....

[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