CHAPTER I Affective Prayer: 975. Souls in the illuminative way continue in the practice of the same spiritual exercises as beginners (n. 657),- but by increasing their number and by prolonging them, they approach the state of habitual prayer, already described in 11. 522, which finds its perfect .realization only in the unitive way.. They apply themselves particularly to, the practice of affective prayer, which little by little takes the place of discursive meditation. We shall explain : i the nature of affective prayer; 2 its advantages; 3 its difficulties; 4 its method. ART. I; NATURE OF AFFECTIVE PRAYER 976. i Definition. -Affective prayer, as the term indicates, is that form of prayer in .which devout affections predominate, that is, those various acts of the will whereby we express to God our love and our desire of glorifying Him. In this kind of prayer the heart is engaged to a greater extent than .the mind. Beginners, as we have said (n. 668), need to acquire convictions ; therefore they insist upon reasoning and give but little time to affections. But in. proportion as these convictions grow and take root in the soul, less time is (infused contemplation and therefore belong to the unitive way. However, we bug to call the readers attention to the fact that some writers of note hold that the first passive purification and the prayer of quiet belong to the illuminative way.) required to renew them and greater play is allowed to the affections. Smitten with love for God and charmed by the beauty of virtue, we rise with greater ease in loving aspirations towards the Author of all good in order to worship Him, to praise Him, to thank Him, to love Him; towards Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, Exemplar, Master, Friend, and Brother, in order to offer Him the tenderest sentiments of love; towards the Most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God and -our Mother, the dispenser of Gods gifts, in order to express to her our filial, trustful and unselfish love (n. 1 66). Other sentiments ajrise spontaneously in the soul : sentiments of shame, of confusion and humiliation at the sight of our miseries; ardent desires to become better, and confident petitions to obtain the necessary grace; zeal for Gods glory- which makes us pray for the great interests of the Church and the welfare of souls. 977. 2 Transition from discursive meditation to affective prayer. One does not attain suddenly to this kind of prayer. There is a period of transition when to a greater or lesser extent considerations and affections intermingle. There follows another period in which considerations still take place, but in the form of a colloquy after this fashion: Help me, O my God, to realize how necessary is this virtue. Some brief moments are then given to reflection, and the colloquy continues : I thank Thee, O my God, for Thy divine lights. Vouchsafe to burn into my soul these truths, in order that they may affect my life more deeply... Help me, I beseech Thee, to see how short 1 fall of this virtue... what I must do to practice it better... this very day. At last, a time arrives when reasoning all but ceases, or at least, it is so rapidly done that the greater part of prayer is passed in devout colloquies. Still, at times one feels the need of returning for a few moments to considerations so as to keep the mind sufficiently occupied. In all this one must follow the motions of grace under the guidance of a spiritual director. ; 978. 3 Sighs that warrant this change. A) It is important that we recognize the signs which tell us when to relinquish discursive for affective prayer. Todo so^prematurely would be imprudent, for if the soul is not yet sufficiently advanced to entertain these affections, it will fall into distractions or aridity. On the other hand, it would be a loss to make the change too late, for according to all spiritual writers, affective prayer is more fruitful than discursive prayer, since it is chiefly by acts of the will that we give glory to God and attract virtue to ourselves. B) These signs are as follows: i) When despite good-will one finds it difficult to pursue considerations or to draw profit from them, and at the same time one is inclined towards affections in prayer. 2) When convictions are so firmly rooted in the soul that it takes but a moment to recall them. 3) When the heart, detached from sin, easily tends towards God or towards Our Lord. However, since no one is a fair judge in his own case, these signs are to besubmitted to the judgment of the spiritual director. 979. 4 Means. of fostering affections in prayer. A) These devout affections are -multiplied and prolonged chiefly through the exercise of the virtue of charity, for they spring from a heart where the love of God reigns supreme. It is such a heart that moves us to admire the divine perfections. Aglow with faith, it makes visible to our eyes the infinite beauty, the goodness, and the loving mercy of God ; a sense of awe and of wonder arises spontaneously and in turn gives birth to gratitude, praise, % and delight in God. The more the soul loves God, the more are these various acts prolonged. The same is true of love towards Our Lord Jesus Christ. When, we pass in review His many favors to us (n. 967), the sufferings He has endured for us, the love He shows us now in the Holy Eucharist, we are easily drawn on to sentiments of admiration, adoration, gratefulness, pity, love, and we feel constrained to praise and bless One Who loves us so much. 980. B) To nurture this love, souls in the illuminative way should be advised tcr meditate frequently on the great truths that recall to us what God has done and ceaselessly does for us: a) The indwelling of the Three Divine Persons in our soul and Their paternal action in our regard (n. 92-130). b) Our incorporation into Christ and the part He plays in the Christian life (n. 132-153). His life, His mysteries and, above all, His cruel Passion, His love in the Eucharist. c) The share of the Blessed Virgin, the Angels and the Saints in the Christian life (n. 154-189). Herein we find an excellent means of lending variety to the affections by addressing ourselves now to our Mother in Heaven, now to the Holy Angels, especially to.pur Guardian Angel, now to the Saints, and in particular to those that inspire in us greater devotion. d) .Such vocal prayers as the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Hymns of St. Thomas to the Blessed Sacrament, etc. .. which abound in sentiments of love, gratitude, conformity to Gods will.- e) The fundamental virtues: religion towards God, .obedience to superiors, humility, fortitude, temperance, and, above all, : the three theological virtues. These virtues are. to be considered now not in the abstract but as exemplified by Our Lord. It is in order to resemble Him and to show Him our love that we strive to practice them. f) We must nevertheless continue to meditate on penance, mortification, sin, and the last things, but in a manner different from that of beginners. We should consider Our Lord as a perfect model of penance and of mortification, loaded down with the burden of our transgressions and atoning for them through a long martyrdom, and we should strive to draw to ourselves these virtues. Should we meditate von death, heaven, and hell, it will be to detach ourselves from created things in order to unite ourselves to Jesus .and thereby secure the grace of a happy death and a bright throne in heaven, close to Jesus. ART. II. ADVANTAGES OF AFFECTIVE PRAYER These flow from the very nature of this prayer. 981. i The principal advantage is a closer and more abiding union with God. Because this prayer multiplies affective acts, it produces an increase of love for God. Thus the affections are at once effect and cause. They spring_from our love of God and at the same time perfect that love, since virtues grow by the repetition :of the same acts. For the same reason they give us a better knowledge of the divine perfections. For, as St. Bonaventure * points out, the best way to arrive at a knowledge of God is to taste the sweetness of His love; this is a far better way, worthier, and more gratifying, than the way of intellectual research. Just as we form a better appreciation of the fine quality of a tree by tasting the fruit it produces, so we realize all the better the worth of the divine attributes, once we experience the charming tenderness of Gods love. This knowledge in turn increases our charity, our earnestness, and urges us on to the perfect exercise of all virtues. 982. 2 Because affective prayer increases our love for God, it perfects all the virtues that flow from charity : a) conformity to Gods will, for we delight in doing the will of those we love; b) desire to procure the glory of God and the salvation of souls, for if we love we cannot but praise and seek praise for the object of our affections; c) love of silence and recollection, for we want to be alone .with Him Whom we love, in order to think the oftener of Him and to tell Him again of our love; d) desire offrequent Communion, for we want te possess as perfectly as we can the object of our love, to welcome Him joyfully into our hearts and joyfully abide with Him all the day long; e) the spirit of sacrifice, for we know that we cannot be one with the Crucified and through Him with God, except inasmuch as . we deny ourselves and sacrifice pur ease in order to carry our cr.oss without faltering and to accept all the trials that Providence sends us. .. 983. 3 In affective prayer we often find spiritual consolation. There is no purer, no sweeter joy than that found in the companionship of a friend, and Jesus being the tenderest and most generous of friends, we relish in His presence a. taste of Heavens joys : To be with Jesus is a sweet paradise. True, side by side with these joys there are at times trials, such as aridity, but we accept these with a sweet resignation and we tell God again and again that in spite of all we wish to love and serve Him. The thought that we suffer for Gods sake alleviates pur sufferings and becomes a source of consolation. - We may add that affective prayer is not as difficult as discursive prayer. In the latter, fatigue follows quickly upon the effort of reasoning, whilst if we let our heart produce sentiments of love/of gratitude, of praise, the soul experiences a sweet rest, and is thus enabled to conserve its energies for action. 984.- 4 Lastly, affective prayer becomes more and more simple as we lessen the number and the variety of affections and intensify a certain few of them, and it thus leads us on gradually to the prayer of simplicity. This already constitutes acquired contemplation, and it prepares for infused contemplation the souls that are called to it. Of this we shall speak when treating of the unifive way. ART. III. THE DISADVANTAGES AND THE DANGERS OF AFFECTIVE PRAYER The best things in this world are not free from disadvantages and dangers. This holds true of. affective prayer unless it be practiced with discretion. . We shall now point out its dangers and disadvantages together with the proper remedies. 985. i The first danger is mental strain, leading to fatigue, and exhaustion. Some persons, anxious to lend intensity to their affective acts, strain their minds and hearts, and violently bestir themselves to produce acts of love in which nature plays a greater part than grace. Such efforts wear out their nervous system and cause ,the blood to rush ,to the brain; a sort of slow fever consumes their strength and they are soon exhausted. Physiological .disorders even may ensue, and sensations more or less sensual may join .with devout affections. . ; : 986. This is a serious defect which must be corrected at .the very outset by consulting a wise director and following his advice. Now, the remedy consists in the profound conviction that true love of God is centered in the will rather than in the feelings; that the generosity of that love does not consist in vehement * emotional transports, but in .a calm and determined purpose of .refusing nothing to Almighty God. Let us bear in mind that love is an act of the will. No doubt, it does react on the feelings and excite more or less lively emotions, yet these do not constitute the essence of true devotion ; they are but accidental manifestations thereof which must remain subject to ,the will and must be regulated by it. In the absence of this control, the emotions gain the ascendency, (which means disorder) and instead of fostering solid piety, they make it degenerate into sentimental, at times into sensual love, for all violent emotions are fundamentally of the same kind, and the passage from one to the other is easy. We must therefore strive to spiritualize our affections, to moderate them and press them into the service of the will. Then we shall enjoy a peace that -lies above and beyond all feeling, The peace of God which surpasseth all understanding. 987. 2 The second danger of affective prayer is pride and presumption. Because one is possessed of good and noble sentiments, of holy desires, of fine projects for spiritual progress ; because one experiences sensible fervor, and in such moments scorns the pleasures and goods and vanities of this world, one becomes easily persuaded that one is far more advanced in the spiritual life than one really is, and one may even wonder whether one has not all but reached the heights of perfection and contemplation. At times, one may even hold ones breath at prayer awaiting some divine communication. These sentiments show, on (No doubt, there are Saints who have at times experienced transports of love, which manifested themselves by sensible phenomena; these however were not produced by the Saints themselves, but by the grace of God. -To wish to stir up .violent emotions in oneself by way of imitation of the Saints would amount to presumption. 2 Phil., IV, 7.) the contrary, that one is still far removed from .such exalted - heights; for/the saints arid the truly fervent distrust themselves, ; ever, regard themselves as the worst, arid readily believe that others are -better than themselves. Therefore^ one must return to the practiee,of humility and self-distrust, taking into^consideration what we shall say subsequently regarding this virtue. Besides, when these \ sentiments of pride develop, God frequently takes, it upon ^Himself to bring back such souls to a right sense of: their unworthiness, and their insufficiency, by depriving them7 of consolations and of choice graces. Then they, realize that they.-are as yet far removed from the desired goal. : . .;, 988. 3 There are some who make their .entire devptipn consist in a quest after spiritual Qotts^ationSy/whilst, they neglect their duties of state and the practice of the ordinary virtues. Provided, they are able to make what :they consider beautiful meditations, they imagine themselves tO;h)ei perfect. This is a gross delusion. There is no perfection without conformity to the divine will; and it is Gods will that besides keeping the commandments we should faith-; fully discharge our duties .of state, practice the homely; virtues of modesty, kindness, graciousness, amiability, :as well as the greater ones. To believe that ; one is- a sainti because one loves prayer and especially the comforts, of prayer, is to forget that he alone is .perfect ,who doesVthe will of God : Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lorcl, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven: but he that /doth the will of my Father. * Once we know how to remove these obstacles, and dangers by using the means indicated, affective prayer becomes highly conducive to our spiritual progress as well as to the . exercise of apostolic zeal.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 03:53:24 +0000
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