Mentation

“ Could we resist the belief that such knowledge, such wisdom, such weight must pertain to the tenant of another sphere? And as this conviction grew upon us, should we not draw closer and closer to him, and drink in with more entranced ear every word that fell from his lips—lips touched as with a live coal from off the altar—and with every new disclosure would not admiration, wonder, awe, delight grow till they scarce knew bounds? How would the soul swell under the undoubting assurance that an angel stood revealed in the venerable Mentor to whom we had been listening? ”

“ Do you suppress all bad thoughts — such as envy, pride, impurity, unkindness — as quickly as possible? God sees into your heart. If a bad thought occurs to you, say at once: “Begone!” and turn your thoughts to something that is holy. ”

“ But contemplation is concerned with the simple dwelling upon the truth itself. Hence Richard of S. Victor says [343] : "Contemplation is the soul's clear, free, and attentive dwelling upon the truth to be perceived; meditation is the outlook of the soul occupied in searching for the truth; [Pg 189] thought is the soul's glance, ever prone to distraction."
2. Further, the Apostle says: But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. [344] But this refers to the contemplative life ”

“ Yet Heaven is my witness that I wish to agree with thee, and that it is my intention not to leave thee until we share the same sentiments. Who will inspire me with burning words that will melt thee like wax in my breath, O woman, that the fingers of my desires may mould thee as they wish? ”

“ So are all the spirits of darkness, who inspired evil designs, and assisted in the execution of them. So are all the angels of God, those eyes of the Lord, that run to and fro over all the earth, who watched over your soul, and laboured for your good, so far as you would permit. So is your own conscience, a thousand witnesses in one, now no more capable of being either blinded or silenced, but constrained to know and to speak the naked truth, touching all your thoughts and words and actions. And is conscience as a thousand witnesses? ”

“ Leave aside enquiry concerning God and Creation and the like, and enquire about Him from thyself, and learn who it is who simply makes His own all that is within thee, saying ‘My God, my mind, my understanding, my soul, my body.’ Learn also what are grief and rejoicing, and love and hate, and undesired watching and sleep, and undesired anger and love. ”

“ Instead, act in faith with love and humility.
You may assure M— of my poor prayers, and that I am their servant, and yours particularly.
Eighth Letter: You tell me nothing new. You are not the only one who is troubled with wandering thoughts. Our mind is extremely roving. But the will is mistress of all our faculties. She must recall our stray thoughts and carry them to God as their final end.
If the mind is not sufficiently controlled and disciplined at our first engaging in devotion, it contracts certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation. These are difficult to overcome. ”

“ I confess, O my God, not only in Thy presence, who seest the secrets of hearts, but in the presence of all the blessed in heaven, and the faithful on earth, that I have often and grievously offended Thee, by thought, word, deed, and omission. ”

“ Here and there, moreover, a soul bowed under the weight of recent affliction, or shaken with the terrors of a newly-awakened conscience, was both awed and glad to be able to give itself audible expression in words so fit and forcible as those of the Confession and the Litany, and thankful if it might pick up so much as a crumb of pardon and peace from the Master's bountiful table. ”

“ They leave us the spiritual—that is, command of the conscience, soul, heart, and judgment—the spiritual—that is, the distribution of heaven’s rewards, and punishments, and pardons—without check, without control, in the secrecy of the confessional—and that dolt, the temporal, has nothing but brute matter for his portion, and yet rubs his paunch for joy. ”

“ The sage has conquered passion, and has come to lasting peace. As the mighty mountain remains unmoved by the turbulent ocean that beats round its base, so the mind of the sage, towering in lofty virtue, remains unshaken by the tempests of passion which beat unceasingly upon the shores of life. Good and wise, he is evermore happy and serene; transcendently virtuous, he lives in beatific bliss. ”

“ For wisdom shall decay and fall away from her wise men, and the understanding of her sages shall be concealed. Woe be unto you that are profound in heart, to conceal counsel from our Lord, whose works are in darkness, and they say, who seeth us? And who hath known us? ”

“ To what does he more direct and address the
discourses of his disciples, than to speak of themselves, not of the
lesson in their book, but of the essence and motion of their souls? We
confess ourselves religiously to God and our confessor; as our
neighbours, do to all the people. But some will answer that we there
speak nothing but accusation against ourselves; why then, we say all; for
our very virtue itself is faulty and penetrable. ”

“ And thus with every error, every selfish desire, every human weakness; by the power of meditation is it overcome, and as each sin, each error is thrust out, a fuller and clearer measure of the Light of Truth illumines the pilgrim soul. ”

“ Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear conscience. All this may seem to you sheer sentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or the capacity to look consciously under the surface of familiar emotions. ”

“ It is more than mere feeling or emotion; it is not blind, but rational, and above deception, having its ground in our moral and religious nature. It extends to the whole person, to body, mind, and spirit, to the character as well as to the face and form. ”

“ Let your feelings be governed and controlled by the principles of eternal life, as should the children of God, delighting in truth and righteousness. Let the wicked say what they please, for their breath is in their nostrils, and all their glory is like the grass and the flower of the grass that passeth away. ”

“ You may easily know whether you are a child of Truth or a worshiper of self, if you will silently examine your mind, heart, and conduct. Do you harbor thoughts of suspicion, enmity, envy, lust, pride, or do you strenuously fight against these? ”

“ You have manifested yourself before God and man in such a manner as though you had, never in your life, felt and confessed the least particle of the pure, unadulterated nature of love, as I shall show and explain, by the grace of the Lord, in an impartial, sincere conscience, by this my admonition, out of love of the divine honor and the holy word ”

“ The devout people, moved, intent, elate,
⁠And the devoted Lord.
Oh struck apart! not side from human side,
⁠But soul from human soul,
As each asunder absorbed the multiplied,
⁠The ever unparted whole. ”

“ O ye simple ones understand wisdom, and ye fools be of an understanding heart; hear, for I will speak of excellent things, and the opening of my lips shall be right things: Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors: For whoso findeth me findeth life. ”

“ Then to those humble and devout ones, to whom grace first has come, to those lovers of the divine wisdom, who burn with desire of it, and are willing to be still, for the magnifying of God, I shall propose pertinent speculations, showing how little or nothing is it to turn the mirror outward unless the mirror of our mind be rubbed and polished. ”

“ Say, by reason of your remembering Him Whom God shall make manifest and by extolling His name, God will cause your hearts to be dilated with joy, and do ye not wish your hearts to be in such a blissful state? Indeed the hearts of them that truly believe in Him Whom God shall make manifest are vaster than the expanse of heaven and earth and whatever is between them. ”

“ In your meditations, therefore, let your heart grow and expand with ever-broadening love, until, freed from all hatred, and passion, and condemnation, it embraces the whole universe with thoughtful tenderness. ”

“ And if he feels nothing more in his heart? if the void draws him to it, plunging him into melancholy, what does his well-nourished and well washed body avail him?
Good is life; evil is death; the real distinction is as clear as the words.
Our moral conscience is, like our intelligence, capable of perfection, of elevation ”

“ Hence, a rigid accuracy and logical penetration [Pg xlvii] of mind, the power of detecting and exposing error, are not the only qualities needed by the religious reformer; and in a deep and reverential sympathy with human feelings, a quick perception of the great and beautiful, a promptitude to cast himself into the minds of others, and gaze through their eyes at the objects which they love, he will find the instrument of the sublimest intellectual power. ”

“ But the gentleman my brother and I met had so desperate, half-dead a fear upon him at meeting with any horse, or passing by any of the towns that held for the King, that I at last discovered it to be alarms of conscience. It seemed to the poor man as if through his visor and the crosses upon his cassock, one would have penetrated into his bosom and read the most secret intentions of his heart; so wonderful is the power of conscience. ”

“ Or, to express the same meaning without metaphor, Prepare yourselves, says she to us, to gather the fruit of that grand mystery which we are going to celebrate, by humiliation of heart, meekness, and charity, rectitude of intention, uniformity of living, renunciation of your own wisdom and your own righteousness; mortifying the flesh and humbling the spirit. ”

“ Here then we have a threefold witness to the secret of true prosperity and unmingled blessing: devout meditation and reflection upon the Scriptures, which are at once a book of law, a river of life, and a mirror of self—fitted to convey the will of God, the life of God, and the transforming power of God. ”

“ You feel emotions that incite you to do good; and painful ones disturb you, when you have resisted the faithful internal monitor. The wiser, and the better you grow, the more visible, if I may use the expression, will God become—For wisdom consists in searching Him out—and goodness in endeavouring to copy His attributes. ”

“ For this reason the work of preaching the Word of God keeps us always as learners at the feet of our Divine Master. And in speaking His truth it reacts with a powerful effect upon ourselves. It deepens its outlines on our own intellect, conscience, and heart. ”

“ They are not to be ravished by blood and iron. Yet even these, our sacred treasures, we gladly share with those who, in humility and in the life of meditation, seek with us the universal truths. And truth, what is it? ”

“ If you have any sensibility or imagination, this will establish such an intercourse between you and the Supreme Being, as will be of infinite consequence to you in life. It will communicate an habitual cheerfulness to your tempers, give a firmness and steadiness to your virtue, and enable you to go through all the vicissitudes of human life with propriety and dignity. ”

“ And particularly every one is to seek that virtue that he has most need of according to the quality of his state, whether it be modesty, or chastity, or fortitude, or any other of the theologial or moral virtues, with a most effectual resolution and purpose, as shall be explained in the twenty-ninth meditation of the first part. And when I shall make an examination of prayer I must make good trial whether I have drawn out any of these fruits in the manner aforesaid. ”

“ These books are the books of conscience, from which the whole conduct of every one during His mortal life, all the sins he has ever been guilty of, however secret and hidden from the eyes of the world, shall then be manifested in their most glaring colours, before the whole universe, before God and His holy angels; for " every idle word that man shall speak, they shall render an account of it in the day of judgment," Mat. ”

“ The origin of thought and reflection is in ourselves. We think, because we are, and are made susceptible of external influences, and to feel our relationship to external objects. Thus thoughts of revenge, and thoughts of blessing will arise in the same mind, as it is influenced by external circumstances. ”

“ And O that the rest of mankind, who are not under such trials, may, by thy goodness, be led to repentance, that the consciences of hard-hearted sinners may be awakened, and the understandings of poor ignorant creatures enlightened, and that all that love and fear thee may ever find the joy and comfort of a good conscience, beyond all the satisfactions that this world can afford. ”

“ If there be none to search the heart, none save poor frail fellow-mortals to whom we must give account, what an incentive to purity of motive and loftiness of aspiration is removed! But let men talk as they will, there is a conscience in them which whispers, It does matter whether our hearts as well as our actions are right; it does matter whether we have good motives, good intentions ”

“ In this shape He is watching every feeling of your hearts, discerning your most secret intents, seeing through and through the thoughts which you would confess to no human being, hardly even to yourselves. ”

“ Thoughts run on like a double consciousness. The material action of the Mass may be faultless, but the intrusive thoughts overpower the perception of the words. So, again, in the confessional he hears with a wandering mind and absolves with distraction. ”