Part 6: Exploring Prayer of the Heart (Based on Chapter 31) Way of Perfection
Sister Donna does such a thorough job in Part 6 of explaining Chapter 31 that there is really nothing left of the chapter for me to highlight! I love her own comparison of this prayer of quiet to a baby totally surrendering to sleep in the arms of a trusted parent.
Perhaps I will just re-emphasize one point in the chapter that Sister Donna has also covered in her video, that of the desire one feels to prolong this state, because I think it is something many of us have experienced, especially early on. Teresa writes: “The will is the one that is captive here. If there is some sorrow that can be experienced while in this state, that sorrow comes from a realization that the will must return to the state of being free.”A little further in the chapter, where Sister Donna speaks of some peoples’ fear of even taking a breath lest the prayer of quiet disappear, Teresa says,“This is foolish, for just as there’s nothing we can do to make the sun rise, there’s little we can do to keep it from setting. This prayer is no longer our work, for it’s something very supernatural and something very much beyond our power to acquire by ourselves. The best way to hold on to this favor is to understand clearly that we can neither bring it about nor remove it; we can only receive it with gratitude, as most unworthy of it…”
I would like to thank Sister Donna once again for her work in putting together this series and sharing both St. Teresa of Avila’s insights with us, as well as her own. God bless and protect you in your continued evangelization and in your life of prayer, Sister Donna, and know that we are inspired and grateful for you living out your vocation in such a way that we all may benefit from it.
Heavenly Father, I believe that in Your wisdom and justice You willed to purify all persons who die without having attained the state that they need for all eternity, all who have still to expiate completely the sins committed on earth. I also believe that You have mercifully arranged that this process of purification can be aided by the prayers of the living, especially the Eucharist.
Help me to pray for my brothers and sisters who have departed from this world. May their time of purification be short and they be quickly guided into that holy light promised by our Lord to Abraham and his descendents. I offer You sacrifices and prayers of praise. Accept them for all the souls of the faithful departed and admit them all to heavenly joy. Amen.
The show is over, and the leafy tent
All gold and crimson where the sunlight lingered
Through the slow afternoon, is coming down.
The bittersweet is scarlet on the bough
Reluctant to be gone, though frosts have strewn
Patins of glory on the forest trails,
While tatters of torn splendour go to feed
The smoky bonfires in the village street.
What singer pipes the closing autumn hush
With surest note of cheer in all the wild?
A dauntless minstrel of the changing year,
Chickadee of the wilderness! He knows
What sweetness gathers in the winter’s heart,
What saving oracles the North Wind sings.
Part 5: Exploring Prayer of the Heart (Based on Chapter 30) Way of Perfection
…it may seem to anyone who doesn’t know about the matter that vocal prayer doesn’t go with contemplation; but I know that it does. Pardon me, but I want to say this: I know there are many persons who while praying vocally, as has already been mentioned, are raised by God to sublime contemplation [without their striving for anything or understanding how. It's because of this that I insist so much, daughters, upon your reciting vocal prayer well.]
…and in her fiesty, no-nonsense way that we’ve come to love:
…those of you who are the enemies of contemplatives should not think that you are free from being a contemplative if you recite your vocal prayers as they should be recited, with a pure conscience. [And so I will speak of this again. Whoever doesn't want to hear it may pass on.]
I am reading, “By Little and By Little. The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day”, and just wanted to share a passage about Peter Maurin that brought tears to my eyes:
Peter had been insulted and misunderstood in his life as well as loved. He had been taken for a plumber and left to sit in the basement when he had been invited for dinner and an evening of conversation. He had been thrown out of a Knights of Columbus meeting. One pastor who invited him to speak demanded his money back which he had sent Peter for carfare to his upstate parish because, he said, we had sent him a Bowery bum, and not the speaker he expected. “This then is perfect joy,” Peter could say, quoting the words of St. Francis to Friar Leo.
He was a man of sincerity and peace, and yet one letter came to us recently, accusing him of having a holier-than-thou attitude. Yes, Peter pointed out that it was a precept that we should love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and not just a counsel, and he taught us all what it meant to be children of God, and restored to us our sense of responsibility in a chaotic world. Yes, he was “holier than thou,” holier than anyone we ever knew.
[Excerpt from: By Little and By Little. The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, Edited, with an Introduction, by Robert Ellsberg, pg. 127, from a letter entitled "Peter Maurin. A Poor Man", dated June 1949]
Recover for me, my God, the time I have lost by giving me grace in the present and in the future, so that I may appear before You with nuptial garments, for You can do this if You wish.
[Lingering with My Lord. Post-Communion Experiences of St. Teresa of Avila, Introduction and Translation by Michael D. Griffin, O.C.D., pg. 36]
Part 4: Exploring Prayer of the Heart (Based on Chapter 29) Way of Perfection
Chapter 29 continues with the prayer of recollection, and as Sr. Donna points out and as St. Teresa writes, “…this recollection is not a silence of the faculties; it is an enclosure of the faculties within the soul.” St. Teresa is teaching us in this chapter “how vocal prayer should be recited well”, and that even if repetition is involved, “we should see and be present to the One with whom we speak without turning our backs on Him, for I don’t think speaking with God while thinking of a thousand other vanities would amount to anything else but turning our backs on Him.”
Our holy desires and our wills are very active and important in this prayer of recollection, for it is not infused prayer. St. Teresa is teaching us here of how to “disengage ourselves from everything so as to approach God interiorly and even in the midst of occupations withdraw within ourselves.” This is something we can “desire and achieve ourselves with the help of God”, and she writes words of encouragement, knowing that in the midst of our busy days and exterior distractions there may be times when we have to “force ourselves to be close to this Lord”, but that He will “understand us as if through sign language” and that “He is very fond of taking away our difficulty.”
For those who have difficulty recollecting themselves, St. Teresa recommends saying the Our Father even if “no more than once in an hour”, telling us that this is a manner of praying that the soul gets used to quickly, that “everything involves struggle before the habit is acquired” and that it involves “a gradual increase of self-control.”
O my Jesus, my Master and Director, strengthen and enlighten me in these difficult moments of my life. I expect no help from people; all my hope is in You. I feel alone in the face of Your demands, O Lord. Despite the fears and qualms of my nature, I am fulfilling Your holy will and desire to fulfill it as faithfully as possible throughout my life and in my death. Jesus, with You I can do all things. Do with me as You please; only give me Your merciful Heart and that is enough for me.
