aeternus

As it is the feast of St. Bonaventure (called the Seraphic Doctor of the Church), I thought to aquaint myself with his chapter on the Practice of Prayer from his book: Holiness of life : being St. Bonaventure’s treatise De perfectione vitæ ad sorores

But first, here is a Prayer for Communion written by him:

Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the
most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true,
calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever
languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee,
may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be
dissolved and to be with Thee. Grant that my soul may
hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of
holy souls, our daily and supersubstantial bread, having
all sweetness and savor and every delightful taste. May my
heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels
desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with
the sweetness of Thy savor; may it ever thirst for Thee,
the fountain of life, the fountain of widsom and knowledge,
the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the
fulness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek
Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on
Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of
Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and
delight, with ease and affection, with perseverence to the
end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence,
my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and
tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my
refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my
possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart
be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably. Amen.

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Now, here is his writing, De perfectione vitæ ad sorores Chapter V: THE PRACTICE OF PRAYER

The religious whose heart is cold and tepid
leads a wretched and useless life; nay, the tepid
religious, the religious who does not pray fer
vently and assiduously, scarcely lives at all.
His body lives, but in the sight of God it harbors
a dead soul. It follows then, that pray
erful habits are essential if the spouse of
Christ is to achieve her desires and advance to
wards perfection. The practice of prayer is a
virtue of such efficacy that of itself it can com
pletely subdue all the cunning devices of its
implacable enemy, the devil. It is the devil and
the devil alone who prevents the servant of
God from soaring above herself even unto the
heavens. There is, then, no reason for sur
prise that the religious who is not devoted to
the practice of constant prayer succumbs fre
quently to temptation.

St. Isidore realised this truth, for he says:
“Prayer is the remedy when temptations to sin
rage in the heart. Whenever you are tempted
to sin, pray, and pray earnestly. Frequent
prayer renders powerless the assaults of
vice.” 112 Our Lord gives similar advice in
the Gospel: “Watch ye and pray that ye
enter not into temptation.” 113 Devout prayer
is so powerful that it enables a man to win
whatever he wants. Winter and summer,
when times are stormy, when times are fair,
night and day, Sunday and Monday, in days
of health, in the hour of illness, in youth and
old age, standing, sitting and walking, in choir
and out of choir: in a word, never need the
efficacy of prayer fail. Indeed, at times, more
than the very world itself its worth may be
gained by one hour of prayer. By one little
devout prayer it is possible for a man to gain
Heaven.

I shall now discuss the nature of prayer.
Probably, in this matter I am more in need of
information than you are, still in so far as the
Lord inspires me, I shall tell you in what way
and manner you should pray.

Your reflection should move you to strike
your breast with the humble publican. 116
“Groaning in heart you should cry out your
sorrow” 117 with the Prophet David and in
company with Mary Magdalen you should
“wash the feet” of the Lord “with your
tears.” 118 There should be no end to your
tears, for beyond all bounds have you offended
your sweet Jesus by your sins.

St. Isidore gives similar advice. “When
we pray to God, we should pray with groaning
and weeping. This is possible if, when at
prayer, we remember the sins we have com
mitted, their exceptional gravity, and the aw
ful torments we have deserved to suffer on
account of our sins. Fear of those dread tor
ments will enable us to pray with genuine sor
row.” 119

In such wise should we commence our
prayer. We should begin our prayer with
tears that spring from sincere regret and
earnest fear.

Thanksgiving is the second requisite. Bless
ings received from God should call forth the
humble thanks of the spouse of Christ. So too,
should she thank God in all humility for the
benefits yet to accrue to her. In his epistle
to the Colossians St. Paul lays stress on this
part of prayer: “Be instant,” he says, “in
prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” 120
Nothing makes a man so worthy of God s gifts
as the constant offering of thanks to God for
gifts received. Writing to Aurelius, St.
Augustine touches on this matter. “What
better thoughts,” he asks, “can we have in our
minds, what better sentiments in our hearts
than those of thanksgiving to God? What
better words are given us to utter or to write
than Deo Gratias? The idea of due thanks
giving could not be expressed in fewer words.
What other words could give greater pleasure ?
No other two words are so full of meaning.
What more profitable than their use?” 121

You must meditate, you must pray with a
grateful heart. Thank God because He made
you. Thank Him because He raised you to
the Christian state. Thank God because He
has forgiven you so many sins. Thank Him
because, had He not taken care of you, you
would have fallen much lower. 122 Thanksgiving
is due from you because God has taken
you out of the w r orld. Thanks to Him you
will die in religion. You should thank God
because He has chosen you to live the life of a
religious in the highest and most perfect
religious state. You have no worry nor anxiety.
He keeps you from harm, comforts you, and
gives you all that you need.

Further motives for continual thanksgiving
on your part arise from the fact that God took
to Himself a human nature and became man
for your sake. It was for you that He was
circumcised and baptised. For you He lived
His poor life. For you He went poorly
clothed, was humbled and despised. All His
fastings, hungers, thirst, labours, and fatigues
He endqred for your sake. For you He wept.
Love for you prompted Him to give you His
Most Holy Body to eat and His Most Precious
Blood to drink. In anguish for you He bled
from His very pores in the Garden. For you
He was struck in the face, spat upon, be
fooled and scourged. For love of you He
was fastened to the cross. He was wounded
for your sake. He was done to death by the
most cruel and agonizing crucifixion because
of His love for you. It was because He so
loved you that Pie paid such a price for your
redemption. He was buried, He rose trom
the dead, He ascended into Heaven, and He
sent the Holy Spirit Into the world simply be
cause of His promise to give you and His
chosen ones the Kingdom of Heaven. Such
motives should be sufficient inducement to you
to make your prayer an act of thanksgiving.
Remember too, that while acts of gratitude
render prayer immeasurably efficacious, all
prayer is valueless without the element of
thanksgiving. “Ingratitude,” says St. Ber
nard, “is a parching wind which dries up the
sources of piety, the dew of mercy, and the
streams of grace.” 123

This brings me to the third requisite of per
fect prayer. You must in the act of prayer
occupy yourself with and think of naught else
but what you are doing. It ill becomes a man
to speak to God with his lips while in heart
and mind he is far away from God. To pray
half-heartedly, giving, say, half one s attention
to what one is doing and the remaining half to
some business matter or other, is no prayer at
all. Prayers made in such a way as this never
reach the ear of God. In the Psalm
there occurs the following: “I cried with my
whole heart, hear me, O Lord.” 124 St.
Augustine discovers in this passage the impli
cation that “a heart divided obtains noth
ing.” 125

When at prayer, the servant of God should
recollect herself and taking her heart to her
self banish from it all solicitude for things of
earth. Earthly desires should be put aside
and all love of friends and kinsfolk forgotten.
All her thoughts and affections should be
turned inwards and she should give herself up
wholly to the God to whom she prays. Your
spouse, Our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, gave
this counsel in the Holy Gospel: “But thou,
when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber
and, having shut the door, pray to thy Father
in secret.” 128 “To enter into your chamber”
means to recall and gather into the very in-
most recesses of your heart all your thoughts,
all your desires, and all your affections. You
have “shut the door” when you have your
heart so well under control that no thought or
wandering phantasy can thwart you in your
devotions. St. Augustine s definition of
prayer makes all this evident. “Prayer,” he
says, “is the raising or turning of the mind to
God by means of loving and humble acts of
affection.” 127

Let me exhort you, most good mother and
handmaid of Jesus Christ, to “incline your ear
to the words of my mouth.” 128 Do not be
misled. Do not be deceived in any way. Do
not allow the sure and great fruits of prayer
to slip from your grasp. Do not throw away
and so destroy the sweets of prayer. Let not
the delights you may drink to the full in
prayer be drunk to no purpose. Prayer is the
well whence sanctifying grace is drawn from
the spring of the overflowing sweetness of the
Most Blessed Trinity. The Holy Prophet
David, who knew all about this, said: “I
opened my mouth, and panted.” “David
meant,” says St. Augustine, “I opened my
mouth in prayer, I begged by prayer. With
reiterated prayers I knocked at the door of
Heaven, and thirsting for the grace of God I
panted and drew in that heavenly grace.” 130

I have already told you what prayer is, but
I tell it to you again. “Prayer is the raising
or turning of the mind to God.” Pay atten
tion to what I am about to say if you wish to
learn how to raise or turn your mind to God.
When you give yourself to prayer, you must
recollect yourself and with your Beloved enter
into your secret heart and there occupy your
self with Him alone. Forget everything else
and with all your mind, heart, affections and
desires, with all the devotion possible, lift
yourself out of and above yourself. 131 Take
care not to allow your mind to become remiss,
but endeavour constantly, by the burning ardour
of devotion, to mount upwards till you enter
“into the place of the wonderful tabernacle,
even to the house of God.” 132 There, when
with the eye of your soul you have caught
sight of your Beloved, you should in one way
and another “taste that the Lord is sweet,” 133
and learn how great is “the multitude of His
sweetness.” 134 You should rush to your
Lover s embrace, and kiss Him with the lips
of tenderest love. Then, indeed, will you be
lifted out of yourself. You will be rapt even
up to Heaven. You will be transformed
wholly into Christ. At last, unable to restrain
the raptures of your soul, you will exclaim with
David : “My soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God and I was delighted.” 135
There are three ways in which the soul may
be transported out of herself and elevated even
unto God. In order then, dear mother, that
you may learn how the heart may be lifted up
higher and higher, and how prayer may in-
flame our love for God still more, I shall dis
cuss these three methods. A surpassing in
tensity or excess of devotion is one. Deeply
rooted, ever-increasing, admiring love is an
other. The third is exceeding great, exulting
joy.

It happens at times that owing to excess of
cicvotion “the soul cannot contain herself.
She is lifted up, rapt out of herself and finally
becomes transformed. When we are lit up by
so great a fire of heavenly desire that every
thing of earth is changed into bitterness and
becomes distasteful to us and at the same time
the fires of the love of our inmost heart in
crease in intensity beyond measure, the soul
melts as though she were wax. She in some
way becomes dissolved, and like the fumes of
fragrant incense she mounts high, until at
length she gains her freedom away on the top
most summits of Heaven. When this
happens we are compelled to exclaim with the
Prophet David : “My flesh and my heart hath
fainted away. Thou art the God of my heart,
130 Richard of St. Victor,
and the God that is my portion for ever.” 137
Elevation of soul may also be brought about
as follows: “An ever-increasing, admiring
love frequently brings to the mind such floods
of Divine Light and overwhelms the soul with
such a realisation of the Divine Loveliness
that she becomes bewildered. Struck to her
very foundations she loses hold of the body.
Just as the deeper a streak of lightning strikes
the quicker it mounts, so is it with the soul in
the condition just described. The more such
a soul contemns herself and sinks in self-
abasement in presence of God s most admir
able loveliness, so much the higher and quicker
does she rise. The greater the ardour of her
loving, admiring desires, the higher does she
ascend. She is carried otit of herself until she
is elevated even to the topmost heights.” 138
There, as another Esther, she bursts forth into
a paean of praise. “I saw Thee, My Lord,”
she exclaims, “as an Angel of God; and my
heart was troubled for fear of Thy Majesty,
for Thou, My Lord, art very admirable; and
Thy Face is full of graces.”

A similar transport occurs when exceeding,
exulting joy takes possession of the soul.
“When the soul has drunk of an abundance of
interior sweetness and is completely inebriated
with delight she forgets altogether what she is,
and what she was. There and then she is
transformed. She is thrown into a state of
supernatural love, and is rapt into a marvel
lous bliss-producing ecstasy.” 140 With the
Psalmist in transport she sings: “How lovely
are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. My
soul longs and faints for the courts of the
Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced
in the living God.” 141

Thus is it that the servant of God should
train herself in the practice of fervent prayer.
Frequent prayer, the frequent use of prayer
will teach her and render her fit to contemplate
things divine. The eye of a heart purified
and washed by prayer can see the things above.
Purified by frequent prayer the soul comes to
taste and to enjoy the sweets of God. It is
not becoming for a soul fashioned after and
stamped with God s image to fritter away her
time busying herself with earthly cares. A
soul redeemed by Christ s Precious Blood and
made for eternal happiness ought “to ascend
even above the Cherubim and fly upon the
wings of the wind,” 142 that is, the wings of
the Angels. She ought to ascend high and
contemplate the Most Holy Trinity and
Christ s Sacred Humanity. She should medi
tate on the glory of the citizens of the city
above, and ponder on the happiness of the
Angels and Saints.

Tell me, who explore to-day into the re
gions of heavenly glory? Who are they that
in heart and soul pass their time thinking on
the things above? They are the few. We
may to-day with truth say even of many
religious what St. Bernard said : “Many who
should have been devoutly penetrating the
heavens, viewing there the many mansions,
holding converse with the apostles and the
prophets and assisting in wonder at the
triumphs of the martyrs, instead, find themselves
as base slaves to the body, serve the flesh and
pamper its gluttonous desires.” 143

112 S. Isid. Ill Sent, viii, I.

113 Matt, xxvi, 41.

116 Luke xviii, 13.

117 Cf. Ps. xxxvii, 9.

118 Cf. Luke vii, 38.

119 III Sent, vii, 5-

120 Col. iv, 2.

121 S. Aug. Ep. xli.

122 Cf. S. Bern. Serm. ii in 6 Sund. after Pent.

123 S. Bern. Serm. li on the Canticle of Cant.

124 Ps. cxviii, 145.

125 S. Aug., on same verse, Serm. xxix.
” Matt, vi, 6.

127 S. Aug., The Holy Spirit and the Soul, 50.

128 Cf. Ps. xliv, ii; Ps. Ixxvii, I.

120 Ps. cxviii, 131.

130 S. Aug. on the same Psalm.

131 Lament, iii, 28.

132 Ps. xli, 5.

133 Ps. xxxiii, 9.

134 Ps. xxx, 20.

135 Ps. Ixxvi, 3, 4.

137 Ps. Ixxii, 26.

138 Richard of St. Victor.

13D Esth. xv, 16, 17.

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