3rd Week after Easter: Friday

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

In order that we may penetrate still more deeply into the excellence of the interior life, we will consider to-morrow its influence upon our happiness even in this world, and we shall see: 1st, the happiness of the soul which lives an interior life; 2d, the unhappiness of the soul which does not live this divine life. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to watch over our senses, our imagination, and our useless thoughts, so as not to allow ourselves to be dragged into dissipation; 2d, to accustom ourselves to the use of ejaculatory prayers, which unite the soul to God. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Patriarch, “The Lord liveth, before whom I stand” (III. Kings xvii. 1).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore the interior of Jesus Christ as the sanctuary of God, as the temple wherein the Divinity continually receives homage worthy of it, and where man always finds protection, defence, salvation, and happiness. Let us offer Him all our homage of admiration, of praise, of thanksgiving, and of love.

FIRST POINT

The Happiness of the Soul which Leads an Interior Life

There is a foretaste of heaven, like an anticipated Paradise, in the divine union which permits the interior man to say: I am in the company of God, of the God who loves me, who protects me, who is attentive to the slightest good that I do, to recompense me eternally, to the least sigh of my heart, to render me love for love. A quarter of an hour of this life is worth more than all the pleasures of this world put together. Therefore the Apostle invites all just souls to rejoice in the Lord (Philipp. iv. 4), and he declares that peace and joy are the fruit of the Holy Spirit reigning in the soul (Gal. v. 22). Filled with the same sentiment, David said: In my troubles I remembered God and I was consoled (Ps. lxxvi. 4). I said to myself, the Lord is at my right hand to sustain me, and this thought thrilled me with gladness (Ps. xv. 8, 9). Let the just thrill with gladness and rejoice in the presence of God (Ps. lxvii. 4). The author of the Imitation admirably describes to us this happiness of the interior life. The interior man, he says (II. Imit. i. 1), often receives a visit from God, which gives him a delightful feeling, an exquisite enjoyment of His presence. God speaks to his heart, and he speaks to God. It is an amiable exchange, a sweet intercourse consisting in intimate communications between the Creator and the creature. It is an ineffable consolation in his trials. It is calm amidst the agitations of the world, it is peace in the midst of tumult; the soul feels itself to be therein in its element, in its true bed of rest, and nothing can trouble it there, because God alone suffices it, God alone is everything to it. Then there takes place between God and the soul, as between two hearts which understand and which love each other, a more than astonishing familiarity, the familiarity of a child with its father and of a father with his child. If God, in order to try it, is sometimes silent, and seems to abandon it, it complains lovingly to Him, without being cast down; it sees in this temporary abandonment a lesson of humility which teaches it that in itself it is nothing; a lesson of love which makes it feel how good God is to love such a poor creature; it blesses Him for this double lesson, but without on that account, in any way, diminishing its exactness in serving Him, and soon grace reappears and consoles it. Let us encourage ourselves by means of these considerations to practise an interior life.

SECOND POINT

The Unhappiness of the Soul which does not Lead an Interior Life

The soul devoid of an interior life is essentially dissipated; its mind being unoccupied within and empty of all that could interest it, it wanders and employs itself with all kinds of exterior things; its heart is attached to what passes away, its will follows its caprices, its self-love is fed upon praise and esteem. Now in such a state as this, it is essentially unhappy. The heart drawn upwards by grace and downwards by nature suffers a kind of torture. Each deception of vanity, each contrariety of the will, is as a sword which pierces it; the imagination, always wandering, transforms exercises of piety into insipid practices, prayer into distractions and fatigue; it makes solitude a weariness, the whole life nothing but disgust. It feels nothing any longer of the cross than its nails and its thorns, nothing of the yoke of Jesus Christ but its weight, nothing of His chalice but its bitterness. Then are accomplished the words of St. Augustine: Thou hast made us for Thyself, Lord, and as long as our heart does not repose in Thee, it cannot enjoy either repose or happiness. Let us examine whence come our disgust, our weariness, and our troubles, and we shall see that the absence of the interior life, that is to say, our dissipation and our attachments, are the principal cause of them.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.