May 2, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will terminate our meditations upon the interior life by considering three means of acquiring and perfecting it in us: 1st, by a well-regulated life; 2d, by keeping a restraint over the senses; 3d, by the frequent use of ejaculatory prayers. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to leave the employment of our time to caprice, but to follow a rule of life which assigns to each moment its own proper duty; 2d, to keep ourselves on our guard against useless thoughts and against the curiosity which desires to see and know all that is going on; to exercise ourselves, day and night, in the practice of ejaculatory prayers. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the canticle: “Let us serve God in holiness and justice before Him all our days” (Luke i. 74, 75).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the holy soul of Jesus Christ in the depth of the recollection of His interior life, conversing with His Father in the secret of His heart, and following in all the details of His life the good pleasure of His adorable Father, without ever yielding to caprice or to useless thoughts. Let us thank Him for the beautiful example which He gives us, and let us render our homage to Him.
FIRST POINT
A Well-regulated Life the First Means of Acquiring and Perfecting the Interior Life within us
Two things are both necessary and efficacious to the leading of an interior life: 1st, there must be order in the employment of time. Exterior disorder makes the interior to be ill-regulated, it disorganizes it, dissipates it, and makes it fail to perform, either through forgetfulness or a bad arrangement of its time, its essential duties, even as, on the other hand, a well-regulated exterior makes the soul recollected, keeps it steadfast to its rule, and renders life in God and for God easy; 2d, there must be fidelity in regard to certain pious exercises, which are as necessary to the soul as the soul is to the body; these exercises maintain within the soul views of faith, good thoughts, pious sentiments. With these exercises all goes on well; without them all proceeds badly; the soul dries up, and is disgusted with its duties, with God, even with its own interior, where it cannot any longer bear itself to be, having no pleasure beyond that of giving itself up to outside things. Now a well-regulated life is the sole means of being orderly and faithful to the practice of pious exercises. Where there is no rule there is no order. We live by caprice and fancies; we do everything at a wrong season; each day differs from the one which precedes it; there is a continual variation in the employment of our time. With a rule of life, on the contrary, all is done in an orderly manner; each duty has its proper time set apart for it; nothing is forgotten; nothing is done in advance or retarded; nothing is done in haste or with slowness. Thanks to a rule of life, all is done well; and that which is true in regard to order is equally so in regard to practices of piety; with a rule of life they are done with exactitude; without a rule they have no fixed hour,—we defer them, then we again defer them, and we finish by omitting them entirely. Let us examine our conscience, and we shall see how true this is.
SECOND POINT
Restraint kept over the Senses another Means of Acquiring and Perfecting the Interior Life within us
Eyes which will see everything, even things which they have no need to see, are like the windows of the soul by which the resemblances of exterior objects enter, and sometimes even spiritual death, but at least interior dissipation and forgetfulness of God. The ears which are insatiable in hearing, people the interior with a world of matters which distract it; the tongue which has not learnt to restrain itself empties the heart of all piety, to such an extent that never has a great talker, says St. Augustine, been a man of God; whence it follows that no one can be an interior man, excepting in so far as he maintains a restraint over his eyes, is sober in regard to questions excited by curiosity and useless conversations, and is reserved in his words. To maintain the interior senses in restraint is not less important. If we allow ourselves to indulge in vain and useless thoughts, there will be within us a tumult, less violent indeed than that of the world, but not less tending to dissipation, where the past, the present, and the future, persons and places, seasons and things have their place of meeting; the past, in order to remind us of what we have seen or heard, done or felt; the future to ask us what we will do, and how we will do it; persons to hold intercourse with us, although they are absent; places where we have been to go over them afresh. Now with this agitation reigning within us, the interior life is as incompatible as peace is with war, silence with tumult, the day with darkness. Let us ask our conscience if that be not true.
THIRD POINT
The Frequent Use of Ejaculatory Prayers the Third Means of Acquiring and Perfecting the Interior Life within us
Bourdaloue gives this practice as being one of the best means of becoming an interior man. Ejaculatory prayers are to the interior life what wood is to fire; the more wood that is thrown on the fire the more lively does the flame become; in the same way the oftener ejaculatory prayers are offered the more the heart is warmed, and the more recollected is the interior. This exercise, which is so useful, is all the more easy because the whole creation gives matter for ejaculatory prayers. The sky has not a star, the earth a plant or a flower, the universe a creature of any kind, which does not invite us to it. The examples set us by the good lead us to it; even the sins of the wicked may be, if we so will, a means for raising ourselves up to God, in order to afford Him reparation and honorable amends.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.