Mental Prayer

wow! I never tought so many people would visit this blog! Praise God, that only means I've got to make it better! any recommendations? Anyways, thought we would talk about the method of ''mental prayer'' of Father De Sales.

1. Place yourself in the presence of God which can be done by any of the following means, but we should not attempt to use them all at once. Pick the one you ''click'' with:

• saying with all your heart ''surely God is in this place'' or something like that
  
• reflect that He is within you


• reflect on Him looking down from Heaven


• through imagination picture him present

2. Invoke His aid by short petitions like ''Make thy face to shine upon Thy servant, and teach me thine ordinances" or other short petitions asking for His help.

3. The Mystery. This is when you ''see'' the mystery you are trying to meditate on. I've found it helpful to meditate on the Gospel of the daily Mass readings. That way I can make sure I don't run out of themes for meditation. Father De Sales recommends using the imagination. I am very easily distracted so for this step I read the Gospel slowly.

4.Reflections. This is when you notice something specific in the mystery you are meditating on, for example in today's Gospel I noticed ''Looking up, Jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to Philip, ‘Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?" As I understand it, in this step we are to reflect why this strikes us. For me it is the fact that Jesus is so thoughtful and observant of peoples' needs. True love of neighbor in action.

5.Affections. What is your response to that reflection as it applies in your life? for me in today's Gospel it was ''Lord! That I could be observant of others' needs and by that live true love of neighbor!"

6. Resolution. Father De Sales says that ''you must not rest satisfied with general desires and aspirations, bur rather turn them into special resolutions for your individual correction and amendment" going all the way to specific situations and persons. For me it was the resolution to be observant of my family's needs today. To actually think about it. And very specifically to be observant of the needs of my grandparents. They live in a different country and are having a hard time with aging. A phone call gives them lots of joy but I barely make one from time to time. I resolved to call them each week. They have a need for attention and love and I can help.

I just barely started doing this kind of meditation and I think it is great that it focuses so much on Results, as Father says: " That desire is worth little unless you proceed to some practical resolution... in this way you will soon correct your faults, whereas mere desires will have but few and tardy results"

The jackrabbit has nothing to do with anything in the post...I just took a walk and there was an invation of jackrabbits in that field! I mean, seriously, I saw about 8 in total just standing there, munching and chilling...they crack me up. The are the akwardest animals created... and they are my favorites!

venial sin IS NOT ok ! !

Once again St. Francis of Sales comes to the rescue:


You will discover then, my daughter... there yet linger in your heart various inclinations and dispositions to venial sin... we can never be wholly free from venial sins, at least not for any length of time, but we can be without affection for them. There is a wide difference between a chance falsehood concerning some trivial matter, which is the result of carelessness, and taking pleasure in falsehood or deliberately telling lies. Therefore I say we must purify the soul from all inclination to venial sins, that is to say, we must never willingly admit or continue in any kind of venial sin whatever. It would indeed be a fearful thing wittingly to burden our conscience with anything so offensive to God as a will to displease Him. And venial sin, however slight, does displease Him...If therefore venial sin so displeases God, all consent and affection on our part to it is nothing less than a willingness to displease His Divine Majesty. Can any pious soul not only offend God, but take pleasure in doing so?(Introduction. Part I, Chp.22)

And an interesting thought... we might be tempted to think " I don't really have any desire to be slothful or selfish, etc" but if God grants us light and we see deep enough we might find that we use other names for our particular sin.

We may have willful inclination to laziness and sloth under the name of ‘’rest and recreation’’, selfishness under the name of ‘’independence" or "respect,” and pride under the title of “intelligence’’ or ''intellectualism.'' Here I'm preaching to myself by the way. It is so easy to justify our sins...