Mental Prayer: 3 Reasons for Meditation | Catholic скачать в хорошем качестве

Mental Prayer: 3 Reasons for Meditation | Catholic

Mental prayer, also known in the Catholic faith as meditation is essential for the spiritual. Welcome to day 4 of our Advent Retreat. St. Alphonsus brings to our attention 3 points about mental prayer. Within Catholicism we have giants in the spiritual life who grew in great sanctity through devotion to Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of these giants is St. Alphonsus. His insights into mental pray are so valuable. He writes, "We must meditate in order to unite ourselves more completely to God. It is not so much good thoughts in the intelligence, as good acts of the will, or holy desires, that unite us to God." How are we to avoid sin? Once again, by means of mental prayer. According to St Alphonsus, "We must meditate" in order to obtain from God, by prayer, the graces that are necessary in order to enable us to advance on the way of salvation, to avoid sin, and to take the means that will lead us to perfection. St Alphonsus third point on mental prayer is, "We must apply ourselves to Meditation, not for the sake of spiritual consolations, but chiefly in order to learn what is the will of God concerning us." St Alphonsus also reminds of the important of living with eternity in mind. He writes: "He who builds a house for himself takes great pains to make it commodious, airy and handsome, and says: "I labour and give myself a great deal of trouble about this house, because I shall have to live in it all my life." And yet how little is the House of Eternity thought of!" We labour and sacrifice for many things in life such as career, academics or physical fitness. But how many of us sacrifice with the same intensity and drive for eternal life? St Alphonsus writes, "The Saints, to obtain salvation, thought it little to give their whole life to prayer, penance, and the practice of good works. And what do we do for the same end?"