#liturgyofthehours — Public Fediverse posts

What is this, Christians, that you say mental prayer isn’t necessary? Do you understand yourselves? Indeed, I don’t think you do, and so you desire that we all be misled.

You don’t know what mental prayer is, or how vocal prayer should be recited, or what contemplation is, for if you did you wouldn’t on the one hand condemn what on the other hand you praise.

I shall always have to join mental prayer to vocal prayer—when I remember—so that others don’t frighten you, daughters. I know how this criticism of mental prayer will end up, for I have suffered some trials in this matter, and thus I wouldn’t want anyone to disturb you.

It is harmful to walk on this road with fear. It is very important for you to know that you are on the right road. When a traveler is told that he has made a mistake and lost his way, he is made to go from one end to another, and all his searching for the way tires him, and he wastes time and arrives late.

Who can say that it is wrong when we begin to recite the Hours or the rosary, to consider whom we are going to speak with, and who we are, so as to know how to speak with Him?

Now I tell you, Sisters, if before you begin your vocal prayer you do the great deal that must be done in order to understand these two points well, you will be spending a good amount of time in mental prayer.

Yes, indeed, for we must not approach a conversation with a prince as negligently as we do one with a farm worker, or with some poor thing like ourselves for whom any manner of address is all right.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Way of Perfection, chap. 22, nos. 2–3

Note: Translator and editor Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. mentions that in the first redaction of The Way of Perfection, St. Teresa wrote: “Do you understand yourselves? For, though being what I am, I would like to shout and argue with those who say mental prayer is not necessary.”

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer Jeffrey Bruno captured this image of religious women who attended the Beatification of Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey on 4 October 2014. Image credit: Jeffrey Bruno / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/06/24/stj-way22n2/

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