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EIGHTH LETTER
(Concerning Wandering Thoughts in Prayer)
You
tell me nothing new; you are not the only one who is troubled with
wandering thoughts. Our mind is extremely roving; but as the will is
mistress of all our faculties, she must recall them, and
carry them to God as their last end.
When the mind, for want of being
sufficiently reduced by recollec-tion at our first engaging in devotion, has
contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are
difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to
the things of the earth.
I believe one remedy for this is to confess
our faults and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to
use multiplicity of words in prayer, many words and long discourses
being often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before
God like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man's gate. Let it be your
business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes
wanders and withdraws itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for
that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to
recollect it; the will must bring it back in tranquility. If you
persevere in this manner, God will have pity on you.
One way to recollect the mind easily in the
time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let
it wander too far at other times. You should keep it
strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him
often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of
prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.
.....
Brother Lawrence,
The Practice of the Presence of God
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Prayerful thoughts from St
Ignatius of Loyola
I can
love a person in this life only insofar as he tries to
advance in the praise and service of God our Lord; for
the man who loves anything for itself and not for the
sake of God, does not love God with his whole heart
[Ep.
1:80].
• • •
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Ep:
Monumenta Ignatiana: Epistolae et Instructiones,
12 v. (Madrid, 1903-1911)
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