Hajja Salesjana July-September 2022

being present to Christ whom we know loves us. 5. If good affections should rise up – gratitude for God’s mercy, awe at His majesty, sorrow for sin, desire to be more faithful, for example – yield to them. 6. We see clearly in the Introduction to the Devout Life , how St Francis is anxious to transform Philothea’s simple desire to live the Gospel into a firm resolve to do so. This is why he underlines the necessity of resolutions that arise from the affections experienced in meditation. For example, resolve to be more faithful in prayer, or more ready to forgive, more eager to share the faith with others, or more determined to resist sin, in as practical and concrete a way as you can determine. “Most of all, after you rise from meditation you must remember the resolutions and decisions you have made and carefully put them into effect on that very day. This is the great fruit of meditation and without it meditation is often not only useless but even harmful. Virtues meditated on but not practiced sometimes inflate our minds and courage and we think that we are really such as we have thought and resolved to be.” 15 St Francis recommends that we end the time of meditation-prayer firstly with expressions of gratitude to God for the light and affections he has given us in our time of prayer; then, an offering of ourselves to the Lord in union with the offering of Jesus; and thirdly, a time of intercession for our self and others. 1. ‘Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.’  “The Life,” Chap. 8 par. 5, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.D.C., Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila , Vol.1 ((Washington: ICS Publications, 1976), 167. 2. OEA IV:163-164. See IV:295; IV:319; IV:331; V:19; V:196 3. OEA III:70. 4. DevasiaManalel, Spiritual Direction: A Methodology (Bangalore: SFS Publications, 2005), 157. 5. See the “Application of the Senses” in the Spiritual Exercises , 121-26. 6. OEA III:71. 7. Eugene Mc Caffrey OCD, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t, the best and only advice”, Mount Carmel 59/3 (Sept.2011), 66. 8. ‘Look at Him’, St Teresa writes, ‘He never takes his eyes off you’, St Teresa of Avila, Way of Perfection 26.3. 9. ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’Jn.14:23. 10. In the original draft of book six, chapter eight in the Treatise , St Francis describes the human heart as being ‘the dwelling place, the paradise of God.’ OEA V:483. St Teresa offers us a similar perspective: ‘The soul is a paradise where the Lord says he finds his delight!’ Interior Castle I.1.1 11. ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ Acts.17:28. This also indicates clearly that God is not an extension of ourselves, but that we draw our life from God who breathed his Spirit into us at our creation. 12. OEA IV: 306-7 13. “The Life”, Chap. 9, par 6, Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila , Vol.1, 73. 14. St Teresa writes, ‘This is the method of prayer I then used:  since I could not reflect discursively with the intellect, I strove to picture Christ within me.’ “The Life”, Chap. 9, par 4, Collected Works of St Teresa , Vol. 1, 71. 15. OEAIII :83. Photo by Ben White - www.unsplash.com 13 Lulju - Settembru 2022 hajja