On prayer and the contemplative life

The present generation in the fervour of its repentance is like to cast off too much. So many false principles and hasty deductions have been offered to its parents and grandpar...

Since his soul, then, was thus united to God it is small wonder the Brethren saw him rapt in ecstasy and with his face bathed in tears as he stood in choir and sang the _Antipho...

But it is only by an extension of the name "religion" that it is made to embrace our relations towards our human kin, it is not according to the proper signification of the word...

_S. Augustine:_ When men pray, they, as becomes suppliants, make use of their bodily members, for they bend the knee, they stretch forth their hands, they even prostrate on the...

Of itself indeed, and primarily, devotion brings about a spiritual joy of the mind; but as an accidental result it causes sorrow. For, as we have said above, devotion arises fro...

_Cajetan:_ In prayer or petition there are three things to be considered: the thing petitioned for, the actual petition, and the petitioner. As far, then, as the thing petitione...

_S. Augustine:_ Sometimes God in His wrath grants what you ask; at other times in His mercy He refuses what you ask. When, then, you ask of Him things which He praises, which He...

_S. Augustine:_ Indeed, our whole righteousness--true righteousness though it be, by reason of the True Good to Whom it is referred, consists rather, as long as we are in this l...

Of course, if a man purposely allowed his mind to wander in prayer, he would commit a sin and hinder the fruit of his prayer. Against such S. Augustine says in his _Rule_[215]:...

1. It is said in the Gospel,[247] _Now we know that God doth not hear sinners_; and this accords with those words of _Proverbs[248]; He that turneth away his ears from hearing t...

In the Book of Job,[277] it is said: _Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and turn to some of the Saints_. And on this S. Gregory says: "It is our business to call,...

As we have said above, the division in question concerns human life regarded as intellectual. And the intellect itself is divided into the contemplative and the active, for the...

_S. Augustine:_ As long, then, as _we are absent from the Lord, we walk by faith and not by sight_,[350] whence it is said: _The just man shall live in his faith._[351] And this...

Hence S. Denis assigns to the Angels circular motion in that they uniformly and unceasingly, without beginning or end, gaze upon God; just as circular motion, which has neither...

But the chief of the moral virtues is justice, and by it a man is brought into contact with his neighbour, as the Philosopher proves.[412] We describe, then, the active life by...

Whence it appears that when a man is called from the contemplative to the active life it is not so much that something is withdrawn from him, but that an additional burden is im...

The works, then, of the active life are twofold. There is one which springs from the fulness of contemplation: teaching, for example, and preaching. Whence S. Gregory says[493]:...

Gregory the Great, St.: on Lia as the type of the Active Life, 222, 225, 234, 242, 246; of Martha and Mary as types of the Active and the Contemplative Life respectively, 174; o...