Читать книгу The Practice of Mental Prayer - Father Rene de Maumigny - Страница 42

PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER

the same way Isaias says: I will cry like a young swallow, I will meditate like a dove: My eyes are weakened looking upward." ¹

It is the teaching of Our Lord, however, that especially shows the excellence of this practice, for He encourages us in our prayers to think of God as dwelling in heaven. "Thus shall you pray," he says, '''Our Father Who art in heaven;'" and adding example to precept, Jesus used to pray with his eyes raised to heaven. "These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: 'Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee.' " ²

The third method is to consider God as present in our soul, where He dwells, not only as in the rest of the creation, but in a won- derful and special way. God is present by reason of His essence, power and knowledge even in irrational creatures, but He dwells in the soul of the just man as a friend and Father. So that, even if He withdrew Him- self from the brute creation, allowing it to relapse into nothingness—an impossible hypothesis—still he would remain in the soul of man imprisoned by His love. "If

¹ Is. 38: 14. ² John 17: I.