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PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRAYER

CHAPTER V

IN MEDITATION BOTH THE HIGHER AND LOWER POWERS OF THE SOUL MUST BE ACTIVE. FIRST, HOW TO APPLY THE IMAGINATION AND THE SENSITIVE APPETITE

EVERYONE knows that the soul has three higher powers—memory, intellect and will— and two lower powers—imagination and sensitive appetite. This last goes with the various feelings of the will by movements of love or hate, hope or fear, joy or sadness.

In every intercourse, we make use of these five powers. Hence we call them into play in prayer, which is familiar intercourse with God. It is clear that the order in which the acts of these different powers are per- formed is essentially subject to variation and so cannot be prescribed absolutely. But in a treatise on prayer, to avoid confusion, we must study the faculties in succession. Let us begin with the lower powers, the imagination and the sensitive appetite.

To exercise the imagination is to cause it to produce an interior representation of