ORAZIONE (ASCETICA)

PRAYER (ASCETICAL). —

I. DEFINITION

The treatment of the soul with God and the saints, or the pious elevation of the mind to God (St. John Damascene, De Fide, III, 24: PG 94, 1090). It can be mental or vocal. Although in Latin *oratio* indicates both, among the French and Italians the distinction between “orazione” and “preghiera” (q.v.) has become customary: the former is commonly reserved to signify the various forms of mental elevation, the latter for vocal prayer (in particular petitionary prayer), although there are still authors who follow the classical approach, according to which *oratio* embraces all forms of intimate communication of faith.

Knowledge, however, often arises from a lack of faith, hope, and love, and from the fact that the will is languid. Now the repetition of affections, that is, acts of will and desire, activates and invigorates spiritual life; this is especially true when frequent imitative affections are employed, that is, desires to practice the virtues admired in God, in Jesus, and in the saints. Moreover, the union with God that makes a person holy is above all a union of will; and therefore a method of prayer in which acts of will are more numerous leads more swiftly to perfection.

Affectionate prayer, however, is not to be recommended immediately to beginners, since in order to bear good fruit the person who engages in it must already be well instructed in the faith, in the duties of the spiritual life, and possess strong convictions and a thoroughly supernatural mentality; only then is it possible that, without much reasoning, the person may have those principles present to the mind which should govern the affections. For beginners it is better to begin with meditation; but once they have their minds sufficiently nourished with good thoughts, it is well that they rest in the truths they already possess, giving free rein to their affections. Sacred Scripture provides many examples of affectionate vocal prayer: both from souls tried by spiritual desolation, such as the prayer of Tobias (Tob. 3:1–6), of Sara (ibid., 3:13–23), of Christ in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:39–42; Luke 22:42, etc.); and from others in moments of joy and exultation, such as the canticle of Moses (Exod. 15:1–8), the prayer of Solomon (1 Kings 8:23–26), of Azariah (Dan. 3:26–45), of the three young men in the furnace (ibid., 3:52–90). Many Psalms contain affections for other states of mind (Ps. 50, 102, 118, 127, 135, 148, etc.).

III. PRAYER OF SIMPLICITY

Just as affectionate prayer is the ordinary prayer simplified in the operations of the intellect, so prayer of simplicity is prayer simplified also in its affections. While affections abound greatly in affectionate prayer, and are ordinarily of great variety, in prayer of simplicity the affections are reduced to a few. One finds satisfaction and devotion in remaining in the same affection and repeating it for a long time, so that there are many distinct acts but the affections are not varied: thus St. Francis of Assisi spent an entire night repeating “Deus meus et omnia.” The prolonged repetition of the same affection is in conformity with spiritual laws, and comes easily when one is seized by a strong passion. Finally, even expressions cease and give way to simple aspirations of the heart. Thus mothers who watch over their children sometimes renew for hours the same acts of maternal affection. In a further process of simplification, the soul, beyond simplifying concepts and affections, proceeds to simplify the object as well, that is, tends to fix itself upon a single spiritual point or subject. Some saints, after years of prayer, came to concentrate almost exclusively on the Passion of Christ, others on the Eucharist, or on the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity, etc. Such concentration has the advantage of giving greater actuality to all intellectual and affective energies. Souls very advanced in the interior life and nourished with good thoughts love to rest in the truths they already possess. P. Lanscizio, in his little work *De causis et remediis ariditatis in oratione* (chaps. 2 and 14), suggests repeating the same ejaculatory prayer many times, or several ejaculatory prayers in a certain order. Such simplicity of affections is found in most saints. St. Philip Neri was very familiar with the ejaculatory prayer: “Virgin Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me,” which he was wont to repeat while continually holding his rosary in his hand. Similarly, St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo prayed: “Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, make us holy!” St. Francis Xavier, at the point of death, kept saying without cease: “Jesu, fili David, miserere mei.” St. John Baptist de la Salle observes that this progressive simplification of the soul is a normal fact, that “discourses and multiplied reasonings suit beginners; rarer and long-continued reflections suit those making progress; and simple attention suits the advanced” (*Explication de la méthode d'oraison*, p. 11, ch. 1, § 1). St. John of the Cross, speaking of the passage from meditation to contemplation, notes that the Lord leads souls not only to be unable to meditate further, but almost to fall silent, secretly and tranquilly infusing wisdom and light into the soul, without its making many distinct, formulated, or reiterated acts (*Fiamma vita*, strophe 3, verse 3, §§ 5, 6). St. Peter of Alcantara also recommends not only speaking, but listening to God (*Trattato d'orazione e meditazione*, advice II). In this way one arrives at the prayer of recollection, of simple gaze, and of union.

IV. PRAYER OF RECOLLECTION

Although terminology and classification are not always uniform, prayer of recollection is commonly understood as that form of prayer in which the soul concentrates and is permeated by the intimate feeling of God’s presence, which it savors through acts of love; theologians debate whether it is of an acquired or infused nature. When this knowledge is experimental and perceived in the ineffable manner described by the mystics, one is certainly in the first degrees of the mystical life. This, in the words of the Venerable John of St. Samson, taken in its essence, is nothing other than God ineffably perceived (*Maximes*, I, Paris 1658, ch. 21). Easily from prayer of recollection one passes to that of quiet, which, as the name indicates, is a kind of repose of the soul in God. All discourse or reasoning ceases; the soul stands before Him and sweetly tastes being in Him, loved by Him. This is certainly of a mystical order (G. B. Scaramelli, *Direttorio mistico*, treatise 3, nn. 26–32). The soul experiences this repose and this interior sweetness not merely because it believes in God’s presence, but because it tastes and feels it intimately through the love of God present within it (J. Nouet, *La conduite de l'homme d'oraison*, I, IV, ch. 6).

V. PRAYER OF SIMPLE GAZE

This too can be acquired or infused. In the first case it is the fruit of a long life of prayer, by which the soul, now practiced and full of experiential wisdom, no longer lingers in reasonings, but simply rests with its mind in the truth. At times its attention is directed to God present and loving, and it remains thus, adhering to Him through a prolonged act of silent love. Far more often, however, this prayer is passive and mystical. The metaphor of the “gaze” is drawn from the analogy with what happens in sensory vision, when a man rests in the simple contemplation of some beauty present to him and observes II. ### VI. UNION PRAYER

In the ascetical sense, union prayer is that simple and profound form of prayer in which the soul, without multiplying affections, clings to God with an intimate and prolonged embrace of love; in the mystical sense, beyond being a special gift from God, received passively and experienced experimentally through the so-called mystical experience, it is a suspension of the exercise of the soul’s faculties, all of which are simultaneously occupied with God and incapable of anything else. At that moment, the spirit is entirely and absolutely estranged from all worldly things and is completely immersed in God. The transition to ecstasy (v.) is merely a matter of greater intensity (St. Teresa, *Castle*, 5, chaps. 1 and 2). Full union is inferior in its effects to ecstasy, in which the soul is ordinarily enriched with extraordinary visions, whether of God, the Most Holy Trinity, His attributes (St. John of the Cross, *Ascent*, I, II, chap. 26), or divine secrets (St. Teresa, *Castle*, 6, chaps. 4-5-10); and with particular enlightenment and illumination of the intellect (St. Ignatius of Loyola, *Life Written by Ribadeneira*, I, I, chap. 6). For transforming union and other degrees of infused prayer: V. MYSTIC.

**

J. M. Perrin, *L'oraison apostolique*, in *Vie spirituelle*, 79 (1948), pp. 110-123; L. M. G., *Valeur apostolique de la vie contemplative*, ibid., pp. 271-84; A. Simonet, *Qu'est-ce-que l'oraison*, in *Rev. dioc. de Namur*, 1949, pp. 242-50.

---

### VII. Consolations and Aridity

The crowning of the salutary influence of grace during our earthly existence is the operation by which God nourishes the supernatural love that sanctifying grace causes to spring spontaneously from the faithful heart: the divine goldsmith blows upon the furnace after having kindled it (*Wis.* 3:6). This direct concurrence, or inspiration of grace, corresponds to the promised mission of the Paraclete (*Jn.* 14:26). Authentic spiritual consolation is, in various ways and degrees, a notable intensification of this action, in a passive accentuation—normally transitory—of the fervor of the soul (*Lk.* 24:32): a favor usually experienced at intervals by devout souls, whether advanced or still beginners, each according to their own dispositions. Consolation is among the first effects of the Eucharist worthily received. At times it presents itself as the sweetness of God (*Sir.* 24:23-24), an experience of His goodness that alleviates moral weariness (*Mt.* 11:28), pacifies the heart, and renews the inner man (*2 Cor.* 4:16); at other times it arises as a sudden flame of divine love that for the moment permits no other object of love than God (*Ps.* 72:23-28), or a vivid light of faith (*Eph.* 1:17-19), a jubilee of the heart that accelerates holy action (*Ps.* 118:32), or a kind of spiritual inebriation that overflows in divine praise (*Eph.* 5:18-19), such as the *Magnificat*.

This converting influence is essentially produced by a form of God’s presence superimposed upon that by which He places us in existence and elevates us to sanctifying grace (St. John of the Cross, *Canticle B, stanza* 11): it is a polarizing action, analogous to that of the sun upon a flower, which awakens, attracts, and suspends the heart in God. The deepest consolation is not merely manifested in a sweet emotion of the will but also allows this loving presence of God to shine through more or less clearly, so that the faithful then become aware of not being alone.

This divine action is called “consolation” also because it constitutes a first recompense for the renunciation of earthly joys, for the anxiety of salvation, and for the struggle waged against concupiscence, worldliness, and the devil. It is also called a “visit” because, by its nature, it is not permanent, unlike “indwelling.”

Consolation adapts itself to the state of the soul that enjoys II. When the soul still deals with God on the sensible plane of spiritual life, consolation manifests itself in the sensible part, which is why it is doubly subject to change: because on the sensible plane euphoria is necessarily fleeting and is usually followed by a phase of prostration in the “tone” of the nerves, to which grace adapts its action. In perfect contemplative union, consolation is represented by periods of total or “qualified” union, during which the enjoyment of God, which usually lingers almost imperceptibly in the depths of the soul, surfaces in the internal faculties like a heavenly festivity (St. Augustine, *Enarration on Ps.* 41, no. 9).

The creature can often be a secondary cause occasioning divine consolation. Angelic consolations and those entirely natural are distinguished; even the devil can produce similar states in order to better deceive the soul.

Spiritual masters recommend maintaining the soul in such a state as to receive consolation without fixing attention or affection upon it, but rather taking advantage of it to increase substantial devotion—the devotion that the fervent soul always seeks, whether the visits of grace multiply or grow sparse (*Imitation of Christ*, IV, chap. 15).

Aridity is opposed to consolation as a contrary state of mind, marking a phase of painful affective isolation, inner turmoil, and temptation. Aridity is simply the exhaustion of the consoling action: the fertilizing clouds of sensible devotion have evaporated, and the intimate impression echoes the words of the Psalmist: “In a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; so thirsted I after thee in the sanctuary” (*Ps.* 62:2).

In this affective torpor, the functioning of the interior sensible faculties—indispensable in discursive meditation for the mental elaboration of salutary considerations and for the flowering of spiritual sentiments that nourish devotion at such times—becomes laborious, difficult, even impossible. The soul suffers from this sterility, as the roots of a plant suffer in drought. Aridity, likened to the absence of rain, is therefore a superficial phenomenon in the spiritual life: it impresses itself especially upon beginners, still “carnal,” that is, susceptible to being moved by sensible impressions, whom Scripture compares to grass (*Sir.* 1:24). Advanced souls, “spiritual,” deeply rooted, no longer depend on the sensible and are sustained by a devotion that comes from within, by secret, permanent, inexhaustible infusion. “The tree planted by the rivers of water” defies seasonal droughts (*Ps.* 1:3).

Aridity can often be interpreted as a paternal correction from God, a reaction to dissipation; it can also be determined by psychological depression. It may likewise be maintained by the Heavenly Gardener (*1 Cor.* 3:9) for the benefit of the soul, to make it produce better fruit: rain benefits the vine in spring, but no longer in June. In certain souls, aridity harmonizes with the thirst for God and revives invocation. When it becomes permanent, despite spiritual fervor, it is one of the signs of the unfolding of the contemplative state. *V. PURIFICATIONS, PASSIVE.*

The guidance to be given regarding aridity will therefore vary according to circumstances; it may recommend more rigorous mortification, more assiduous prayer, or rather psychological relaxation, serene and trusting patience, and purer joy in a deeper recollection.

**