RECOLLECTION. — An ascetic exercise proper to the interior life, analogous to the isolation of the scholar who concentrates his attention and thought on the meditation of a single idea. S. Teresa compares it to the turtle’s withdrawing into its shell.
In recollection, the mental faculties turn away from the objects toward which corrupted nature drives them with excessive force. «When you wish to pray, enter your inner room, and, having shut your door, pray to your Father who is hidden, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you» (Mt. 6, 6). The drowsiness of the recollected soul corresponds to a spiritual awakening. As a result of the vital interest that man begins to feel for God himself, the attention of the heart gradually detaches itself from the external world and from the world of the imagination, moving toward the substantial “center” of being, where the mysterious source of divine communications springs forth. Recollection therefore differs from psychological introversion, by which man directs a speculative attention toward himself. Recollected attention, on the other hand, leads one out of oneself, makes one “surpass” one’s own soul, in order to “remember,” with eyes closed, that is, in faith, “the other,” the absolute one who has been benevolently drawn near (cf. s. Agostino, Enarr. in Ps., 41, n. 8; Epist., 120, n. 4, etc.). Recollection, an affective phenomenon, also differs, strictly speaking, from the suspension or repose of the faculties, an effect of prayer consequent upon their passive gratification, which is not always joined with recollection.
The prayer called prayer of recollection is that in which the aforesaid intimate attraction of the faculties becomes, both on the sensory and on the spiritual plane, the “occupation” (active or passive) of the soul. The theological value of authentic ascetic recollection is precisely that of the “obedience of faith,” which opens the soul to the infusion of salutary light, to the spiritual “remembrance” of the word of God (Rom. 1, 5; Io. 14, 26; s. Ignazio, Exerc. sp., n. 20; s. Giovanni della Croce, Salita M. C., I. II, cap. 29, n. 6). Perfect recollection does not usually hinder the external employment of the mental faculties in the service of God.