As the Saint's own ordinary and favourite spiritual exercise was the
practice of the presence of God, so he advised those whom he directed in
the ways of holiness to devote themselves most earnestly to recollection,
and to the use of frequent aspirations or ejaculatory prayers.
On one occasion I asked him whether there would be more spiritual loss in
omitting the exercise of mental prayer or in omitting that of recollection
and aspirations. He answered that the omission of mental prayer might be
repaired during the day or night by frequent withdrawal of the mind into
God and by aspirations to Him, but that mental prayer unaccompanied by
aspirations was, in his estimation, like a bird with clipped wings. He went
on to say that: "by recollection we retire into God, and draw God into
ourselves, as it is written: _I opened my mouth, and panted, because I
longed for Thy commandments_,[1] by which is meant the mouth of the heart
to which God always graciously inclines His ear. In the Canticle the bride
says that her Beloved led her into His _cellar of wine, he set in order
charity in me_.[2] Or, as another version has it, _He enrolled me under the
banner of His love_. Just as wine is stored up in vaults or cellars, and
as soldiers gather under their standards or banners; so all the faculties
of our soul gather together around the goodness and love of God by short
spiritual retreats, made from time to time throughout the day. But when are
they made, and in what place? At any moment, and in any place, and there
is no meal, or company, or employment, or occupation of any sort which can
hinder them, just as they on their part neither hinder nor interfere with
anything that has to be done. On the contrary, this is a salt which seasons
every kind of food, or rather a sugar which never spoils any sauce. It
consists only in inward glances from ourselves and from God, from ourselves
into God, and from God into ourselves, without pictures or speech, or any
outward aid; and the simpler this recollection is the better it is. As
regards aspirations, they also are short but swift dartings of the soul
into God, and can be made by a simple mental glance cast towards Him. _Cast
thy care_, or thoughts, _upon the Lord_,[3] says David. The more vigorously
an arrow is shot from the bow the more swift is its flight. The more
vehement and loving is an aspiration, the more truly is it a spiritual
lightning-flash. These transports or aspirations, of which we have so many
formulas, are the better the shorter they are. One of St. Bruno seems to me
excellent on account of its brevity: _O goodness of God_; that also of St.
Francis, _My God and my all_! and that of St. Augustine, _Oh! to love, to
go forward, to die to self, to reach God_!"
Our Blessed Father treats excellently of these two exercises in his
Philothea, and recommends them strongly, saying that they hold to one
another, as did Jacob and Esau at their birth, and follow one another,
as do respiration and aspiration. And just as in respiration we draw the
fresh outer air into our lungs, and by aspiration drive out that into which
the heat of our bodies has entered, so by the breath of recollection we
draw God into ourselves, or retire into God, and by aspirations we cast
ourselves into the arms of His goodness.
Happy the soul that often thus breathes, and thus aspires, for she abides
in God and God in her.
[Footnote 1: Psalm cxviii, 131.]
[Footnote 2: Cant. ii. 4.]
[Footnote 3: Psalm liv. 23.]