An Exhortation to Practice Mental Prayer taken from Saint Augustine
Here are some words of Saint Augustine on the practice of Mental Prayer, which are truly capable of making us arise from our spiritual torpor:
“He in whom is the love of God, is for ever thinking when he shall get to God, when leave the world, when escape the corruption of the flesh, to find true peace. For ever has he his heart uplifted and his desires raised up on high. When he is seated, when he walks, when he rests, or when he is engaged on something, his heart does not withdraw from God. He exhorts all to love God, to all he recommends the love of God, and proves with his heart, by word and by work, how sweet is the love of God, and how bad and bitter the love of the world. He despises the world’s glory, and refutes the desire of it, and he shows how foolish it is to put one’s trust in the things that pass. He is astounded at the blindness of men who love these things, astounded also that everyone does not abandon these vain and transitory things. What he knows to be so sweet, he thinks should be sweet to all, what so pleases him, please all, what is manifest to him, be clear to all. Often does he contemplate his God, and in his contemplation is sweetly strengthened, and is so much the happier as it is the more frequent. For what is sweet to love and praise, is a pleasure to consider.
“Truly this is real rest for the heart, when its whole desire is fixed upon the love of God, and has taste for nothing else, but is delighted in what it holds with such happy sweetness, and in its delight is radiantly joyful. And if some vain thought or some affair interrupts this happiness, with the utmost speed it hastens to get back to it, deeming it exile to rest elsewhere. Therefore is it not to be considered as a slight sin for one who is speaking with God in Prayer suddenly to withdraw out of His sight as though He were not there seeing and hearing. But this happens when he follows wicked or inopportune thoughts, or when he prefers to God some most wretched creature to the thought of which he is easily drawn, thinking of this creature and pondering over the thought of it more often than of God, of Whom he ought to be assiduously mindful, adoring Him as his Creator, awaiting Him as his Saviour, and fearing Him as his Judge.”