How to Gain the Most Grace from Daily Prayer and Meditation

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ at prayer in the Garden of Olives. He is there on His knees with His face prostrate against the ground (Luke 22:41; Matt. 26:39). How completely this spectacle ought to teach us to abase ourselves before God in prayer through the sentiment of our nothingness in presence of His infinite majesty. Let us thank Our Lord for giving us this example and ask of Him grace to profit by it.

FIRST POINT

The Importance of Penetrating Ourselves Thoroughly with the Subject of the Meditation

Doubtless, O my God, when we present ourselves before Thee in prayer, we ought, before anything else, to be thoroughly penetrated with Thy adorable presence, since nothing is so well calculated to keep us, during the whole time our meditation lasts, in an attitude of attention and reverence. We ought to implore the assistance of Thy Holy Spirit, since we cannot otherwise have even a single good thought. But after that, nothing is more necessary than that we should be thoroughly penetrated with Thy divine teachings in regard to the subject of our meditation and on the reasons for conforming our conduct to it; for these are the two elements of which every subject of meditation is composed. Thy divine teachings, O Lord, which are to be deducted from what Thou hast said, done, or thought upon the subject we are meditating, are they not of all things in the world the most worthy of our serious reflections? What can be more just than to consider them with thanksgiving, admiration, and love for the infinite goodness which wills to instruct us? What more reasonable than that we should afterwards penetrate ourselves with the reasons which should lead us to conform our conduct to them, to assimilate, if I may so say, these divine lessons, not by means of subtle speculations and a course of reasoning more suitable to some subject we are studying than to an exercise of prayer, but by pious affections and holy aspirations? Alas, I acknowledge with sorrow, O my God, that for want of occupying myself with this first portion of meditation, my faith is weakened, my convictions lessened, and I do not feel as strongly the necessity of leading a better life.

SECOND POINT

Examination of Conscience, Followed by an Act of Contrition, the Second Portion of Meditation

After having seen what I ought to be, O Lord, what can be more natural than to examine what I am, in what my sentiments differ from Thy sentiments, my actions from Thy manner of acting, my words from Thy divine language, and whether, living as I do, I could present myself with confidence before Thy heavenly Father, who has said that He will receive into His Paradise none but those who bear a resemblance to Thee (Rom. 8:20). I shall therefore have to examine my faults, to study their source, and to put away from me the occasions of them. After having, by means of this examination, recognized my guilt, ought I not, O Lord, to deplore so sad a past, bitterly to regret having served Thee so ill, be filled with shame in Thy presence, and make resolutions to lead a new life: practical, special resolutions, present resolutions adapted to the present day? Alas! Lord, I confess with sighs that I have failed and that I fail nearly every day in observing these holy rules, and this is the reason why I perform my meditations so ill.

THIRD POINT

To Ask for Grace to Execute our Resolutions, the Third Part of Meditation

I shall make all these considerations and all these resolutions in vain, all will be useless to me, O my God, without the help of Thy grace. Thou hast said, Lord, and I believe it, that man can do nothing without Thy help (John 15:5); but this grace, how shall I obtain it from Thy mercy? Thou hast also said, and I believe it: It will only be by prayer (John 16:24), but it must be a fervent prayer; that is to say , an ardent desire to conform my life to the virtue or the truth upon which I have been meditating; a humble prayer accompanied by confidence; recourse to the merits of Our Lord, to the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin, to St. Joseph, to the holy angels, to our holy patrons, and the saints which the Church honors today. Alas until now I have not asked this, or I have asked it badly, and hence the want of putting into practice so many resolutions, but henceforth I will pray earnestly, with humility and confidence, and Thou wilt hear me.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above