Practice
St. Alphonsus recommends some principles and attitudes for spiritual reading.
- Ask God for help beforehand, because through reading it is God who speaks to us. Thus he recommended the prayer of Samuel: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Speak, O my Lord, for I wish to obey you in all that you will make known to me to be your will.
- The exclusive purpose of the reading is to advance in divine love, and not to acquire learning and indulge in curiosity. To do spiritual reading with false intentions is "a study unprofitable to the soul," and "lost time."
- Read slowly and with attention. "'Nourish your soul,' says St. Augustine, 'with divine lectures.'" To be nourished, he said, one must chew and well and ponder well, and apply the teachings to oneself. "And when what you have read has made a lively impression on you, St. Ephrem counsels you to read it a second time...Besides, when you receive any special light in reading, or any instruction that penetrates the heart, it will be very useful to stop, and to raise the mind to God by making a good resolution, or a good act, or a fervent prayer. St. Bernard says, that it is useful then to interrupt the reading, and to offer a prayer, and to continue to pray as long as the lively impression lasts."
- Select some sentiment of devotion, at the end of reading. "Carry it with you as you would carry a flower from a garden of pleasure."
Read more about this topic: Spiritual Reading
Famous quotes containing the word practice:
“Children also need opportunities to practice being less than perfect. They can afford to be ill tempered with us because it is our love that is most constant. This is the essence of unconditional love.... Our steadfast love provides a safe haven.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“It is accordance with our determination to refrain from aggression and build up a sentiment and practice among nations more favorable to peace ... that we have incurred the consent of fourteen important nations to the negotiation of a treaty condemning recourse to war, renouncing it as an instrument of national policy.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea’s foot and marveling at a midge’s humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)