Father Jordan Aumann

Mar222017

Advancing Forward

Even when occupied with the ordinary duties of daily life, the soul should be interiorly gazing upon God and loving him (Jesus prayer). The presence of God should be especially felt during liturgical prayer and in the recitation of vocal prayer. The examination of conscience should be so implicit that a rapid glance reveals the faults and imperfections of the day: All external works should be performed with the spirit of prayer and with the ardent desire of giving glory to God, and even the most commonplace tasks should be permeated with the spirit of faith and love.

All the advantages of affective prayer over simple meditation are found as well in the prayer of simplicity, but noticeably increased. As affective prayer is an excellent preparation for the prayer of simplicity, so the latter is a disposition for infused contemplation. With much less effort than before, the soul achieves magnificent results in the practice of prayer. Thus, each new grade of prayer represents a new advance in the Christian life.  –Father Jordan Aumann ‘Spiritual Theology’

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Mar212017

Mary–Mother and Mediatrix

As long as you háve not leamed to know Mary and háve not given her your heart, you will remain in darkness because you can receive the Holy Spirit only in her and through her….Keep the exceptional teaching I am giving you hidden in the depths of your soul, and it will make you glow before the Lord like a magnificent torch. You will feel, you will understand that inasmuch as the Word made flesh, Jesus the Redeemer, was given to the world by Mary his Mother, it follows necessarily that we who are his members and his brothers, must be brought forth by her, not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The Church, whose language is ordinarily mysterious–since she is obliged to speak in the manner in which God himself has spoken–teaches us that no grace, no power, no love, indeed nothing, absolutely nothing comes to us from God except through Mary….And that is an admirable, a sublime truth. –Father Jordan Aumann ‘Spirituál Theology’ O.P.

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Mar182017

Daily life a means of perfection

I now quote Tanquerey: “The memory and imagination are two valuable faculties, which not only furnish the mind with the necessary material whereon to work, to enable it to explain the truth with the aid of images and facts in such a manner as to make it easier to grasp, and render it more vital and more interesting. The bare, colorless and cold statement of truth would not engage the interest of most men. It is not a question, then, of atrophying these faculties, but of schooling them, of subjecting their activity to the control of reason and will. Otherwise, left to themselves, they literally crowd the soul with a host of memories and images that distract the spirit, waste its energies, cause it to lose priceless time while at work or prayer, and constitute the source of a thousand temptations against purity, charity, humility and other virtues. Hence, of necessity, they must be disciplined and made to minister to the higher faculties of the soul.”

…“In order to check the wanderings of the memory and the imagination, we must first of all strive to expel them from the outset, that is, from the very moment we are aware of them, all dangerous fancies and recollections. Furthermore, since frequent daydreaming by a kind of psychological necessity leads us into dangerous musings, we should take heed to provide against idle thoughts, by mortifying ourselves in regards to useless fancies, which constitute a waste of time and pave the way to others of an even more perilous nature. The best means to attain this end is to apply ourselves wholeheartedly to the performance of the duties of the moment, to our work, to our studies, to our ordinary occupations.” ‘Silence: A Series of Conferences Given by a Camaldolese Hermit’


Father Adolphe-Alfred Tanquerey, pss (1854-1932)

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