“The life of man upon earth is a warfare” (Job. vii, i). Day and night, within and without, the enemies of our salvation lie in wait to rob us of our treasure of virtues, even of the life of grace, and by consequence of the life of glory, too. We have to watch, pray, struggle ceaselessly, keep repelling the assaults of the demon, defeating his strategies, holding down our vicious inclinations and our unruly passions which are in league with him. And should he succeed in penetrating our lines of defense by sin, we must drive him out again by prompt repentance, repair the ill-consequences of our fault, provide against a renewed offensive on the part of the enemy, and prepare for the final victory by vigilance and a courage always on the alert. But as we are weakness itself, we should never forget to summon to our aid the omnipotence of God. The struggle is one of absolute necessity, and must end only with our earthly life. The hour we cease to combat, that hour sin will force its way into our hearts, as a hostile army precipitates itself upon a country which has ceased to put up a successful resistance. Moreover, how much time is needed to detach ourselves from every created object, and to establish ourselves in purity of heart and peace of soul! And when once we have acquired these advantages, what further efforts will be necessary to maintain them!

–‘Holy Abandonment’ Reverend Abbot Dom Vitalis Lehodey O.C.R. (Order of Cistercians Reformed; Trappists)

No matter how perfect may be our confidence in God, no matter how absolute our self-surrender into the hands of his providence for all that belongs to his good pleasure, we shall never be dispensed from the obligation of following the prescriptions of prudence.  The practice of this virtue, natural and supernatural, appertains to the signified will of God.  It is the established law, always binding, God wills to help us, but only on the condition that we do all that depends upon ourselves, according to the proverb: God helps those who help themselves.  To act otherwise would be to tempt God and to upset the order he has established. –Abbot Vital Lehodey ‘The Way that Leads to God’

Insensibility of the heart is a heavy trial, at least for the soul that has not yet arrived at perfect abandonment. The trial becomes heavier still when to the privation of devotional feelings are added disgust, repugnance and interior revolt. It is human nature recoiling before the prospect of great sacrifice or when the cup of suffering is already full. This repugnance and revolts have nothing sinful about them, provided we suffer them with patience and do not allow our wills to be drawn away. The only thing lacking then is the feeling of our submission, since our wills remain united to the will of God and faithful to all its duties. Remember the Savior’s agony in the Garden of Olives and you will understand that bitterness of heart and the violence of anguish are not incompatible with the most perfect submission. The revolts are limited to the inferior part. In the higher region of the soul submission continues to reign. –Abbot Vital Lehodey ‘The Way That Leads to God’

This simplification of prayer is not the work of time and years.  God bestows attractions as He pleases.  He harmonizes them, however, with our interior dispositions, and the variety of our circumstances; He invites some sooner, others later.  Should He call a soul from its very first steps in the spiritual life, His will being duly ascertained, no one has the right to hesitate to obey.  In sickness, also, and in certain states of fatigue, meditation would be often impossible, and the prayer of affections becomes as it were a necessity.  Generally, it is only after a long habit of meditation that a soul feels itself drawn to diminish its considerations, and afterwards even to suppress them almost entirely and to be satisfied, or nearly so, with a simple look.  The prayer of simplicity, therefore, means ordinarily speaking, that a long journey has been traversed; it is the normal term, at which discursive prayer ends, and there is no one who may hope to arrive there in the course of time, by a generous practice of mental prayer and the other exercises of the spiritual life.  –Abbot Vitalis Lehodey ‘The Ways of Mental Prayer’

As we have said, when speaking of the passive purgation of the senses, contemplation begins by a state of quiet that is very feeble, and hardly perceptible. A remembrance of God, vague, obscure, persistent and monotonous, a love not less vague and indistinct, and a dolorous need of possessing God by a closer union from the groundwork of this state. The quietude is too feeble to allow the soul to taste the sweetness of the divine presence. The soul thirsts and God gives her to drink not of “a stream” but of “a puny rill of water” as “to a child.” She is far from swimming in delights, but she is, in some small degree, relieved of her thirst, and held captive, for she feels the need of being alone with God, and, if she suffers in that state, she would be far worse off elsewhere. –Abbot Vitalis Lehodey “The Ways of Mental Prayer”

With good reason is this state called a purgation. For it purifies our souls from pride. Inebriated with Divine consolations, they used to deem themselves good; plunged in a universal disgust, powerless to meditate, reduced to the production of a few meagre affections without variety or unction, assailed often by most humiliating temptations, they feel their misery, convinced by force of evidence that they are worth very little, and that without God they can do nothing; they are, in consequence, disposed to make themselves very small in the presence of so much greatness and sanctity, to have a greater respect for His majesty, and to pray to Him with more humility, As they find themselves plunged in darkness, they more willingly have recourse to the wisdom of their superiors, and become simple and docile; they are also too much occupied and penetrated with the sense of their own miseries to observe those of others with a malignant curiosity; and thus indulgence towards the faults of others, mutual forbearance, esteem and charity increase along with humility.

This state also purifies souls from spiritual gluttony and all inordinate love of spiritual joys. The soul was greedy of consolations, she wished to find her pleasure in the presence of God; now, this inordinate love of spiritual pleasures dies for want of food; as time goes on she learns to do without emotions, to give herself to God without any selfish interest, to serve Him at her own expense and no matter what it costs the animal part is weakened by being deprived of sensible sweetness, the passions lose their force, and are reduced to order; little by little she dies to herself, and the divine life meets with fewer hindrances.  –Rev Dom Vitalis Lehodey ‘The Ways of Mental Prayer’

The desire of heaven and the love of God.  It is long since we came to realize the emptiness, the powerlessness, the nothingness of this life with its false goods, and, forsaking the world, entered the cloister to seek the Sovereign Good alone.  In the measure in which our souls have detached and purified themselves, the desire of heaven has become stronger, and the ardor of our love of God increased almost to impatience.  All we want is God, God seen, loved, possessed without delay.  True, the God of our hearts is here, quite close to us, in the Blessed Sacrament.  But we want Him without any concealing veil.  Sometimes He permits us to find Him in prayer.  But we are not satisfied with such a transient and incomplete union.  We would hold Him in perfect and everlasting possession.  Our bodies stand like the walls of a prison between our souls and our Well-Beloved.  Down with them, therefore; let them cease to hide from us the Sole Object of all our affections!  –Abbot Vitalis Lehodey ‘Holy Abandonment’

THE CLOISTERED HEART IS a way of living for God in the midst of the world. It is heart monasticism that can be embraced by married or single persons, religious or lay. It’s an analogy in which our lives can be “monasteries,” our hearts can live in the “enclosure” of Christ, and all things may be viewed through the will of God as through a “grille.”  —Nancy Shuman

The Cloister at Le Mont Saint Michel