Moreover, it renders the practice of prayer easy. All the irregular movements of our lower nature being subdued, the soul thus disengaged is able to think steadfastly on God, and attend to his inspiration, according to those words of the divine Spouse in Scripture: "I will lead her into the solitude, and will speak to her heart, and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth." [Footnote 151]
[Footnote 151: Osee ii., 14.]
[Transcriber's note: Osee refers to Hosea.]
According to the experience of all spiritual men, the spirit of prayer can only spring from, mortification. "Give more study to mortification," says Lewis da Ponte, "than to contemplation, for an unmortified person seeks after the spirit of prayer and cannot find it, whilst prayer itself seeks the man who is truly mortified, and knows how to find him." Saint Ignatius once heard one say in the praise of a great servant of God: "He is a great man of prayer." The saint replied, "No, he is a man of great mortification." And on another occasion he remarked, that "a quarter of an hour spent in prayer is sufficient to unite a mortified man closely to God; whereas an unmortified man would not obtain this in two hours." "He who does not live according to the corruption of the senses," says St. John of the Cross, "has the consolation to see all the operations of the powers of his soul tend to the contemplation of God as to their centre."
Finally, it fills the soul with spiritual consolations, according to the words of Holy Scripture. "Who is this that cometh up from the desert flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?" [Footnote 152]
[Footnote 152: Cant. viii., 5.]
While the heart is disturbed with irregular affections and filled with inordinate love for created things, divine love cannot enter it. The desert of which Solomon speaks in the passage just quoted, is produced in the soul by the renunciation and mortification of the irregular movements of the sensual appetites, and the soul then goes forth to meet the celestial spouse; and as all obstacles to his love are removed, she is filled with his divine consolation. And thus supported by her Beloved, the practice of every virtue becomes easy. "Whilst my heart was dilated with thy consolations, I ran in the way of thy commandments." [Footnote 153] Oh, blessed penance, which recovers for the soul its supreme good, and gives it here a foretaste of Paradise!
[Footnote 153: Psalm cxviii.]
[Transcriber's note: This appears to be a paraphrase of Psalm cxix., 1.]
Let us, then, enter upon the duties of Lent with the conviction of their necessity and their high importance. Let us manfully conquer all our repugnances to the works of penance enjoined by Holy Church; for every act of self-denial and mortification of sensuality will open avenues of true spiritual joy to the soul. Let us pass through this holy season with sincerity and confidence, practising all its requirements, that it may be said of us also, "Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning on her beloved?" For only those who take part in the penances of Lent can share in the joys of Easter.