When St. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing, his command seems at first to be impossible if we think of prayer only as something which requires us to kneel reciting the words of saints and magisterium. Even if we think of prayer as a withdrawal from the world to have a heartfelt conversation with God, the command seems to mean we let all other responsibilities go. We can’t do that and still live our lives.
But St. Paul’s command doesn’t mean perpetually cocooning ourselves into isolating modes. Instead, it is a command to look inward to the interior dialogue of our soul and redirect this dialogue away from our self-focus into dialogue with God as we fulfill our vocations and state of life.
God is found everywhere life takes us. The term recollection describes how we bring God to mind with an awareness of His presence, a surrender to the events of life He has allowed, and a seeking of His will in all circumstances1. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as, “attention to the presence of God in the soul. It includes the withdrawal of the mind from external and earthly affairs in order to attend to God and Divine things. It is the same as interior solitude in which the soul is alone with God.”2
This awareness can come about through the normal forms of grace, spiritual practices given to us by God through which we can draw close to Him. Practicing this awareness is an active form of recollection. However, God can sometimes draw us to Himself with an extraordinary form of grace, making us aware of His Presence, like a father who gently tilts our chin until we look Him in the eye. This is a passive or receptive form of recollection. Our hearts must remain open to this extraordinary grace so that we don’t miss these moments. But how do we make active and receptive forms of recollection into the constant prayer which St. Paul advocates?
Awareness of God’s Presence
We may learn of God’s love and attributes through the Church’s work in our lives, but God surrounds us at all moments and waits even within our own hearts for acknowledgment and kingship. Though the Church informs our awareness, it is up to us to bring God to mind through our daily lives. Awareness in the everyday is where God begins to sanctify us. Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., author of Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues related how the saints grew under this awareness of God, “St. Jerome says: ‘The remembrance of God and the walking in His presence is such an efficacious motive that we should never do anything to displease God, if we remembered that He is present and beholds us.’ For Thais, the sinner, this thought was enough to make her give up her evil life and go into the desert to do penance… God looking at me as an eye-witness, and counting my steps, who should dare to sin or to do any duty badly?”3
In our era, the word meditation conjures images of hippies sitting in circles, cross-legged, eyes closed, humming to erase their thoughts and empty their minds. Satan has always given us empty imitations of what God intends. Instead of emptying our mind, meditation should always be the practice of turning inward to seek God, to settle our attention on His Presence in the interior of our soul. Each time we turn to God in our mind we make an act of conversion. We are “turning with” the Lord. Distractions need not cause us grief if they are seen as opportunities to return to Him with greater love. Many of the spiritual masters have said that the key to sustaining this is not to strain against distractions but to be very gentle in bringing our minds back to God.
When we form this habit, our day-to-day lives begin to change. In the book Abandonment to Divine Providence, Rev. Jean Pierre de Caussade writes, “He who knows that a certain person in disguise is the king, behaves towards him very differently to another who, only perceiving an ordinary man, treats him accordingly. In the same way, the soul that recognizes the will of God in every smallest event, and also in those that are most distressing and direful, receives all with an equal joy, pleasure, and respect. It throws open all its doors to receive with honor what others fear and fly from with horror.”4
Frequent Aspirations
The word aspiration carries layered meaning. It can mean hope as well as the action of breathing in and out.5 For this reason, small prayers offered up in whispers, sighs, groans or exclamatory joy have come to be called aspirational prayers. They are acknowledgments of God in the diverse moments of life’s toil and victories, relationships, and solitude. They connect us to God, seeking His Presence and surrendering to His Will.
St. Francis de Sales encouraged his protege in Introduction to the Devout Life, “…plant Him in your soul like a flag, and make a thousand different motions of your heart to enkindle within a passionate and tender affection for your divine Spouse.”6 Along those same lines, he encouraged, “… there are many predetermined forms of aspirational prayers, but it is best to speak to God from your heart. Send up small darts of love to God throughout the day.”7 St. Francis understood that we can’t remain intellectually interactive with God while performing duties of our state of life, but our duties become offerings to God when we do them well and frequently return to awareness of God throughout our day.
St. Therese of Lisieux’s explanation for these simple heartfelt seconds became part of the Catholic Catechism’s simple answer to the question, “What is prayer?” She answers, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”8
Constant prayer becomes an act of the will, a practice, a habitual response to the stimuli of life. We grow in holiness by offering up these small moments of acknowledgment and connection with God. We can use memorized scripture, personal prayers, or just interior glances of love, recollecting God’s Presence in every moment. These habitual moments of gratitude and love in the day-to-day of life, become our lifeblood during times of trial and darkness. We will instantly know His Presence and respond in genuine interior trust. St. John of Avila taught us, “One ‘Blessed be God’ in times of adversity is worth more than a thousand acts of gratitude in times of prosperity.” These are the moments when our souls fully connect with God.
Tranquility of Soul
Isaiah 30:15 tells us, “For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: Your salvation depends upon repentance and tranquility and your strength upon quiet trust…” Tranquility depends upon humility, detachment, and holy indifference. This is our main defense against the enticing pleasures, distractions, self-love, and taking offense at others which can destroy our prayerful union with God. Habitually reigning in our passions by a gentle self-mastery and growing in receptivity to God’s will opens us, humbles us, and allows us to surrender.
St. Teresa of Avila explained, “…so long as we are on this earth, nothing matters more to us than humility…we shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we seek to know God: let us think of His greatness and then come back to our own baseness; by looking at His purity we shall see our foulness; by meditating upon His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.”
Thomas à Kempis wrote in Imitation of Christ: “Continual peace be with the humble; but in the heart of the proud is frequent envy and indignation.”9 He explains, “We might have much peace if we would not busy ourselves with the sayings and doings of others, and with things which do not belong to us. How can he remain long in peace who entangles himself with other people’s cares: who seeks to go abroad, and who is little or seldom self-recollected? Blessed are the single-hearted for they shall enjoy much peace.”10
We have to let go of how we think the world should be run, our life should unfold, and our own entitlement to justice. God writes our particular story. Embracing humility begins to erode our self-centeredness and build tranquility of soul, settling us into the Will of God.
Perceiving God’s Providence
God communicates through Scripture as well as the Magisterium, which has been under the guidance of the Holy Spirit for over two millennia. He also communicates through His Providence in the fabric of our unique lives. Providence is His language to our soul, revealing to us moment by moment the individual challenges, great and small, He has allowed to ensure we grow in virtues which prepare us for our place in Heaven. The virtues built in response to this story will be the jewels of our crown.
St. Teresa of Avila bids us, “In all created things discern the providence and wisdom of God, and in all things give Him thanks.”11 Providence reveals the loving power of God to give us precisely what we need and to remove from us what is impeding our growth toward Him. The intimacy of our relationship with Him is strengthened through prayer and sacrifice, the offering of our self-will to His will in the context of His Providence.
Psalms 103 speaks of God’s stewardship, gently rebuking us when we stray but mercifully forgiving and enfolding us back into relationship when we repent. Verse thirteen specifically assures us, “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.” As we begin to see each detail of our lives as God’s interaction with us, Fr. Jean Peirre de Caussade writes, “We must listen to God from moment to moment to become learned in the theology of virtue which is entirely practical and experimental. Do not attend therefore to what is said to others, but listen to that which is said to you and for you; there will be enough to exercise your faith because this interior language of God exercises, purifies, and increases it by its very obscurity.”12
When we begin to view Romans 14:8 under this lens, our detachment and holy indifference begins to make sense, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” As we adjust our attitude to receptivity, we become aware of all that He is doing inside of us. Then, the aspirations, these darts of love, become more and more in relationship with listening and responding. Fr. de Caussade emphasizes, “To hallow the name of God, is according to the meaning of the holy Scripture, to recognize His sanctity in all things and to love and adore Him in them.”13
Union with the Will of God
In the Book of Job 1:6-12, Satan accuses Job of only loving God because God hedged him with fine gifts and favors. God knows Job’s love is deeper than this shallow accusation. He allows the Accuser to test Job in order to reveal this love. Satan then takes Job’s beloved children, his wealth, his prestige, and finally his physical health. Job 19:25-27 reveals the love God knew would be waiting beneath the surface. When Job suffers his darkest night of the soul, he confidently states, “But I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end He will stand upon the dust. After my awakening, He will call me close to Him, and then from my own flesh I will see God. I will see Him with my own eyes; my eyes, not those of another, will behold Him. How my heart within me yearns for that moment!”
Our Creator God has everything He can create. Love tried and tested as Job’s is the only thing we can offer Him. Our passive surrender, our sacrifice of self-will, becomes God’s most treasured possession. The small surrenders of our heart to His will, these aspirations, are often called acts of union or sighs of love.
Rev. Jean Pierre de Caussade relates how our Blessed Mother demonstrated this treasured union. He writes, “Mary, when the apostles fled, remained steadfast at the foot of the Cross. She owned Jesus as her Son when He was disfigured with wounds, and covered with mud and spittle… The life of faith is nothing less than the continued pursuit of God through all that disguises, disfigures, destroys, and, so to say, annihilates Him…faithful souls endure a constant succession of trials. God hides beneath veils of darkness and illusive appearances which make His will difficult to recognize; but in spite of every obstacle these souls follow Him and love Him even to the death of the Cross.”14
Fr. André Prévot in his book Love, Peace and Joy reveals how Jesus relished this treasure of Union with God’s Will in St. Gertrude the Great: “‘Lord…I offer Thee all the sufferings …with the desire to endure them till the end of the world if such is Thy good pleasure.’ Jesus answered: ‘Frequently make me this offering, which inebriates My Heart, and prevents it from refusing you anything.’”15
Road to Sainthood
St. Claude de la Colombiere’s road to sainthood led through the background of two major stories. In his early adulthood (mid-1600s) he wrote often of recollection and strove to live the philosophy of constant prayer: “God is in the midst of us, or rather we are in the midst of Him. Wherever we are, He sees us and touches us: at prayer, at work, at table, at recreation. We do not think of this! If we did, with what fervor and devotion would we live! Let us often make acts of faith, saying to ourselves: God is looking at me; He is present here.” St. Colombiere was a rising star in seminary but did not rebel when he was placed in a backwater locale to serve humble nuns. When one such diminutive nun began relating extraordinary visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he humbled himself to learn from her. Later, he would leave this hidden haven, only to be thrown into the midst of London’s Protestant rebellion, where he would be imprisoned and persecuted. He was released from prison only to die in 1679 from the deteriorated state of his health. This suffering revealed the depths of his love. Two years before his death, he wrote, “You are everywhere in me and I in You; therefore, in whatever situation I may find myself, in whatever peril, whatever enemy may rise up against me, I have my support always with me.”16
Our individual roads to sainthood will all look different. We will face different life paths, different achievements, different hurdles, roadblocks, setbacks and griefs, but our sainthood depends on turning to God throughout, nurturing our relationship with frequent acknowledgment of His presence. These aspirations become the neverending conversation between our heart and His, our breathing in of His presence and our exhale of gratitude. We won’t master this life of constant prayer in a day’s time, but over time, this practice will take root. Ask these saints of constant prayer to help draw your attention to God, ask your guardian angel to bring God’s presence to mind, and ask the Blessed Mother to give the extraordinary graces to thank God for the opportunities He allows for your growth in virtue. God longs for this communication, for this awareness, and for the moments of surrender which only we can offer.
- Recollection | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia ↩︎
- https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/recollection ↩︎
- RODRIGUEZ, S.J., ALPHONSUS. PRACTICE OF PERFECTION AND CHRISTIAN VIRTUES. Translated by Joseph Rickaby, vol. 1, London, THE MANRESA PRESS: ROEHAMPTON., 1929. 2 vols. https://archive.org/details/PPCV-Manresa/page/n3/mode/2up. Accessed 15 8 2024. P 357 ↩︎
- STRICKLAND, EJ, and Jesus Christ. “Abandonment to Divine Providence.” Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://www.ccel.org/d/decaussade/abandonment/cache/abandonment.pdf. Accessed 14 August 2024. P 26
↩︎ - Aspiration Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster ↩︎
- De Sales, St Francis. Introduction to a Devout Life. Catholic Book Publishing Corporation, 2013. P 71 ↩︎
- https://catholicexchange.com/prayerful-aspirations-small-darts-of-love/ ↩︎
- Libreria Editrice Vaticana, and Usccb. Catechism of the Catholic Church, English Updated Edition. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, 2020. #2558 ↩︎
- Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ – Zippered Cover. TAN Books, 2013. P 10 ↩︎
- Ibid. P 13. ↩︎
- https://www.ncregister.com/blog/thanksgiving-2023-13-quotes-on-gratitude-from-the-saints
↩︎ - STRICKLAND, EJ, and Jesus Christ. “Abandonment to Divine Providence.” Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://www.ccel.org/d/decaussade/abandonment/cache/abandonment.pdf. Accessed 14 August 2024. P 36. ↩︎
- Ibid. P 38. ↩︎
- Ibid P 27 ↩︎
- Prévot, André, and Gertrude. Love, Peace, and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus According to St. Gertrude. TAN Books and Publishers, 1984. P34-35
↩︎ - https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7606 ↩︎
