If left to my own devices, I act with so much impulsiveness and distraction. I find myself acting or speaking without any awareness or focus. My mind is somewhere else while my mouth and my body seemingly act on their own. How can I possibly ever expect to live a prayerful life and have a peaceful, still soul to allow Christ to remain in, if I do not control the smallest action or thought? How can I allow myself to be so impulsive?
Recollection is the solution to this and is recommended everywhere I read. Fr Jean Croiset speaks about the necessity of this recollection in the Devotion to the Sacred Heart . Thomas a Kempis, too, speaks of this inner quiet and control in his Solitude and Silence and Imitation of Christ, and it is listed as a necessary step to success in mental prayer in Vital Lehody’s Way of Mental Prayer, although there it is called “purity of mind”.
This recollection means I must pause before and after every action. It means I must make a check on all my faculties–my imagination, my will, my desires, my thoughts, my speech, and my body in order to ensure that they are doing what they ought.
I must make sure my will is what God wills–that I seek to fulfill His commands in all things and am always ready to abandon my plans when needed.
I must make sure my imagination is in strict control, bringing it back when it wanders, and only producing images that inspire devotion and love for God.
I must make sure that my speech is little and carefully chosen–that it does not offend God but rather builds up, encourages, comforts, instructs, admonishes gently, and prays.
I must make sure that my body is moving with care and gentleness, as how I picture Christ doing so during His quiet years of labor before His ministry. I must make sure I complete every act with prayerful intention, offering every movement–of every finger, of every step, of every breath–so that my body may be a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1, USCCB).
That is what I will do today. I will seek with all my efforts to live in a continuous state of recollection, bringing myself back whenver I fail and even using those failures as a blessing–a reminder of my natural condition and tendencies when left without God’s help.
Oh my good and patient God! Help me to persevere today in this desire, so that I may, with your assistance, prepare a resting place for Christ in my soul. Help me so I may prepare myself to love Him purely and completely, with nothing else distracting me from Him. Do it for Your glory, not for mine. Amen.
St. Teresa of Avila, pray for me. Foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph, pray for me. Amen.
LPC Meditations 