5.3.V.b. Immediate Preparation

“Before prayer, prepare thy soul.”
Ante orationem praepara animam tuam (Eccli. xviii 23).

Just before Mass, and every time I take up the Breviary, I should make a firm, calm act of recollection, in order to free myself from all that has no connection with God, and to fix my attention upon Him. The One I am about to talk to is God.
But He is also my Father. Therefore, I shall unite that reverence and awe which even the Queen of Angels herself retains, when she speaks to her Divine Son, with the ingenuous candor which gives even an old man, when he talks to God’s infinite Majesty, the soul of a little child.

This simple and childlike attitude before my Father will artlessly reflect my conviction that I am united to Jesus Christ, that no matter how unworthy I may be, I represent the Church, and that I am certain beyond a doubt that the soldiers of the celestial army are standing at my side as I pray: “I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the angels.”

In conspectu angelorum psallam tibi (Ps. 137).

As for you, my soul: this is no longer the time to be reasoning, meditating. Become, once again, the soul of a child. When you arrived at the age of reason, you accepted, as the expression of absolute truth everything that mother told you. So must you also with the same simplicity and artlessness receive from your Mother the Church all that she is about to give you to nourish your faith.

This renewal of youth is indispensable to the soul! The more I make myself the soul of a child the more I will profit by the riches of the Liturgy, and will allow myself to be possessed by the poetry that lives in it. And that will be the measure of my progress in the liturgical spirit.

Then it will be easy for my soul to enter into adoration, and stay there all through whatever function (ceremony, Office, Mass, Sacraments, etc.,) engages me, whether as member of the Church or as her ambassador, as the minister of God.

The way I enter into adoration will determine, to a great extent, not only the profit and merit of my liturgical act, but also the consolations which God makes contingent upon its perfect accomplishment and which will give me strength to carry on my apostolic labors.

And so I am going to adore. I desire, by an act of my will, to spring up even unto union with the adorations of the Man-God, that I may offer His prayer together with mine to God. This must be a swift upward flight of the heart: not an effort of the mind.

I will and desire this with Your grace, Lord Jesus! And I will ask this grace for instance, in my Office, by saying with purpose and recollection my Deus in adjutorium, or, in the same manner, the Introibo of my Mass.

I will it. It is this filial and loving will, strong and humble, united with an earnest desire for Your help, that You demand of me.

If it should happen that my intellect opens up some fine expansive vista to my faith, or if my sensibilities contribute some holy emotion, well and good; my will shall take advantage of them to make adoration easier. But I will always remember the principle that in the last analysis union with God dwells in the summit of the soul, in the will, and even though darkness and aridity fall to its lot, the will, though dry and cold, will take her flight on the wings of pure faith.