ETERNAL REST GIVE UNTO THEM, O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM. AMEN.
Meditation, also called Mental Prayer, is a system of spiritual discipline for the soul. It includes the conveyance of divine truths to the intelligence, the development of these in their practical aspects as guides for action, the prayer of worship and petition, and the stimulation of the affections towards God, and the executive faculties towards the practice of virtue. This exercise, if it is to be effectual, must be carried out regularly and systematically, and a fixed daily interval must be given up to it. The effect of meditation is to make the great supernatural truths perfectly familiar to the mind in all their bearings, to keep the soul constantly raised towards God, and prevent it from becoming absorbed in earthly things and lowered to their level. All the faculties in due order are exercised in supernatural action; human weaknesses and the consequent perils are discovered; short comings are detected by self-examination before they have grown inveterate, and new ways of serving God are discovered. In meditation the soul is not merely receptive, as in reading or hearing, but it has to act for itself, endeavouring to fathom the deep mysteries of divine truths, and discover new applications of them as its condition may require; as to affections and petitions, the mind ranges through a much larger scale than when it prays in words composed by others. Meditation does not supplant those other exercises of devotion; it employs them all, and supplements them by deep consideration. Such an excellent exercise ought to be carefully studied and regularly carried out.
