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#265, from the annual retreat of 1821 at Saint-Laurent

The Purpose of Mental Prayer

Why make mental prayer? In order to raise the soul to God, the infinite Being, to render him homage, to unite ourselves with him in complete forgetfulness of all things and of ourselves.

We become like God, our soul is totally absorbed by him. God’s image is impressed on our soul like a seal on wax. The three powers of the soul are divinized. The mind thinks only of God, the sovereign truth; the memory retains only the sovereign felicity of God; the will loves only God and desires him as its sovereign gold.

St. Bonaventure shows how the soul becomes Godlike in mental prayer. “The three faculties of the soul reflect the image of God: that is, the intellect, the memory, and the will. As long as God’s image is not perfectly impressed on these faculties, the soul is not completely Godlike. For God is the form of the soul; he impresses it like a seal on wax.”

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