Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J.:Manual For Interior Souls

The Jesuit, Jean-Nicolas Grou (1731-1803) in his Manual For Interior Souls, knows of a prayer that he calls "the dark way of pure faith," (1) but this is not an acquired contemplation. "We cannot enter of ourselves upon this way," he tells us, and a little while later he writes:
"...the chief sign by which we may know that God wishes to lead a soul into it is when that soul has no longer the same liberty of using its faculties in prayer that it formerly had; when it is able no longer to apply itself to a particular subject, to draw from it reflections and affections; but when it feels within itself, instead, a certain delicious peace which is above all expression, which takes the place of everything else and which forces it, so to speak, to keep itself in quiet and in silence."
This passage contains the essential elements of St. John’s transition from meditation to contemplation.

Link (here)

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