Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Heroic Minute


The following comes from the New Theological Movement:


5th Sunday in Ord. Time, Mark 1:29-39
Rising very early before dawn, [Jesus] left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
After exorcising a demoniac, healing St. Peter’s mother-in-law, and curing many others, Jesus teaches us the absolute primacy of the interior life by rising early the next morning, before it was day, so as to go to a deserted place and pray.
Fr. Conrelius a’ Lapide tells us: “Learn here from Christ to give the early morning to prayer, and to rise up with the dawn, so as to have leisure for meditation, and to give the first-fruits of the day to God. For the dawn of day is a friend of the Muses, but a greater friend of God and the angels.”
It is better to pray in the morning
Together with all the spiritual doctors before and after, St. Francis de Sales recommends that mental prayer (including the Rosary) be done in the early morning [Introduction to the Devout Life II,1]:
“Give an hour every day to meditation before dinner [i.e. the noon meal];—if you can, let it be early in the morning, when your mind will be less cumbered, and fresh after the night’s rest. Do not spend more than an hour thus, unless specially advised to do so by your spiritual father.”
Further, the Doctor of the Catholic Press writes:
“If it should happen that your morning goes by without the usual meditation, either owing to a pressure of business, or from any other cause, (which interruptions you should try to prevent as far as possible,) try to repair the loss in the afternoon, but not immediately after a meal, or you will perhaps be drowsy, which is bad both for your meditation and your health. But if you are unable all day to make up for the omission, you must remedy it as far as may be by ejaculatory prayer [e.g. “My Jesus, I love you.”], and by reading some spiritual book, together with an act of penitence for the neglect, together with a stedfast resolution to do better the next day.”

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