On Cleaving to God: Part 14 of 16

That we should seek the verdict of our conscience in every decision

While we should strive for spiritual perfection of mind, purity and
peace in God, it will be found to be not a little beneficial to this
that we should return quietly into the inner secret place of the mind
in the face of everything said, thought or done to us. There, withdrawn
from everything else and completely recollected within ourselves, we
can place ourselves in the knowledge of the truth before us and
undoubtedly discover and understand that it does us absolutely no good,
and rather the contrary, when we are praised or honoured by others
while we recognise by the knowledge of the truth about ourselves within
that we are blameworthy and guilty. And just as nothing is any help if
externally people praise someone if his conscience internally accuses
him, in the same way on the contrary it does a man no harm to be
despised, maligned and persecuted when he remains internally just as
innocent, blameless and without fault. On the contrary he has all the
more good reason to rejoice in the Lord with patience, in peace and
silence. After all no adversity can do any harm where evil is not in
control, and just as no evil goes unpunished, so no good goes
unrewarded. Nor should we wish a reward with hypocrites or expect and
receive profit from men, but from the Lord God alone, not in the
present, but in the future, and not in fleeting time, but in eternity.
It is clear therefore that nothing is greater, and nothing better than
to enter into the inner secret place of the mind always and in every
tribulation and occurrence, and there to call upon the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, our helper in temptations and tribulations, and to
humble ourselves there by confession of sin, and praise God and Father
himself, the giver of correction and the giver of consolation.

Above all one should accept everything, in general and individually, in
oneself or in others, agreeable or disagreeable, with a prompt and
confident spirit, as coming from the hand of his infallible Providence
or the order he has arranged. This attitude will lead to the
forgiveness of our sins, the deliverance from bitterness, the enjoyment
of joy and security, the outpouring of grace and mercy, introduction
and establishment into a close relationship with God, abundant
enjoyment of his presence, and firm cleaving and union with him.

But let us not copy those who from hypocrisy and Pharisaism want to appear
better and different from what they are, and to make a better
impression and appearance before men of being something special, than
they know in truth inside to be so. For it is absolute madness to seek,
hunger for and aspire to human praise or renown, from oneself or
others, when one is in spite of it all inwardly full of cravings and
serious faults. And certainly the good things we have talked about
above will flee him who chases such vanities, and he will merely bring
disgrace on himself.

So always keep your faults and your own incapacity
before your eyes, and know yourself, so that you can be humbled and not
try to avoid being held as the lowest, vilest and most abject scum by
everyone when you are aware of the grave sins and serious faults in
yourself. For which reason consider yourself compared to others as
dross to gold, weeds to the wheat, chaff to the grain, a wolf to the
sheep, Satan to the children of God. And do not seek to be respected by
others and given precedence before others, but rather flee with all
your heart and soul the poison of this disease, the venom of praise,
the concern for boasting and vanity, lest, as the prophet says, The
wicked is praised in his own heart's desires, (Psalm 10.4) and Isaiah,
They who speak good of you, deceive you and destroy the way of your
feet, (Isaiah 3.12) and the Lord in Luke, Woe to you when men speak
well of you! (Luke 6.26).

You will find this lovely book from St. Albert of Jerusalem Here

Cleaving To God: Part 13 of 16

The nature and value of prayer, and how the heart should be recollected
within itself

Besides this, since we are incapable of ourselves for this and for any
other good action whatsoever, and since we can of ourselves offer
nothing to the Lord God (from whom all good things come) which is not
his already, with this one exception, as he has deigned to show us both
by his own blessed mouth as well as by his example, that we should turn
to him in all circumstances and occasions as guilty, wretched, poor,
beggarly, weak, helpless, subject servants and sons. And that we should
beseech him and lay before him with complete confidence the dangers
that are besetting us on all sides, completely grief-stricken in
ourselves, in humble prostration of mind, in fear and love, and with
recollected, composed, mature, true and naked, shamefaced affection,
with great yearning and determination, and in groaning of heart and
sincerity of mind. Thus we commit and offer ourselves up to him freely,
securely and nakedly, fully and in everything that is ours, holding
nothing back to ourselves, in such a complete and final way, that the
same is fulfilled in us as in our blessed father Isaac, who speaks of
this very type of prayer, saying, Then we shall be one in God, and the
Lord God will be all in all and alone in us when his own perfect love,
with which he first loved us, will have become the disposition of our
own hearts too. This will come about when all our love, all our desire,
all our concern, all our efforts, in fact everything we think,
everything we see, speak and even hope will be God, and that unity
which now is of the Father with the Son, and of the Son with the
Father, will be poured into our own heart and mind as well, in such a
way that just as he loves us with sincere and indissoluble love we too
will be joined to him with eternal and inseparable affection. In other
words we shall be united with him in such a way that whatever we hope,
and whatever we say or pray will be God. This therefore should be the
aim, this the concern and goal of a spiritual man - to be worthy to
possess the image of future bliss in this corruptible body, and in a
certain measure experience in advance how the foretaste of that
heavenly bliss, eternal life and glory begins in this world. This, as I
say, is the goal of all perfection, that his purified mind should be
daily raised up from all bodily objects to spiritual things until all
his mental activity and all his heart's desire become one unbroken
prayer. So the mind must abandon the dregs of earth and press on
towards to God, on whom alone should be fixed the desire of a spiritual
man, for whom the least separation from that summum bonum is to be
considered a living death and dreadful loss. Then, when the requisite
peace has been established in his mind, when it is free from attachment
to any carnal passion, and clings firmly in intention to that one
supreme good, the Apostle's sayings are fulfilled, Pray without
ceasing, (1 Thessalonians 5.17) and, Pray in every place lifting up
pure hands without anger or dispute. (1 Timothy 2.8) For when the power
of the mind is absorbed in this purity, so to speak, and is transformed
from an earthly nature into the spiritual or angelic likeness, whatever
it receives into itself, whatever it is occupied with, whatever it is
doing, it will be pure and sincere prayer. In this way, if you continue
all the time in the way we have described from the beginning, it will
become as easy and clear for you to remain in contemplation in your
inward and recollected state, as to live in the natural state.

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or other Doctors of the Church Click Here