Chapter 3 Section 4– How prayer wrestles with sins and passions

 

Extracts from the Dux Spiritualis by the Venerable Louis de Ponte SJ

Chapter 3 Section 4– How prayer wrestles with sins and passions

Page 53 - Before all else war must be declared against sin, which devours the conscience with remorse until by penance we have washed our souls clean, and freed ourselves from sinful affections and their occasions.

Your iniquities, says Isaias, [lix, 2], have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He should not hear.

If I have looked at iniquity in my heart, and neither will nor can remove it, this is a certain sign of complacency in it; as long as this is the case I am unworthy of the presence and contemplation of God, which is promised to the clean of heart [St Matthew v, 8]: moreover, God will say to me with terrible voice: Take away the impious, lest he see the glory of God [Isa. Xxvi, 10 (in the Septuagint)] and contemplate His wonders.

 

Since, then, thou hast the power to put away the sins which cause thee remorse, and which discourage thy heart and soul, embrace the counsel of the Wise man! The just man accuseth himself at the beginning of his prayer [Proverbs xviii, 17 (in the Septuagint)].

 

When, therefore, thou entereth on a life of prayer, thou must at the same time begin with conflict of sin, eliciting acts of sorrow and conceiving purposes of amendment, uniting all these petitions together in the best way thou can.

For earnest and unwearied prayer will obtain for thee the grace to dissolve the clouds of thy sins, transforming them into the water of tears.

Prayer:

Eternal God, who hast said by the mouth of thy Prophet: I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist [Isaias xliv, 22];

take away and dissolve as a cloud the multitude of my sins, leaving no trace of them:

Let my prayer enter into Thy sight and make me worthy to contemplate Thy Glory.