Catechism of Mental Prayer

This classic is organized as follows:


I. What the Guide Proposes to Itself and to Whom It Is Addressed


II. In What Prayer Essentially Consists.— What Distinguishes Mental Prayer From Vocal Prayer.— Mental Prayer Considered as a Regular Exercise. — Facility of This Exercise


III. Why Mental Prayer Takes the First Rank Among Religious Exercises


IV. How We Are to Make Mental Prayer, and First, How We Are to Dispose Ourselves for It in Our Daily Life by the “Remote Preparation.”


V. How We Must Prepare Ourselves for Mental Prayer During Those Moments That Precede the Exercise, or How to Make the “Proximate Preparation”


VI. What Is to Be Done at the Beginning of Mental Prayer, or in What the “Immediate Preparation,” Or the “Prayer of Faith and of the Presence of God” Consists


VII. In What the Principal Part, Called “Body of Meditation” Consists, and How the Subject of Meditation Is Naturally Divided Into Several Points


VIII. How to Make the “Considerations,” And in What the “Prayer of Meditation” Consists


IX. How the Affections Are Produced, and in What the “Prayer of Supplication” Consists


X. How “Resolutions” Are Formed and in Wiiat the “Prayer of Union” Consists


XI. “About the Length of Time” To Be Devoted to the “Different Parts of Mental Prayer.”


XII. How to End Mental Prayer, or How to Make “The Conclusion.”


XIII. How to Proceed, When. The Subject of the Meditation Is a Fact, Instead of Being a Truth


XIV. How to Proceed in the Exercise Called Mixed Mental Prayer


XV. How Mental Prayer May Be Combined With Other Exercises of Piety


XVI. How and Why the Examination of Mental Prayer Is Made


XVII. Why God Permits Us to Encounter Difficulties During Mental Prayer. — Which Are the Ordinary Difficulties and How We Can Triumph Over Them


XVIII. How We Ought to Endeavor to Make Our Mental Prayer a “Prayer of Faith.”


XIX. How the Blessed Virgin Is the Patroness and Model of Men of Mental Prayer


XX. A Last Word of the Guide