Untitled - Saints' Books

340 Material for Instructions. [PART n.
celebrate the Passion of our Lord: we should therefore
be careful to reproduce it in our lives."
The principal means of acquiring sanctity are prayer
and mortification, represented in the sacred Scripture by
incense and myrrh. Who is this that goeth up by the desert,
as a pillar of smoke of uromatical spices, of myrrh and frank
incense? The Holy Ghost adds: and of all the powders of
the perfumer? to show that prayer and mortification are
followed by all virtues. Prayer, then, and mortification,
are necessary to render a soul holy; but mortification
must precede prayer: / will go to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of frankincense? Thus our Lord invites us
to follow him, first to the mountain of myrrh, and then
to the hill of frankincense. St. Francis Borgia used to
say, that prayer introduces divine love into the heart;
but it is mortification that prepares a place for charity,
by removing from the soul the world, which should
otherwise prevent the entrance of love. Should a per
son go to a fountain for water with a vessel full of earth,
he shall take back nothing but mire. He must first cast
away the earth, and then fill the vessel with water. Father
Baltassar Alvarez used to say that prayer without mor
tification is either an illusion, or will be only of short
duration. And St. Ignatius of Loyola has said that a
mortified soul unites herself more intimately to God in
a quarter of an hour s prayer, than an immortified soul
does in several hours. Hence, having once heard a per
son praised for his great spirit of prayer, the saint said:
"It is a sign that he practises great
mortification."
1
"Quia
passionis dominicae mysteria celebramus, debemus imitari
quod agimus."
2
"Quae est ista quae ascendit per desertum, sicut virgula fumi ex
aromatibus myrrhae et thuris?" Cant. Hi. 6.
3
Et universi pulveris pigmentarii."
4
Vadam ad montem " myrrhae et ad collem thuris." Cant. iv. 6.