Dom Augustin Guillerand - The Prayer of the Presence of God

Dom Augustin Guillerand

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS

Manchester, New Hampshire

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Part I

True Prayer

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Part 2

Perfecting Your Prayer

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Part 3

Growing Closer to God

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Part 4

The Prayer of Praise

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The following pages are a translation of Face a Dieu, by the Carthusian Dom Augustin Guillerand. It is perhaps necessary to explain that, like the rest of Dom Guillerand's writings, this particular work was not written as a book or indeed even in chapter form, but consists of jottings made at various times as the ideas occurred to him, mostly in the course of his meditations on the divine truths. In most cases, it is true - and in the case of this work it is certainly true - there is a more or less formal sequence of thought throughout the work. But the subject is so vast and so profound that it is inevitable that, without the most careful and prolonged revision, the work (whether in the original or in this translation) is bound to lack the unity and orderly presentation we would expect in a treatise of this nature. Whether the author ever intended to make such a revision we do not know. In any case, his death in April 1945 at the Grande Chartreuse made such a revision impossible, so far as he was concerned.

It was only after his death that these notes were discovered, put into order by a monk of a Charterhouse in France, and published by the Benedictines of St. Priscilla in Rome in 1956.

Such being the case, this work is bound to present in some senses the appearance of an unfinished production, and at first reading it might seem as if many of the ideas are repeated unnecessarily. To a certain extent this is true; but, even so, we venture to think that the author's treatment of the subject will bear, and even gain by, such repetitions, and that very often a second reading will reveal depths and still greater depths as a result of the reiteration of the author's thought.

After all, the subject of these meditations is prayer, from its obvious meaning to its highest implications, and Dom Guillerand's treatment of it was not meant to be either a formal theological treatise or a work of popularization. In fact, it is nothing other than a record of his thoughts as he penetrated - as he could penetrate -more and more deeply into a subject that is beyond depth. One of the joys of this author's writings is that, with every fresh reading, we always see further and deeper into realms of awe and beauty hitherto unsuspected.

The Preface to the first French edition repeats that these lines were never, in the author's intention, meant to be read by others, much less published, but were simply an outward manifestation or record (a habit of the author's) of what was virtually a life of contemplation or a "long regard," as the author calls it elsewhere, "constantly renewed." His life was indeed one "long regard" of the divine realities, above all of what he calls "the great Reality": God.

As arranged in the text that follows, this work falls into four main parts, based on certain indications left by the author himself. The first part he calls "True Prayer," and it deals principally with the more rudimentary notions of prayer: its definition, its necessity, and its differing forms. So far as its definition is concerned, for Dom Augustin there is only essential prayer, and that is "the movement drawing the soul upward to God and away from self, and the relationship that follows." He insists, however, upon the necessity for the mind to do its part. "With prayer," he says, "it is not just a matter of having read and realized for the moment its grandeur, the immense blessings it confers, the glory it gives to God, and its mission in the world. We must return to these thoughts again and again; we must constantly reflect on them and live them.... We must continually look for the essential Beauty behind the external beauty of things. We must turn from the weakness of our fallen nature to the strong tenderness of the Son of God, who became our Redeemer and is ever ready to receive us back into his favor."

And even in these early pages, he introduces the first note of the theme that gradually occupies more and more the scope of his thought: the place of praise in essential prayer. "We were made," he says, "to praise God eternally. Hearing on our lips the exiles' song of the Fatherland, He knows that we want Him more than any created thing, and that we belong to Him completely." By this time, the soul has already made a considerable advance in prayer.

Lofty as is the author's approach to prayer in general, he never for long loses sight of the part played by God's creative works in a life of prayer. The soul is gradually being taught to see the reflection of the divine attributes in "the work of His hands." "During the hours of sleep," he continues, "the soul does not offer to God, who is still its all, the homage of the whole being for which it is responsible, but on awakening it resumes command and becomes once more the link and interpreter of the created world, thus renewing its conscious contact with its Creator. That is why at Lauds [he has in mind especially choir religious] we invite the whole of creation to take up again its interrupted praise: All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt Him above all forever. Thus sings the soul to all creation, and all creation responds as with one voice."

Then follow chapters on reverence, attention, the Guard of the heart, confidence and humility - chapters that again slowly trace the soul's ascent in prayer.