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Difficulties in Mental Prayer
Long beloved of Catholics worldwide, this book helps you conquer the obstacles that confront most people when they begin to try to pray regularly. Eugene Boylan discusses the nature and ways of prayer, the difficulties that you’re likely to face if you don’t pray, the purpose of meditation, and more. He examines all this not from a theoretical standpoint, but from the perspective of the individual Catholic who’s trying to pray better. As such, this book offers you solid encouragement to press on in prayer.
172 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1943
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367 people want to read
About the author
Eugene Boylan
20 books14 followersDom Mary Eugene Boylan, O.C.R. (1904-1964), was an Irish priest, Trappist monk, and spiritual writer. He entered the Cistercian order in 1931 and was ordained in 1937. Drawing from his experience as a confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master, he published This Tremendous Lover in 1946, which was translated into several languages and became an international bestseller. Dom Boylan lectured extensively in the United States. He taught theology and philosophy at Mount Saint Joseph Abbey in Rosecrea, Ireland, and was elected as its fourth abbot in 1962, where he served until his untimely death in an auto accident in 1964.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 27, 2011
“A Christian who does not pray is like a man who neither thinks nor wills—a mere animal in the spiritual life.” ~Preface, page 11
Published during the height of World War II and written by a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Joseph, Roscrea, this book is as relevant and accessible as anything I’ve read on the spiritual life. Although Difficulties in Mental Prayer was—technically speaking—written for those living the religious life in the Roman Catholic sense of the word, the author, Father Eugene Boylan’s deep love of our Lord is such that anyone who desires to grow closer to Him can through a reflective reading and careful application of the recommendations in this book.
Despite the title, this book does not approach the subject of prayer by the back door, i.e., it does not just outline problems and offer remedies. Rather it constructs the general growth of a prayer life, first explaining the various types of prayer—affective, discursive, and contemplative, etc.—their relationships to one another, stages of development, and how fluid these processes can be—are. If the spiritual seeker is a beginner, there is basic information. If he is more advanced, there are clarifying explanations. If she is going through a dry or dark time, there is much encouragement. If you love Sacred Scripture, it flows through the entire text.
Published during the height of World War II and written by a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Joseph, Roscrea, this book is as relevant and accessible as anything I’ve read on the spiritual life. Although Difficulties in Mental Prayer was—technically speaking—written for those living the religious life in the Roman Catholic sense of the word, the author, Father Eugene Boylan’s deep love of our Lord is such that anyone who desires to grow closer to Him can through a reflective reading and careful application of the recommendations in this book.
Despite the title, this book does not approach the subject of prayer by the back door, i.e., it does not just outline problems and offer remedies. Rather it constructs the general growth of a prayer life, first explaining the various types of prayer—affective, discursive, and contemplative, etc.—their relationships to one another, stages of development, and how fluid these processes can be—are. If the spiritual seeker is a beginner, there is basic information. If he is more advanced, there are clarifying explanations. If she is going through a dry or dark time, there is much encouragement. If you love Sacred Scripture, it flows through the entire text.
“Every cross we patiently bear lightens His own. Our love comforts Him in the Garden, just as our neglect or disloyalty makes Him suffer even to the sweating of Blood. So complete is this union that each of us can say in the words of St. Paul: “And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me.As an aside, I found a personal note in my copy of the book. I always buy used books when they are available and this copy had apparently been a gift from someone who wanted to share it with a friend/loved one. It is my hope and prayer the receiver read the book before he/she sold it to me. Whatever its history, this book has been GIFT to me.
It must be remembered that these truths do not apply merely to a select and mystical few; they are the primary facts of Christianity and are true of every baptized person. Baptism is not merely the removal of original sin; it is also the infusion of a new life. The chief obstacles to this life in us are the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride of life.”
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March 28, 2025“Every Christian soul can say: During every moment of His life Jesus thought of me, and loved me; in all His sufferings He had my needs in His mind, and in His view; in all His joys, His Heart was set on sharing these joys with me; in all His labours, in all His teaching, He never ceased to have my holiness in view; one of His greatest tortures was His longing for my happiness and my love; He knew that He had done and suffered more than a hundred times enough to make me holy, to make me a saint. He saw clearly that the only obstacle to the achievement of His cherished purpose for me was my own refusal to trust Him, to believe in Him, to cast all my cares upon Him, to take Him at His word, and to submit to His easy yoke and to the light burden which He had specially planned for me; for He, seeing my poverty, had, as it were, lived my life for me with His own perfection, and was longing for the day when I would make my own the result of His labour and suffering, by doing what He asked me to do.
All this is no exaggeration: Jesus has merited everything for us, even the power to make His merits our own. He only needs our good-will and humility to make us enter into the fruits of His labours. Nor need we think that Jesus loses sight of each of us in the enormous number of the faithful: He is God, and has all God's infinity. His intense love for each one is not a whit the less because of His glowing love for all men. In fact, we get a truer picture of the Heart of Jesus by remembering that He loved me, and delivered Himself for me, than by considering ourselves as one of the millions sharing His heart.
Every act of Christ's life was one of intense longing and passionate love for me. Nor has that love lessened in His life in the Sacrament of the Altar. Still more can I be sure that it is no less in His life in my soul. In that awful moment in the Garden, in the depths of what in anyone else would be called despair, when He uttered that cry of bitterest agony, of which the Psalmist speaks in the words: "What is the use of My Blood?" —it was from my failure to correspond with His grace that He was suffering; it was my sins, my refusal to trust Him, my rejection of His pleading, my disbelief of His love, my distrust of His power and of His plans, my hardheartedness and my selfishness, my self-sufficien-cy and my sloth, that were in His mind and that caused Him to pour out the sweat of His precious Blood. He still implores us to let His work bear fruit in our lives, to set some value on His Precious Blood, to have some trust, some faith in His power and in His love.
Truly, only too truly, can He still say to us: "Oh! ye of little faith: why do you doubt?" The charity of Christ urgeth us; the love of Him Who first loved us cries out to us; let us stir up the grace, the faith, the hope, the love that is in us by the Sacraments of water, of oil, and of the Body and Blood of God. Let us think of what our daily Food is, and see what our strength and our life should be. Let us cease saying that these things are not for me, and remember that it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who liveth in me. Let us realise that our strength is Christ's strength, that our hopes and our possibilities are Christ's possibilities, that our needs are Christ's needs, that our merits are Christ's merits, that our spirit is Christ's Spirit, the Paraclete, the "Strengthener," the Spirit of God, and we shall renew our courage and our ear-nestness, and filled with fresh hope and complete confidence in the word of God, remembering that we are the Body of Christ, we shall launch out again into the deep, where we have long been labouring without success, now determined to seek with confidence for that perfection which the Heart of Jesus longs to find in us, to produce in us and with us.
In particular, let each soul renew his hope and his intention of persevering in prayer. First, he must resolve with determination, never under any circumstances to give up his attempt to progress in prayer. Let him take up prayer as he should take up the whole of the spiritual life, as a quest for Jesus, a striving for close union with Jesus. Let him meditate as long as is necessary-during spiritual reading, if needs be—but let him proceed to pray to Our Lord in his own words as soon as he can and as often as he can. Let him not be afraid to talk to God without words whenever he can, and so all the time he is coming nearer to Jesus. Let him throughout the day make frequent aspirations to Jesus; they should not be long, they need not be verbal; a sigh or a smile of the heart is sufficient. Let him seek Jesus in all things; let him unite himself to Jesus by doing what pleases Him: by doing the will of God. That is the way to lay hold of Jesus. When the time comes, when he can feel Jesus near, let him make full use of it; but he must not be so attached to this sensible presence of Jesus as to refuse to let Him go when the Master decides it is expedient for the soul that He should deprive it of His sensible presence and send it another Comforter.
If all power of prayer seems to be lost, if the time of prayer becomes a period of distraction and aridity, let him not lose courage, nor change his resolution. His prayer then is made by submitting to the will of God as completely and as generously as he can. He need not be afraid to make use of any available expedient to help him to fight distractions. Many get great help by using a book, but this must not be done in such a way as to turn prayer into spiritual reading; one must stop frequently and turn one's heart to God, and listen to see if He has not something to say to him. Perseverance under this heavy trial has a great reward, and touches the heart of God. The soul should try to be ready to accept any suffering that God sends him, for union with Jesus is sealed in the fellowship of His sufferings and by our patient endurance we are made partakers of the Passion of Christ. But our chief aim must be humility. The Kingdom of God is already within us, but we make it our own by our poverty of spirit. This is our title to union with God, and it is the first principle of the spiritual life that Our Lord taught in public.
The soul, then, must never, never trust in itself, and, above all, it must never, never, under any circumstances, cease to trust Jesus absolutely; God became man to save sinners, to give life to those who are dead in sin, to give strength to the weak and weary, to give Himself to the humble, to the poor in spirit. Let us take Him at His word, let us take Him at His Name, let us submit ourselves to Him in obedient humility and loving confidence, let us say to Him with Mary: "Be it done by me, be it done to me, according to Thy word," and then we shall be filled with Christ, through Whom and with Whom and in Whom, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, is all the glory of God.”
All this is no exaggeration: Jesus has merited everything for us, even the power to make His merits our own. He only needs our good-will and humility to make us enter into the fruits of His labours. Nor need we think that Jesus loses sight of each of us in the enormous number of the faithful: He is God, and has all God's infinity. His intense love for each one is not a whit the less because of His glowing love for all men. In fact, we get a truer picture of the Heart of Jesus by remembering that He loved me, and delivered Himself for me, than by considering ourselves as one of the millions sharing His heart.
Every act of Christ's life was one of intense longing and passionate love for me. Nor has that love lessened in His life in the Sacrament of the Altar. Still more can I be sure that it is no less in His life in my soul. In that awful moment in the Garden, in the depths of what in anyone else would be called despair, when He uttered that cry of bitterest agony, of which the Psalmist speaks in the words: "What is the use of My Blood?" —it was from my failure to correspond with His grace that He was suffering; it was my sins, my refusal to trust Him, my rejection of His pleading, my disbelief of His love, my distrust of His power and of His plans, my hardheartedness and my selfishness, my self-sufficien-cy and my sloth, that were in His mind and that caused Him to pour out the sweat of His precious Blood. He still implores us to let His work bear fruit in our lives, to set some value on His Precious Blood, to have some trust, some faith in His power and in His love.
Truly, only too truly, can He still say to us: "Oh! ye of little faith: why do you doubt?" The charity of Christ urgeth us; the love of Him Who first loved us cries out to us; let us stir up the grace, the faith, the hope, the love that is in us by the Sacraments of water, of oil, and of the Body and Blood of God. Let us think of what our daily Food is, and see what our strength and our life should be. Let us cease saying that these things are not for me, and remember that it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who liveth in me. Let us realise that our strength is Christ's strength, that our hopes and our possibilities are Christ's possibilities, that our needs are Christ's needs, that our merits are Christ's merits, that our spirit is Christ's Spirit, the Paraclete, the "Strengthener," the Spirit of God, and we shall renew our courage and our ear-nestness, and filled with fresh hope and complete confidence in the word of God, remembering that we are the Body of Christ, we shall launch out again into the deep, where we have long been labouring without success, now determined to seek with confidence for that perfection which the Heart of Jesus longs to find in us, to produce in us and with us.
In particular, let each soul renew his hope and his intention of persevering in prayer. First, he must resolve with determination, never under any circumstances to give up his attempt to progress in prayer. Let him take up prayer as he should take up the whole of the spiritual life, as a quest for Jesus, a striving for close union with Jesus. Let him meditate as long as is necessary-during spiritual reading, if needs be—but let him proceed to pray to Our Lord in his own words as soon as he can and as often as he can. Let him not be afraid to talk to God without words whenever he can, and so all the time he is coming nearer to Jesus. Let him throughout the day make frequent aspirations to Jesus; they should not be long, they need not be verbal; a sigh or a smile of the heart is sufficient. Let him seek Jesus in all things; let him unite himself to Jesus by doing what pleases Him: by doing the will of God. That is the way to lay hold of Jesus. When the time comes, when he can feel Jesus near, let him make full use of it; but he must not be so attached to this sensible presence of Jesus as to refuse to let Him go when the Master decides it is expedient for the soul that He should deprive it of His sensible presence and send it another Comforter.
If all power of prayer seems to be lost, if the time of prayer becomes a period of distraction and aridity, let him not lose courage, nor change his resolution. His prayer then is made by submitting to the will of God as completely and as generously as he can. He need not be afraid to make use of any available expedient to help him to fight distractions. Many get great help by using a book, but this must not be done in such a way as to turn prayer into spiritual reading; one must stop frequently and turn one's heart to God, and listen to see if He has not something to say to him. Perseverance under this heavy trial has a great reward, and touches the heart of God. The soul should try to be ready to accept any suffering that God sends him, for union with Jesus is sealed in the fellowship of His sufferings and by our patient endurance we are made partakers of the Passion of Christ. But our chief aim must be humility. The Kingdom of God is already within us, but we make it our own by our poverty of spirit. This is our title to union with God, and it is the first principle of the spiritual life that Our Lord taught in public.
The soul, then, must never, never trust in itself, and, above all, it must never, never, under any circumstances, cease to trust Jesus absolutely; God became man to save sinners, to give life to those who are dead in sin, to give strength to the weak and weary, to give Himself to the humble, to the poor in spirit. Let us take Him at His word, let us take Him at His Name, let us submit ourselves to Him in obedient humility and loving confidence, let us say to Him with Mary: "Be it done by me, be it done to me, according to Thy word," and then we shall be filled with Christ, through Whom and with Whom and in Whom, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, is all the glory of God.”
January 15, 2019
Excellent book (translation) on prayer. Worth it for anyone who wants to progress.
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July 6, 2019Trata del modo de hacer oración y cómo superar las dificultades (distracciones, aridez, etc.). Lenguaje sencillo. Muy útil para todos.
March 16, 2021
Good for laity too!!
Even though this book is written by a religious for religious it is quite good for anyone who seeks to lead a contemplative life in the middle of the world.
Even though this book is written by a religious for religious it is quite good for anyone who seeks to lead a contemplative life in the middle of the world.
April 30, 2021
Desde luego que un libro que se vuelve fundamental para avanzar en la vida de fe.
May 4, 2015
This is the most beautiful and helpful book about prayer as a love relationship. Highly recommended for all, even though written for priests and vowed religious. The only thing that I had trouble with was a very high Mariology expressed in one of the later chapters (said this United Methodist pastor).
November 2, 2021
I rated this five stars because the guy who wrote it is some kind of a master of prayer, and I got thru it, and that’s like a badge of honor for me. But honestly it was way over my head and I don’t remember a drop.
Want to read
January 7, 2010Included in the "Spiritual Reading" section of Fr. John McCloskey's 100-book Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan. Recommended by friend of Nathan.
October 16, 2013
Great advice
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews