Progress Through Mental Prayer

“The instructions on prayer given to the public in these pages are meant to be a help for the ordinary soul. They are printed at the request of very many who are kind in stating that they have found them helpful to themselves. May they prove of use to others, inspire them with an ambition to cultivate an interior life, and bring them into close friendship with Jesus Christ.”—Fr. Leen.

In his spiritual classic, Progress Through Mental Prayer, Fr. Edward Leen maps out the narrow way by which souls can progress in perfection through mental prayer. He traces out the progress of the soul in the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways and how mental prayer changes in each.

Fr. Leen outlines a method of mental prayer for beginners before concluding with practical guidance on spiritual reading, mortification, silence, and recollection.

“In a word prayer may be considered a going to Jesus for spiritual direction—a direction on the way that is to lead to God. We pray not to dispose God to give, but to prepare ourselves to receive—to receive that plenitude of Divine life which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord.”