by Barbara Schoeneberger

Created on: January 12, 2010

As in all kinds of prayer, pitfalls or difficulties will occur in the structured mental prayer called meditation.  Some are our fault and some are not.  Some are a result of our human nature and are opportunities to train our will.  If we should happen to fall into difficulties in mental prayer, we need not give up nor berate ourselves.  God is looking at our will: do we sincerely intend to come closer to Him?  Are we willing to persevere on the path to become better persons?  If these intentions are pure, we will overcome typical pitfalls in this kind of prayer.

Catholic spiritual theology defines three main difficulties in mental prayer: distractions, aridity, and illusions.  All are typical temptations as we advance in our prayer life.  If we firmly resolve to let nothing stand between us and God, with his help we will overcome them.

 Distractions

Distractions are images, thoughts, or external intrusions on our conversation with God, either voluntary or involuntary.  The four main causes of distractions are Satan, failing to make preparation a habit, the attachment of our mind to more shallow things, and the many responsibilities we have.

We will start daydreaming during considerations - it is human nature to go off topic on the subject of our meditation.  This is usually involuntary because we did not purposely start thinking of the number one thing on our "to do" list, or the encounter with a mean neighbor, or the house rules the kids are breaking. 

The voluntary part is when we indulge in the distraction, failing to refocus on the original subject.  It's the same as going off topic in a serious meeting with our boss.  Failure to make adequate preparation is also voluntary, as is failure to organize ourselves so that we can make good mental prayer a habit.

We can't remove all the causes of distractions, but we can control them.  Our entire time in mental prayer might be a valiant battle with hundreds of involuntary distractions. Intimidating as this may be, we can learn to use our will to refocus rather than indulging or giving up.  Satan has a role in all distractions, either directly or indirectly. Who will win the battle - we with God's help or Satan who doesn't want us anywhere near the Lord?

Aridity

Aridity is a state of soul.  When we experience aridity we have no feeling or attraction to meditation, or during meditation we seem to be unable to think on the subject

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