Progress through Mental Prayer

Originally published in 1940, Edward Leen's Progress through Mental Prayer is so timeless in its wisdom that anyone who has problems with mental prayer will find out the way to learn how to pray in small steps and progress to the deepest levels of prayer.

From the Foreword: "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. It may appear rash to publish a work on prayer and the spiritual life. It is a Saint's field. The saints and others have written amply, beautifully and in a way that cannot be equalled of these matters in which they were personally so versed. Why then, publish another work on this subject on which so many valuable treatises already exist? The answer is an old one. God can, and does, make use of the most imperfect and, in themselves, useless instruments. It is quite possible, then, that He, in His boundless power and goodness, may make use of this little work for the good of souls. If even one soul is benefited and drawn nearer to God, the labour spent in the writing of these pages, will have received ample compensation."

Contents Covered:

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: The Nature of Prayer
  • The Aim of Mental Prayer
  • Perseverance in Prayer
  • Vocal Prayer
  • The Ordinary Process of Mental Prayer
  • The Transforming Effect of Mental Prayer
  • The First Stage in the Transformation
  • The Second Stage in the Transformation
  • The Third Stage in the Transformation
  • Mount Thabor
• Part II: Method in Mental Prayer Considered in Its Fundamental Principles
  • The Vision of Faith Purified by Mental Prayer
  • The Preliminary Acts in Mental Prayer
  • The Body of Mental Prayer
  • Progress in Mental Prayer: Its Effect on Method
• Part III: Elements That Make For Progress in Mental Prayer
  • Dispositions Requisite for Mental Prayer
  • Spiritual Reading
  • Mortification: A Condition of Life
  • Silence: A Means to Recollection