Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard in his book The Soul of the Apostolate laid down the following important principle: “For your own profit and for the profit of others, it is essential that you develop your interior life, before all else. The busier you are, the more you need the interior life.” 

Dom Chautard gave eight practical suggestions for the development of the interior life. The modern spiritual classic The Way by St. Josemaria Escriva contains valuable insights which help us to understand each of the eight suggestions and to put these them into practice. 

1. A soul cannot lead an interior life without a schedule and without the firm resolution to keep it all the time, especially where the rigorously fixed hour of rising is concerned. 

St. Josemaria Escriva wrote, “If you don’t have a plan of life, you’ll never have order … If you don’t get up at a set hour, you’ll never fulfill your plan of life.” The saint added: “The heroic minute. It’s time to get up, on the dot! Without hesitation, a supernatural thought and … up! The heroic minute; here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does not weaken your body.”

2. The interior life should base on its absolutely necessary element: morning mental prayer. St. Theresa said that “The person who is fully determined to make a half hour’s mental prayer every morning, cost what it may, has already travelled half his journey.”

St. Josemaria wrote, “‘And in my meditation a fire shall flame up.’ That’s why you go to prayer: to become a blaze, a living flame giving heat and light.”

3. Mass, Holy Communion, and the recitation of the Breviary are liturgical functions which offer inexhaustible resources for the interior life and are to be exploited with an ever-increasing faith and fervor. 

St. Josemaria advised: “Show veneration and respect for the holy liturgy of the Church and for its ceremonies. Observe them faithfully. Don’t you see that, for us poor humans, even what is greatest and most noble enters through the senses?”

4. The particular and general examinations of conscience, should, like mental prayer and the liturgical life, help us to develop custody of the heart in which “watching” and “praying” are combined. 

General examination aims at the correction of all kinds of faults, and particular examination aims at the avoidance of some particular fault or the acquisition of some particular virtue.

St. Josemaria observed: “The general examination is a weapon of defence. The particular, of attack. The first is the shield. The second, the sword.”

5. Incessant prayer by means of spiritual Communions and ejaculatory prayers.

St. Josemaria wrote, “Never make a decision without stopping to consider the matter in the presence of God…. Withdraw into yourself. Seek God within you and listen to him.”

6. Spiritual reading is a daily duty which no generous soul will ever neglect. The mind needs to be brought face to face with supernatural truths, with the dogmas that generate piety, and with their moral consequences, so easily forgotten. 

St. Josemaria said, “Don’t neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints.”

7. Thanks to custody of the heart, which will serve as its remote preparation, weekly confession will infallibly be imbued with sincere contrition, with true sorrow, and with an ever more loyal and more resolutely firm purpose of amendment.

St. Josemaria wrote, “Purity of intention: You’ll have it always, if you seek ever and in all things to please only God … Rectify, purify your intention! What a shame if your victory turns out worthless because you acted from human motives.”

8. The yearly retreat is very useful, but it is not enough. A monthly retreat (taking up an entire day, or at least half a day), devoted to a serious effort to recover the equilibrium of the soul is almost indispensable to the active worker. 

St. Josemaria wrote, “During a retreat your examination should be much deeper and much longer than that usual nightly moment. Otherwise you miss a great chance to straighten things out.”


神聖的實用建議

若翰肖塔爾院牧在他的著作『宗徒的靈魂』一書中，寫下以下重要的原則：

『為你自己的好處和他人的好處，在他的人之前發展你內修生活是重要的。你更為忙碌，你更需要內修生活。』

要發展內修生活，肖塔爾院牧給了八項實用的建議。一個現代的靈修經典，聖若瑟瑪利亞、施禮華的：『道路』，記載了有價值的觀念，它幫助我們去明白八項建議中的每一項，並將之予以實行。

1. 沒有日程表和沒有恆久遵守它的決心，靈瑰是不能夠過內修生活。特別要着重的是嚴格地定下起床的時間。

聖若瑟瑪利亞、施禮華寫道：『假如你沒有生活的規劃，那你決不會有秩序。…如果你不定時起床，你就永遠不會實現你的生活規劃了。』這聖人補充說：『英勇的一刻。要準時立刻起床！不要猶豫，憑著一個超性的念頭，馬上起來！英勇的一刻，如此，你找到一個能堅強你的意志，而不傷身體的克己。』

2. 內修生活應基於它絕對需要的因素：早上的心禱。聖德蘭修女說：『那個全心決意，不管如何，要作半小時早上心禱的，已經跑過了一半的旅程。』

聖若瑟瑪利亞、施禮華寫道：『「在我沉思中，烈火如焚。」這就是你祈禱的原因：把你自己變成一個火種，活的火焰，散發熱和光。』

3. 彌撒，聖體和誦念日課都是禮儀的行動，它們為內修生活提供無窮無盡的資源，發揮著不停增進的信仰和熱愛。

聖若瑟瑪利亞勸勉說：『敬仰並尊重教會的神聖禮儀，及其禮節慶典。忠誠地遵行。難道你不知道，我們可憐的人類，即使對最偉大和最尊貴的事，也都需要透過感官才能汲取的嗎？』

4. 一般省察和特別省察應像默禱和禮儀生活一樣，幫助我們發展內心的監管，它是『醒寤』和『祈禱』的結合。一般省察目標在改正一切的過錯，特別省察目標在躲避特別的過錯或尋獲一些特別的德行。聖若瑟瑪利亞觀察到：『一般省察好像防禦的武器，特別省察則好像攻擊的武器。前者是盾，後者是利劍。』

5. 以神領聖體和短禱去作幫助連續不斷的祈禱。

聖若瑟瑪利亞寫道：『在你作任何決定之前，不要忘記先在天主面前思考一下。…收歛你的心神。在你內心尋找天主，聽祂的話。』

6. 靈修的閱讀是每天的責任，沒有慷慨的靈魂會曾予忽略。思想需要面對面於超性的真理、產生虔誠的教理、以及它們容易被忘懷的倫理後果。

聖若瑟瑪利亞說：『不要忽略閱讀神修書籍。神修閱讀造就了很多聖人。』

7. 多謝內心的監護，它會是一個遠程的準備，每週的告解會無誤地注入真誠的懺悔，真的悔意並以比前更忠貞，更決意牢固目的作定改。

聖若瑟瑪利亞寫道：『純正的意向。若你經常和在一切事上都只求取悅天主，你經常就會有純正的意向。…要校正，使你的意向純正！假如你的勝利未結善果，因為你的行動出於人性的動機，那豈不是很可惜！』

8. 每年的退省是十分重要的，但仍不足夠。每月的退省（維持一整天或最少是半天），認真努力於回復靈魂的平衡對一位積極的工人差不多是不能或缺的。

聖若瑟瑪利亞寫道：『在退省的日子，你的省察該比平日晚上幾分鐘的省察要更深入、徹底。否則，你就失去一個精益求精的良機了。』