Paths to Contemplation - 12

Chapter 4 - Active Contemplative Prayer

Active and passive prayer

When the verb in a sentence is “active,” the subject of the sentence is doing something.  Thus, if I say, “Jack jumps over the candlestick,” Jack is doing the jumping.  Jack is the active agent of the jumping.   On the other hand, if the verb form in a sentence is “passive,” the subject of the sentence is having something done to him or her by someone else.  Thus, if I say, “Jill is being taught by her mother,” Jill is not teaching herself, but is being acted on by an agent, her mother, who is teaching Jill what she wants Jill to know.

Prayer, as defined in Chapter 3, involves directing our thoughts, words and actions to God, orienting ourselves toward God in what we say, think and do.  In fact, this should, more properly, be called active prayer.  We are the ones directing our thoughts, words and actions to God.   We are doing the orienting toward God.  We are the active agents of our prayer.

One might argue that no prayer is entirely active because God must give us the grace to pray; as St. Paul tells us, “No one can even say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  God must allow us to pray even if we are doing much of the work ourselves.  We might even say that all true prayer is a response to God’s call to us to pray.

Nevertheless, there is a clear distinction between prayer that I initiate and prayer that happens when God “takes control,” as it were, and directs my prayer himself.  In the latter case, God is praying for me.  I am the passive recipient of God’s action.

Passive prayer is not a recent innovation.  We are often told in the Acts of the Apostles of someone “being filled with the Holy Spirit,” and in that state being led by God to say or do things that far surpassed what the individual could have done on his or her own.

Speaking in tongues is an example of passive prayer.   St. Paul himself indicated that he often spoke in tongues, and speaking in tongues was a common occurrence in the early Church, as it is today in some congregations.   In speaking in tongues, God provides the words of the prayer and the pray-er is the passive agent in uttering those words.

Contemplative prayer, as defined earlier, is a quiet resting in God.   And, as also noted in Chapter 3, this form of prayer can be active or passive.  It is active if the one praying, the pray-er initiates it; the pray-er takes the steps to bring it about.  It is passive if God initiates it.  When God initiates contemplative prayer, God is giving the pray-er a glimpse, however faint, of himself.  God allows the pray-er to experience God in passive contemplation.  Because passive contemplative prayer comes only from God as a free gift of God, there is nothing that the recipient can do to make it happen, or to keep it going once God withdraws it.

This may not seem fair.  Why would God give passive contemplative prayer to one and not another?  Why would God grant such a sweet grace only to withdraw it?  God gives us those gifts we need, not necessarily the gifts we want   The purpose of our lives is to learn what God wants us to learn, and God will teach us if we are willing to learn.  But each individual learns in a manner unique to that individual.  Nor should you imagine that even passive contemplative prayer is without its pitfalls, as we shall see later.  As we will see in Chapter 12, those who receive contemplative gifts may suffer more serious temptations than those who don’t.