Father Mike's Blog

What would you like to see next?

2011-05-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

I have completed PATHS TO CONTEMPLATION. Interest has not been high, but enough folks have accessed the blog that I am willing to continue it if at a couple people email me that they want to see me continue it. If you are one of those folks, email me and also tell me what spiritual or faith topic you would like discussed. I am also willing to have others contribute to this blog. If you have some ideas you want posted, or for me to react to, send them via email and this may start a new thread. Email me at mgmign2@hal-pc.org.

Paths to Contemplation - 58

2011-05-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of a serialization of PATHS TO CONTEMPLATION. If you are joining the blog at this point and want to start and the beginning, you can find Part 1 either in the posts below or in the archives. Subsequent posts can also be accessed below or in the archives as well. I sincerely invite your comments, questions, and suggestions for improving this blog. You are also invited to propose questions and topics on which you would like me to comment. You can email directly at mgmign2@hal-pc.org, or post your comments using the comment section below.

NOTE: The comments feature is not working as I expected it to work, so even the comments I have tried to post when I accessed the blog directly are not being posted. If you have something you want to appear as a comment, send it to me via email, and I will make sure it is posted under your name.

Should you seek contemplative prayer?

There are an increasing number of workshops, classes, groups and organizations devoted to contemplative prayer, frequently one of the two forms of centering prayer. The reasons that people participate in these activities vary. Some find centering prayer relaxing or pleasurable. Some think that centering prayer will be a shortcut to infused contemplation. Some are looking for a prayer technique that might help their spiritual growth. Some may simply be looking for the companionship of other seekers. Casual participants are likely to drop out quickly because of the long periods of silence that centering prayer involves. Contemplative prayer requires a love of, or at least an ability to cope with, silence.

As always, the best course is to say yes to God’s invitation to come to God in uniting love and to be open to God’s action in bringing this about. A good, though dangerous prayer, is this:

God, I want to love you with all my heart and mind and soul and strength, and I know that this is your will for me. Teach me how to love according to your will. Transform me that I may be completely yours. Take by force what I cannot willingly give up if it stands between us. Make me all that you have created me to be. I trust completely in your love and in your mercy. Amen.

This prayer is good because it is entirely in accordance with God’s will for each and every human being. It is dangerous because if God answers the prayer, as God surely will, then the pray-er’s life will be transformed in ways that he or she could never have imagined. She will be led down paths she never expected to travel. Far from having all her questions answered, more questions will arise, and even the questions will become uncertain as she is drawn more deeply into the mystery that is God.

Should you seek contemplative prayer? There is nothing wrong with asking God for the gift of contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is but one of a number of prayer techniques by which we might become more open to God’s transforming grace. But whatever prayer one prays, that prayer should be offered in the spirit of the prayer suggested above, a desire to love God above all else, to belong to God completely, to abandon oneself to God’s love and to follow wherever that love may lead. What you are seeking is not contemplative prayer, but union with God in love. If God grants the gift of contemplative prayer, well and good, but it is God’s choice, not yours. Your choice should be God. Your goal should be God. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all things will be added on.

Paths to Contemplation - 57

2011-05-01T02:27:00.000-07:00

Potential dangers on the paths to contemplation

Anyone who wants to love God faithfully and fully should not expect an easy time of it. Christ himself had to endure the Cross and death before he could rise again glorious. To belong to God alone, we must die to self, give up everything we are and have to God so that God can mold us into what God wills us to become. Death to self is not easy, even when we endure it so that we be more fully alive in God.

There are many dangers on the paths to contemplation. I will discuss only some of them, but so long as we keep the goal firmly in mind – the goal is God – and trust God completely rather than putting our confidence in our own ability and strength, we will be safe. Here then are a few of the dangers:

Making our own desires the measure of our spiritual growth

In dying to self, the hardest thing any human being has to give up is control. We all want to control our own destinies. Many people want to have large amounts of money, not for the money’s sake, but because money is a form of control. Those who have large amounts of money are, or at least think they are, more in control of their lives. One misfortune that is almost universally feared is to lose control of the ability to care for ourselves due to old age or serious illness. We all have a natural desire to be in control.

We all want to choose the path we will follow, and then we ask God to bless our journey. We decide what ministries we would like to be involved with and then ask God to help us in the work we have chosen.

You may well argue that God has not told you what work he wants of you, so you choose the work that seems best, perhaps that work most in keeping with your abilities and interests. That is a good way to start, but, if we are serious in our desire to be open to God, God will lead us in the directions he wants us to go. Our success in the eyes of the world may depend on our job title and how large our salary is, but success in the eyes of God is measured by love. We are entirely dependent on God’s strength, not our own, for spiritual success. This means that we must give control of our lives and our ministry to God. There is always the danger that we will retain control even when we know God is calling us to turn control over to him.

Pride

Sinful pride is attributing to ourselves virtue or excellence that we do not possess. Sinful pride is the opposite of humility, which is seeing ourselves as we are, being honest about who and what we have and can do. Thus, sinful pride – as opposed to taking “pride,” or honest pleasure, in an achievement – is a form of lying. We think of ourselves as we are not. Humility is truthfulness about ourselves.

If I can play the piano well, I am engaging in false modesty, a form of pride, if I tell people I cannot play the piano. If I am gifted by God with contemplative prayer and believe that I have achieved this gift by my own merits, or that God loves me more than he loves other human beings, I am being prideful.

As we grow more and more into the life of God, we should recognize more clearly that we are utterly dependent on God to come to God. It is only through the mercy and love of God that we have any chance of knowing God, and that we, of our power, could never achieve such knowledge. And as we come to know God more fully, we should recognize the infinite gulf that separates us from God, a gulf we can cross only because God allows to do so through the exercise of his power, not our own.

Receiving God’s gift of contemplative prayer, far from making us prideful, should give us insight into our sinfulness, our separation from God, and God’s desire to welcome us back into union with himself. This insight should, in turn, make us more compassionate toward others, unwilling to consider ourselves better than others, and more able to see God’s beauty in every human being. If this does not happen, then there is a strong possibility that spiritual progress is not taking place, even if the contemplative prayer is, in fact, genuine.

Discouragement

Because the seeker may experience long periods of dryness in prayer, she may become discouraged and abandon her original dedication. Someone who is seeking contemplative prayer for the spiritual “highs” is even more likely to abandon his efforts to pray if he does not achieve the results he expects, or the consolations God gave initially to encourage him are withdrawn.

To avoid discouragement, a seeker must remember that the goal of the practice of contemplative prayer, or any form of prayer, is not pleasure but accepting God’s invitation to come to union with God and to allow God to bring that union about. The seeker must also remember that fidelity to God is not an emotion but constantly choosing as she believes God wants her to choose, a union of her will with God’s will. This is true love of God, and this love is brought to perfection not in times of consolations and contemplative gifts, but in times of dryness and seeming desolation.

Misplaced priorities

I repeat that God gives us the gifts we need to come to union with him. We choose whether we are willing to accept those gifts, or not. One danger in contemplative prayer is that it is so sweet a form of prayer that, for some, it may become an end in itself. Then the seeker is chasing after the gift rather than the giver, a misplaced priority. The goal of prayer must always be God and the service of God.

A seeker may also be so inspired by contemplative prayer that she resolves to redouble her ministry to others. Perhaps she even enters a religious community or seeks ordination.

Certainly, ministry to others should be a fruit of our spiritual growth. God’s love should

flow out from us to others. To seek the consolations of prayer without regard to care for the community in which we live or concern for God’s Creation is a dangerous heresy. Experiencing God should make us more aware of the needs of our neighbor. Jesus did not teach that his disciples should abandon the world, but that they should go out into the world and bring the Good News of salvation to others. He even identified himself with the least of humankind, saying that whatever we did for the least of his brothers or sisters, we did for him.

But ministry must not become an end in itself. If we lose sight of why we are engaged in ministry, or, worse, we engage in ministry because it feeds our egos, we have let a good thing become a misplaced priority. The only goal we should ever have that is an end in itself is God. When we serve others, we should do so because we see God’s image in them, and we can love in God because we recognize that we have first been loved by God.

As T. S. Eliot reminds us in MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL, the greatest temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason. We may become so attracted to contemplative prayer or some ministry that, even though these are good things, we pursue them instead of pursuing God. We must always keep God as our first priority.

From just the four dangers discussed briefly above, we see that even those gifted with contemplative prayer, and perhaps especially these, must honestly examine their motives and their openness to what God wants of them, rather than what they want for themselves. Humility, honesty about oneself, is an essential virtue, and having a spiritual director may help the seeker preserve a more honest view of herself and keep her priorities straight.

Paths to Contemplation - 56

2011-04-30T02:43:00.000-07:00

Chapter 12 - Some Final Considerations

Special graces and the discernment of spirits

Many people think of mysticism and contemplative prayer in terms of visions of angels, saints kneeling in ecstatic prayer in the early morning hours, the glow from their bodies bright enough to read by, or someone oblivious to the world rising gently toward the ceiling. If you look back on what you have read in this book up until this point, there is no mention of such phenomena, and for good reason. They are by no means essential to contemplative prayer, and, when they do occur, which is very rarely, they are generally to be ignored.

We must always keep in mind that only God can change us into what God wants us to become. Only God can bring us to union with God, and only God can give us the direct knowledge of himself, knowledge that begins with infused contemplation but which is not perfected until we see God face to face in heaven.

The transforming work that God is carrying on in us and for us does not depend on glorious visions, locutions(audible words spoken to us by God), or even infused contemplation for that matter. God gives us the gifts we need to be united to him in love, not necessarily the gifts we want. Those who have experienced ecstatic prayer that literally took them outside themselves, or have been levitated, rising into the air in front of their companions, have often prayed that these “wonders” would cease since they were a distraction both to themselves and others, and they made the one experiencing them the center of attention rather than God. Great saints usually do not want to have attention called to themselves because they want others to give glory to God, deeming themselves unworthy of praise.

Holiness is centered in the choices we make, not in how we feel or the seeming miracles that surround us. Satan can appear, as St. Paul tells us, to be an “angel of light.” If a light show is what we want, Satan can provide one. If we want to float in the air, Satan could arrange that too. The devil is more interested in those who are serious in their search for God than bothering with those who care little about being responsive to God’s invitation to come to him in love. Thus, if the devil can find a way to divert us from being open to God to focus on something that is not God, he will certainly do so.

John of the Cross taught that if someone receives visions or locutions, she should ignore them. God, John reminded his readers, is doing the work to transform us into what God wants us to become. If someone experiences a vision or the like, whatever God wanted to achieve through that gift, assuming it is from God, has already taken place. If we dwell on the experience, we risk becoming sidetracked, or, worse, we may believe that we are holier than others or more special in the sight of God. Our prayer, instead, should be that God will continue to work in us, and that God will protect us from sin and the deceits of the devil.

But you might argue that God is trying to tell or teach you something that you need to know to better serve God, or so that you can inform others about what they need to know. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has recognized certain appearances of the Virgin Mary as genuine. Perhaps God has given a vision or locution so that the one who receives it can gives others a message that God wants them to hear.

If God does convey some message to someone so that that person can proclaim it to others, then we have what is known as a special revelation. God reveals something he wants others on earth to know. Special revelations are outside the scope of this book because they are not concerned with contemplative prayer. They are a communication from God, not the knowledge or experience of God in prayer.

Moreover, a possible special revelation must be tested by the authority of the Church. It is all too easy for someone to claim that God revealed something to him or her, not for his or her own benefit, but so that it could be proclaimed to the world as a message from God himself. The danger for deception, even unintended, is great. Moreover, no special revelation could be required for coming to union with God since all that is necessary in that regard has been supplied in and through Jesus Christ. This is all we will say about special revelations since they are not contemplative prayer, even if genuine.

In sum, if special gifts such as vision and locutions or ecstasies come along with contemplative prayer, do not let them become the center of your attention, much less long for them instead of genuine union of your will with God’s will. Such gifts can bring with them confusion and embarrassment as well as deep joy.

If such gifts are present, pray for God to protect you from being deceived. You may even pray that such gifts cease since your utmost desire is to be united to God in love and not to enjoy unusual phenomena, even if they seem to come from God. Once again, it is best to have a spiritual director to help you in your discernment concerning such gifts. Always keep the goal in front of you. You are continually to accept God’s invitation to be united to him and to be open to his transforming grace to bring about that union. There are, unfortunately, many ways to be sidetracked from that one essential goal.

Paths to Contemplation - 55

2011-04-29T02:41:00.000-07:00

What if you cannot find a spiritual director?

Regardless of whether one can find a suitable director, the goals of spiritual direction are still important for anyone who is actively seeking to be found by God: 1) accountability; 2) discernment of God’s action and 3) responding appropriately to God’s action; and 4) receiving encouragement and prayer support. The deeper a soul is brought into relationship with God, the more important direction becomes, particularly if the soul begins to experience contemplative gifts or enters the Night of the Senses. But it is not always possible to find a suitable director. What other steps can someone take to try to gain the advantages of direction when a director cannot be found?

Even if a compatible spiritual director is available, and especially if one is not, a “soul friend,” or spiritual companion can be of immense value. A soul friend is someone who can listen compassionately and non-judgmentally to what is happening with you spiritually. The soul friend is someone who can pray with you when you need prayers, someone who can share your joys and your sorrows on your pilgrimage. The difference between a soul friend and a spiritual director is that a director generally has more training and experience in spirituality, and will often know of resources, such as books, workshops, or prayer techniques that might assist a particular directee. The director can, and should, tailor his or her advice to the specific temperament and life situation of the directee, and the director can do so because he or she can draw on her training and experience in fashioning such advice.

But we are not meant to travel our spiritual journeys alone. A spiritual companion who does nothing more than listen to, and pray with, you can help you to clarify how God is acting in your life and how your might respond appropriately in order to cooperate most effectively with God.

Reading is also often helpful. You can read spiritual classics like the works of Teresa of Avila or John of the Cross, or you might read works that use more contemporary language and modes of expression. A suggested reading list is given in Appendix – . This list is by no means exhaustive, and it does not take into account any special interests that you may have, such as healing prayer or the religious formation of children. If you feel you are called to some particular ministry, then you will, no doubt, want to read more about that ministry to prepare yourself to exercise it more faithfully and to listen attentively for any special work that God might want of you.

And, as always, the Sacraments and worship with a faith community are powerful aids to gain strength and advice for spiritual growth.

Always remember that whether you can find a spiritual director, or not, God will never abandon you. God wants to transform you into what God has called all human beings to become, his lovers, united to him in intimacy and grace, sharing his life, coming to know him as he knows us.

Paths to Contemplation - 54

2011-04-28T02:49:00.000-07:00

What should a directee bring to direction?

Just as the director has responsibilities toward the directee, so too a directee has responsibilities if the relationship is to bear good fruit. These are the characteristics I myself want to see in a directee:

1) Openness and honesty - a willingness to be as truthful as possible about him- or herself, and to share frankly his or her deepest spiritual issues and experiences with the director.

2) Perseverance - a willingness to continue working toward spiritual progress, even when little progress is apparent. The directee should not change spiritual directors without a compelling reason, although changes are sometimes necessary.

3) Deference toward the director’s advice - The directee should always treat the director's advice with respect, and, if he chooses to act contrary to it, should make the reasons therefore known to the director. Where a directee finds herself disagreeing regularly with her director, the two should explore whether the relationship should be continued.

4) Alan Jones in his excellent book, EXPLORING SPIRITUAL DIRECTION, points out, and I agree, that, just as a director should treat communications from the directee as confidential, the directee should also treat what the director says as confidential. The directee must understand that what the director tells him or her is meant for her alone. Advice that is sound for one person may be harmful to another. Since a director must address each directee as an individual, the directee must take the advice of the director as a personal and privileged communication.

5) The most important attribute I look for is the directee’s sincere desire to progress in the spiritual life. Direction is not for those who are half-hearted in their search. Direction requires an investment on the part of the director that must be warranted by the investment of the directee. This does not mean that the directee must be far advanced before coming to direction, or even that the directee is already on a clear path, but the desire must be there to love God completely and to follow wherever God might lead. Direction is not casual conversation about theological matters. It should relate to a passionate search for what it most important in every human life.

Paths to Contemplation - 53

2011-04-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

What makes a good spiritual director?

As noted above, spiritual direction is a special ministry within the Body of Christ. Ordination is not required, and, in fact, many clergy would not be good spiritual directors, nor would they claim to do spiritual direction. A member of the clergy, or anyone else for that matter, who has fixed views about how someone must act or how someone must pray in order to grow spiritually, would not make a good spiritual director since the real work of sanctification proceeds from the Holy Spirit, not from the director. The director is there to help the directee identify how the Spirit is acting in his or her life and how to respond to it, not to insist on the director’s own biases.

A spiritual director must be clear on what spiritual direction is not, lest the director engage in practicing in areas in which he is not qualified, or mistake other forms of care-giving for spiritual direction.

Spiritual direction should not be confused with psychotherapy or pastoral counseling. Psychotherapy is directed toward solving a psychological problem that interferes with the patient’s ability to function as happily or effectively as the patient would like. Once the problem has been addressed to the patient’s satisfaction, there is no longer any need for psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is problem-oriented and time-limited, while spiritual direction can continue indefinitely and is oriented toward enriching the directee’s relationship with God. A person may be in direction and therapy at the same time, but the director, in general, should not be the therapist, and vice versa.

Pastoral counseling addresses “life issues,” such as preparation for marriage or making a difficult moral decision, for example, whether to have an abortion. Thus, pastoral counseling, unlike direction, but like psychotherapy, is also issue- or problem-focused and time-limited since the counseling has served its purpose once the issue has been resolved.

No doubt moral issues will arise from time to time in direction, but direction is not the confessional, nor is it a forum for such pastoral services as marriage counseling. A director may also identify psychological problems that might benefit from professional treatment and suggest the directee see a psychotherapist. But a director is not the directee’s therapist nor should the directee see the director primarily as a therapist or pastoral counselor. The director is a spiritual mentor who walks together with the directee on his or her pilgrimage.

The director, therefore, must understand the boundaries of spiritual direction. Moreover, the director must keep appropriate boundaries with the directee. If the director becomes too emotionally involved with the directee, then the director loses the objectivity needed to help the directee see God’s action in her life more clearly.

The director, according to Teresa of Avila, should have three characteristics: theological knowledge to prevent the directee from falling into serious error, experience in the spiritual life, and common sense. In Teresa’s time, when the Spanish Inquisition was active, heresy and lapsing from the Roman Catholic faith and practice were offenses that could result in prison and even death. In our day, creedal purity is not considered important by many, and so one might reasonably ask if theological knowledge is still important to a spiritual director.

My own response to the need for theological training is based on the view that a directee must find a director whom she feels is able to understand and appreciate her own religious outlook, and the director, in turn, must be able to understand and be comfortable with that outlook. Thus, a director who sees say primarily Roman Catholics should have a grounding in Roman Catholic doctrine and worship in order to be able to better understand and advise Roman Catholic directees.

Teresa’s two other requirements, common sense and experience in the spiritual life, are certainly valid today. Someone without good judgment should not be advising souls. Someone who has experienced the difficulties, valleys and peaks involved in opening oneself to God’s transforming grace will better understand what a directee is saying and is likely to be more compassionate with regard to the trials a directee may endure. I would add that to do direction, someone should be in direction. This not only adds to the director’s experience he or she brings to the direction of others, but it requires accountability and honesty in his or her own pilgrimage.

I myself believe the most important characteristics of a spiritual director are the following:

1) The director must be someone with whom the directee feels personally comfortable, a person the directee is willing to trust with his or her inmost thoughts. Even if a director is otherwise splendidly qualified, he or she will not be able to help a directee if the directee feels uncomfortable with the director for reasons good or bad.

2) The director should be someone who is able and willing to recognize that the Spirit breathes as it will and that the director's way is not the only way to union with God. A director must be open to prayerful discernment of where God is leading a directee as opposed to where the director might choose to lead. Put another way, the director must treat each directee as an individual and seek to let his or her ministry reflect the mind of God rather than his or her own biases. The director must also have the humility to recognize that many of his or her directees may well be more advanced spiritually than he or she is. And a director must adopt the medical profession’s primary rule: First, do no harm.

3) The director should be experienced in the spiritual life rather than merely versed in the literature and theory of the spiritual life; yet, the director must have some theological grounding so that he or she will not fall inadvertently into serious error, and so that he or she will be able to communicate theological concepts more clearly. Without extensive actual experience of the spiritual life, a director will be constructing mental images of what a spiritual life ought to be and risks substituting imagination for reality. It is like a man claiming to know how to fly an airplane because he has read a book on the subject.

4) The director should be a person of prayer, recognizing that he or she is merely an imperfect instrument of God and that God must act through him or her if the direction is to be helpful.

5) The director must be able to keep confidences absolutely inviolate.

Frankly, it is not easy to find a suitable spiritual director. There may be retreat houses and religious communities in the area that offer spiritual direction, and some churches may have persons on staff who practice spiritual direction, but finding a person who has the characteristics of a good director and with whom the directee feels comfortable can be difficult.

Paths to Contemplation - 52

2011-04-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Chapter 11 - Spiritual Direction

What is spiritual direction?

There is a cliche that says that no one should be the judge in his own case. Every one of us has blind spots, particularly with regard to our motives and our spiritual condition. We may think we are acting out of disinterested love of God, whereas we are, at least in part, seeking approval from others, or to “earn” our way into heaven. We may think we have a vibrant prayer life, whereas we may be interested primarily in the emotional high we get from certain prayer techniques. On the other hand, we may think our effort at prayer is an abject failure, whereas we may not realize that God is acting to lead us into a deeper and purer form of prayer.

Almost any seeker, therefore, can benefit from a spiritual companion who can help him or her in a variety of ways: First, the companion can be someone to whom the seeker will have degree of accountability in her walk with God. Human nature is such that most of us are more apt to carry out our duties, even voluntary ones, more faithfully if there is someone to whom we must report on our performance. For example, if I have made a commitment to engage in Centering Prayer 15 minutes, I am more apt to honor the commitment if my spiritual director knows of it and will ask me how my Centering Prayer is going. If I am not keeping the commitment, then the director can help me explore why I am not keeping it, and whether Centering Prayer is an appropriate prayer technique given my temperament and circumstances. Twelve-step groups derive much of their benefit from the fact that a member must report successes or failures to the group. Likewise, if we have no one to whom we report our spiritual successes or failures, we may soon drop any pretense of trying to progress spiritually. Accountability helps keep us “honest” and on track.

I may think that I perceive God is pushing me in a certain direction, or leading me to pray in a certain way, or has given me a deep spiritual insight, but, left to myself to ponder what has happened, I may easily misinterpret God’s message, and even be mistaken that the message is from God. I may be choosing my own spiritual path and asking God to bless it rather than seeking God’s will in my regard. My spiritual director can help me discern how God is acting in my life and how I might faithfully respond to God’s action. If God, for example, is leading me into infused contemplative prayer or the Night of the Senses, a director can help me identify the situation and give gentle guidance to assist me down a path I have never traveled before.

Finally, a director can give me support in my pilgrimage, praying with me and for me that I might be ever faithful to God working in me. Thus, a spiritual director can be helpful in at least four ways: 1) accountability, 2) aid in identifying how God is acting in my life, 3) formulating an appropriate response to God’s action once it is identified, and 4) receiving encouragement and prayer support. Spiritual direction should include all of these components.

Perhaps the reader is wondering why I am including a chapter on spiritual direction in a work on contemplative prayer. Several times in the previous chapters I pointed out that having an experienced spiritual director to turn to for advice, or even as a compassionate sounding board, can be an invaluable aid for the soul who is seriously trying to open herself to God’s transforming grace. Christ did, for better or worse, give us one another as companions on the journey and commanded that we carry out his work of ministry to the world and one another. Spiritual direction is a ministry to which one is called by God. Pity the person who chooses it for him or herself without that call.

Contemplative prayer, particularly infused contemplation, is certain to be a mysterious experience and may even be a frightening one as well if it is entered through the Night of the Senses. We all need all the help we can get.

Paths to Contemplation - 51

2011-04-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

What follows the Night of the Soul?

As Teresa of Avila observed, few, even of the devout, seem to enter this Night. For one who has entered the Night, there is no prognosis anyone can give on how long this period of purification will last. God will act as God will act, but always for the good of the soul.

The highest state that can be achieved in this life is “spiritual marriage,” also known as “transforming union.” According to Teresa of Avila, this state is distinguished by three characteristics: intimacy with God, serenity and indissolubility or permanence.

The soul is so intimate with God that God’s life and the soul’s life are as one. Teresa likens the intimacy with rain water from heaven mixing with spring water on earth such that one cannot tell which is rain water and which is spring water. As much as any created being can on this earth, the soul shares in the life of God.

The serenity or peace that the soul experiences is that of a happily married person who is certain of the love of her spouse. A soul in the state of transforming union is no longer subject to the trials of the Nights. The soul has effectively forgotten itself and lives only in God.

Obviously, if there are few who reach the Night of the Soul, there are fewer still who are blessed with Transforming Union, but it is a state to which every soul should aspire since it is as close to our final goal of union with God as any soul can reach on earth.

Paths to Contemplation - 50

2011-04-23T03:05:00.000-07:00

The temptations encountered in the Night of the Soul

There are many dangers in the Night, one of the more serious being despair. There is a danger of scrupulosity as the soul searches in vain for a reason that God has left it, and to find some way to attract God back. The soul may be tempted to stop reaching for a God who is no longer present to it, or even to hate the God who seems so fickle and cruel. But the memory of the experience of God drives the soul on. It is as if a lover has been kissed by the beloved just before the beloved vanishes from the sight. The remembrance of that kiss and its indescribable joy and peace serves to inspire the soul to have faith, hope, and love even when God seems to have abandoned it.

By the time a soul reaches the Night of the Spirit, it is already highly purified, though not beyond the reach of sin. Indeed, should a soul fall from the state of grace that it has reached by the Night of Spirit, great would be its fall. The rewards are greater, but so are the dangers. One cannot trust in one’s own power to resist the storms that will assault the soul during the Night, but must depend totally on God to sustain her.

Because, in the Night of the Soul, God is acting powerfully and mysteriously in the soul, even an experienced spiritual director can, and probably should, do little more than support the soul in the difficult time, assuring her of God’s continuing love, and praying with her to cooperate with God in the work that only God can do.

Paths to Contemplation - 49

2011-04-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

The effect of the Night of the Soul

The purpose of the night, as I indicated earlier, is to separate us from the remaining vestiges of attachment to self or those things that are not God, even those world-views and assumptions about God, religion, and the world that shaped us from our youth and that have formed the framework for our thinking. God is total mystery, unlike anything we have ever experienced, or ever could experience, that is not God. To leave behind our cherished notions of what and who God is, or even how to love God, is painful, perhaps devastating, but it is necessary to bring us more completely into the all-passionate and all-mysterious life of the one who St. John of the Cross described as todo y nada, all and nothing. Whether we think of God as darkness or as light, the night strips away all our concepts and paradigms.

The Night of the Senses teaches us to separate ourselves from sensate and emotional consolations and rewards as God leads us into the knowledge of God through faith alone. With the Night of the Senses we begin our journey out of what our natural capabilities can give us into the experience God in freedom, peace, and love in a manner that only God can accomplish. The pinnacle of this union with God is spiritual marriage, which very few achieve in this life. Through the Night of the Spirit, one becomes a sacrifice of love to God. Listen to the beautiful prayer of Teresa of Avila:

In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your merciful love, asking you to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within you to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of your love.

Gone are any images of God, any dependence on consolations, in a sense any framework in which one’s world is fixed. God draws the soul into the infinite darkness of God’s mystery. The soul desires nothing more and can live with nothing less.

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2011-04-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

Signs of the Night of the Soul

In discussing signs of the advent of the Night of the Soul or its characteristics, we should be aware that the Night is not necessarily continuous, nor do all souls that enter it experience it in the same way. Indeed, since each soul has its own peculiar obstacles to union, God need not treat each soul alike. Moreover, in God’s mercy, the rigors of the Night may be interspersed with periods of deep consolation to strengthen the soul for what must yet take place. Spiritual growth is generally not continually upward, but may encounter plateaus and even times when the soul regresses at times before moving ahead again. In one aspect of spirituality, the soul may be advanced, yet in another it may still be a novice. Do not make too much of the signs and characteristics, because like Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief and the much discussed characteristics of near-death experience, what follows are generalizations. Individual experiences may differ.

The signs of the Night of the Soul are not unlike those of the Night of the Senses. There is dryness in prayer, a sense of abandonment by God, and a confused state of mind and memory.

But these signs are more intense than in the Night of the Senses because the soul at this stage has a more developed intimacy with God and has generally been gifted with profound experiences of infused contemplation. Although the soul enduring the Night of the Senses loves God, the soul in the Night of the Soul is consumed by a love of God of the most intense sort. God is the beloved for whom the soul longs with a longing that surpasses description. Thus, when the soul feels as if God, its beloved, has abandoned it, the grief is particularly painful. It is worse than if a beloved spouse of many years passed away suddenly, or, even worse, left to live with someone else.

Such symptoms may have causes other than the Night of the Soul, for example, clinical depression or the loss of a spouse, so the soul needs markers to discern whether she is truly in the Night of the Soul. As always, a wise and compassionate spiritual director may be an invaluable help.

A key sign of the Night is spiritual dryness of a particularly intense sort. It is not just that one derives no pleasure from the senses. One derives no pleasure even from spiritual things that used to bring great joy. The soul has experienced the presence of God; thus, this absence of pleasure is not the same as that experienced in the Night of the Senses when the soul is being led to passive contemplation. God, who was once near, is now absent in a painful and devastating way.

But because the soul has enjoyed a special friendship with God in contemplative prayer, it is now as if the heart’s one and only love has fled. There is a longing for the beloved, a desire to be reunited with the object of the heart’s desire that is painful in the extreme. Those who have not had a burning desire for God will never experience this feeling. The soul has found God in the depths of unitive love and now the beloved is gone. The poignant search of the bride for her bridegroom described in the SONG OF SONGS comes immediately to mind.

On my bed, at night, I sought him

whom my heart loves.

I sought but did not find him.

So I will rise and go through the City;

in the streets and in the squares

I will seek him whom my heart loves.

. . . I sought but did not find him.

In the Night, the soul is bitterly aware of its powerlessness. It can no longer meditate; spiritual reading is like eating dust. And yet the soul’s longing continues. The state is not caused by laziness or an unwillingness to pray. It is caused by an inability to pray. And yet, at this time, there may be a sense that God is acting powerfully within the soul to purify it and teach it pure and unconditional love.

The psychiatrist Gerald May, a member of the faculty of the Shalem Institute near Washington, D.C., which has a respected program to train spiritual directors as well as other programs related to spiritual formation, in his book CARE OF MIND, CARE OF SPIRIT, gives several tests to distinguish the Night of the Soul from clinic depression:

1. Dark night experiences are not usually associated with loss of effectiveness in life or work, as are primary depressions. Often, in fact, the individual is mystified at how well he or she is continuing to function.

2. The sense of humor is retain. It is often sparkling, rather than cynical and bitter as in depression.

3. Compassion for others is, if anything, enhanced. The self-absorption of clinical depression is lacking.

4. In the dark night, one would really rather not have things otherwise. While there might be great superficial dissatisfaction and confusion, the deepest response is that there is an underlying sense of rightness about it all. This is in stark contrast to a primary depression in which one desires a radical, even miraculous, change.

5. The person does not seem to be pleading for help as does someone who is clinically depressed. Explanations and evaluations may be sought, but there is no sense of “get me out of this.”

6. Very subtly, yet perhaps most importantly, one does not generally feel frustrated, resentful, or annoyed in the presence of someone undergoing a dark night experience. While such feelings are common in working with depressed people because of their own internalized anger, one is much more likely to feel graced and consoled with someone experiencing the dark night.

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Contemplation and the erotic

One of the greatest poets of the Spanish language was John of the Cross, a contemporary of Teresa of Avila, and like her, an authority on the spiritual life. He wrote poetry that expressed his own experiences with both the Night of the Senses and the Night of the Soul. Later, when he was asked to explain the meaning of his poetry, he wrote commentaries on his poems. The ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL deals with the Night of the Senses, and THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL with the Night of the Soul. Susan Muto, an English writer on spiritual matters, authored two books with the same title as John’s, expressing John’s teaching in contemporary English.

John’s poetry is frequently erotic in its imagery. Consider, for example, the following verse from THE SPIRITUAL CANTICLE:

Where have you hidden.

Beloved, and left me moaning?

You fled like a stag

After wounding me;

I went out calling you and you were gone.

Or these from THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL:

Upon my flowery breast,

Kept wholly for himself alone,

There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,

And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

It should not surprise us that the line between eroticism and mysticism is often thin. The soul is the beloved of God. God draws the soul to himself as a lover his beloved. The pleasure and ecstasy of carnal union between two persons who are deeply in love is but an analog, though a pale one, of the union of God with the beloved soul.

The instinct for God and the sexual instinct are two of the most powerful human drives, and they are not unrelated. All normal humans yearn to be loved and to feel the warmth and joy of intimate companionship that has its most complete fulfillment in loving intercourse. To feel the intimate embrace of God, to begin to know God as God knows us, is an experience that our carnal natures, which cannot know God directly, can only associate with sexual representations.

This should not scandalize or even surprise us. Divine mysteries have their analogs in nature. Human birth, growth and death is an analog of the spiritual life as we are born into God, grow to spiritual maturity and, ultimately, die to self that we might live most completely in God. The heavens reveal the glory of God, and human beings are created in the image of God. We come to know about God through God’s glory reflected in his creations. The elements, such as bread and wine or oil, used in many religious celebrations are but symbols of a deeper reality that these elements represent. There is a close relationship between the natural and the supernatural, between creation and its Creator. We would be more surprised if such a relationship did not exist than that ideal carnal love is but a analog of union with God. It is not without reason that the highest state of union with God in this life is known as “spiritual marriage.”

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2011-04-19T02:53:00.001-07:00

Chapter 10 -The Night of the Soul

The what and why of the Night of the Soul

The Night of the Soul – sometimes called the Dark Night of the Soul, or the Night of the Spirit -- is both similar to, yet different from, the Night of the Senses. It is similar in its purpose which is purification to allow the soul to become more closely conformed to God, and it is similar in the difficulty the soul finds in praying. But the Night of the Soul is far more intense than the Night of the Senses in the pain the soul suffers at the seeming loss of God, and the purification God uses this Night to effect is at a deeper level.

Teresa of Avila believed that while most souls intent on fidelity to God endure the Night of the Senses, few reach the Night of the Soul. The very term “Night of the Soul” is often misused to designate a period of sadness or depression or other time of great stress or difficulty. I have heard people say, “I am going through the Dark Night of the Soul,” in this latter sense when they were not in this Night as the term is properly used in the theology of the spiritual life.

A person who is led in the Night of the Soul has already achieved a high degree of union with God and has usually, though not invariably, been given the gift of infused contemplation. The contemplative prayer with which the soul has been gifted may, at times, have caused it to forget the senses and the intellect; the soul may have seemed drawn out of the body, the body as if asleep, to raptures that were a foretaste of heaven, an embrace in the arms of God.

The soul is already so closely conformed to God, so much in love with God that it would rather die than commit the slightest offense against the Beloved, so devoted to the Lord that it would prefer to suffer any pain or endure any affliction than be separated from the One it loves above all else, even itself. And so, if the soul has, by God’s grace, already reached such an advanced state of holiness, why is there the need for further purification, particularly in such a painful form as the Night of the Soul?

We are called on to love God with all our hearts and minds and souls and strength. Someone who loves God with 99.8% of her heart and mind and soul and strength is certainly doing much better than average, but there is still some small part of her that does not yet belong entirely to God, some obstacle that prevents God from completing the transformation of the soul into all God wants it to become, his perfect beloved.

I find the term “purgative contemplation” to be key to the understanding of the Night, for during the Night, God is acting within the soul in a special way to cleanse it of all those last obstacles that yet remain to full union with the soul’s Beloved. The soul itself has, in essence, gone as far as possible in conforming itself to God’s will and, through the grace of God, to living in accordance with the fulness of the Gospel. But this is still not enough to purify it so perfectly that it may be brought into the bridal chamber of the One for whom it yearns so passionately. At some point, only God knows what obstacles remain and, like a purifying flame, God must enter in and burn away the dross that yet remains.

The soul, so fervently in love with God, does not deliberately cling to these obstacles to God’s action. If the soul knew what they were, she would do all she could to remove them. But the soul at this stage is not aware of what they are and could not, of her power, remove them even if she were aware. But God knows what they are and God has the power to remove them to make the soul completely his.

The Night of the Soul, like infused contemplation or the Night of the Senses, cannot be adequately described in verbal descriptions or artistic images. Just as Jesus used parables to try to convey often mysterious spiritual realities, poetry is often a medium employed to try to convey what the soul endures during this Night. Nor are terms such as suffering or pain adequate to describe the soul’s experience, for in this Night God is taking control of the soul and drawing it ever closer to himself. The soul senses this and knows in faith that God has not abandoned it, no matter distant the beloved may seem to be. The pain may be intense, but there is also a sense of safety, an inner assurance that good things are taking place.

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What then is the soul to do in the Night of the Senses?

When the soul is suffering in the Night of the Senses, trying harder to pray using techniques that were once successful will not work because God is deliberately leading the soul away from those techniques. I repeat that it would probably be helpful for the soul to have access to an experienced spiritual director who can help discern whether the soul is truly in the Night of the Senses and, if so, what the soul can expect to encounter there. However, such a director might not be readily available.

If the soul is sufficiently persuaded that psychological or physical abnormalities are not causing the aridity in prayer and if the soul is experiencing the characteristics of the Night of the Senses, then the soul quite probably is in the Night. Once this has been determined, the soul can recognize that, however painful it may seem, what is taking place is occurring so that she can be drawn into a deeper relationship with God, one that does not depend on sensory, emotional or intellectual gratifications.

The Night of the Senses is intended to be a time of purification, and the soul should take it in that spirit. God is working within the soul to transform it, to help it detach from that which is not God so that it can belong more completely to God. With this is mind, the soul should remain faithful, conforming her will to what she believes is God’s will for her. Always keep in mind that holiness resides in the choices we make, not in the senses, emotions or intellect.

When God does not seem present, faith indicates that he remains as present as ever, perhaps even more present than when we counted his presence by our emotions. The Night of the Senses may be a time of darkness, but we can, with God’s help, be present to God in that darkness through faith, hope and charity.

Someone in the Night may well be asking, “How long, O Lord, how long?” There is no ready answer to this question. Nor is the Night necessarily one continuous period of time. God may give additional consolations to the soul to encourage it from time to time before allowing the soul to plunge once more into the darkness.

Who will experience this Night? Most writers on the subject who venture an opinion, such as Teresa of Avila, believe that almost all souls that are serious in prayer will encounter the Night of the Senses. Thomas Greene, a noted Jesuit author on the spiritual life, implies that this Night can last a long time, even a lifetime. Whatever the individual experience of the Night may be, it should be looked on as a blessing, not a curse, and a time for learning how to love more fully and unconditionally.

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Problems that might be encountered in the Night of the Senses

A question one faces initially is whether dryness in prayer as described earlier is due to the Night of the Sense or to other causes such as depression, illness or lack of sleep, to mention but a few possibilities that can interfere our ability to pray. Having an experienced spiritual director can be a source of sound advice when a person needs a companion of the spiritual journey. Spiritual direction will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 12.

One of the surest signs that the soul is making spiritual progress, that she is becoming more and more open to God’s transforming grace, and that her will is more and more in tune with God’s will, is a willingness to trust God even when God seems distant, recognizing in faith that God will never abandon a soul that does not herself abandon God.

There is a cliche one sees occasionally on a church marquee: If God seems more distant, who moved? This implies that if God seems more distant, we must have done something to pull away from God, but the Night of Senses assures us that God can seem more distant and yet be in even closer contact with the soul. God does not grant the Night of the Senses to punish, but to teach and to purify the soul in love.

However, there is often the paradoxical effect that soul desires quiet solitude because it is aware of the experience of God still too obscure to be clearly identified. Evidently, this can be a time of confusion of the soul which is pulled in one direction by its frustrated senses and in another by its love of God and, quite possibly, the beginning of infused contemplative prayer. As a noted writer on spiritual matters stated:

This is a complex state of soul and a baffling mixture of darkness and light, of aridity and intense though hidden love of God, of real weakness and latent energy, difficult to analyze without falling into apparent contradictions. (A. Tanquery, THE SPIRITUAL LIFE)

Other signs that the soul has entered in the Night of the Senses are these: First, The soul does not find solace in created objects even though the soul no longer seems to find solace in prayer. She still has a burning desire for God that nothing else can satisfy. Someone who has been distracted from the journey to God by material interests will find pleasure in those material interests. The soul whose primary love is God will pine after God and not be satisfied with lesser things. Though the soul may feel abandoned by God, she still longs for God above all else.

Second, although God seems distant, the soul still longs for God, perhaps more intensely than ever. She may be deeply concerned that she is not serving God as she should or has become negligent in her search for, or service in, God. Someone who is interested only in the “good feelings” found in prayer will be more concerned in recovering the feelings than in her relationship with God.

Third, as noted earlier, the soul can no longer meditate. This is not a question of not wanting to, or not being willing to try, but a situation where attempts to meditate end in dismal failure.

To some extent or another, negligence, apathy and illness can bring about symptoms similar to those of the Night of the Senses, but if a soul is experiencing all of the characteristics described in the preceding paragraph, there is a good chance that she has entered the Night of the Senses.

From the dryness and frustration and confusion of the Night of the Senses may flow a temptation to abandon prayer, to assume that the consolations of the past were fraudulent, or that God was, and is, playing cruel games with the soul. Clearly then, the compassion of spiritual companions and association with a community of faith are important to support the soul in this difficult time. Again, an experienced spiritual director may help the soul to discern what is actually happening.

Serious temptations can also afflict the soul in the Night of the Senses. The soul may be tempted to abandon faith in God because God seems to have abandoned her. Moreover, in the darkness of the Night nothing seems to make sense. The beliefs that the soul clung to with such certainty in the past may now seem nonsensical. Hope, too, is threatened since the soul cannot see herself moving toward future union with a God who now seems more distant than ever. Charity can be threatened by the soul’s frustration and possible anger. The soul may even decide to seek pleasures in sensual pursuits if spiritual pleasure is no longer available.

Because of its spiritual dryness and inability to pray, the soul may even be misunderstood and criticized by others. “You used to be an example for others in how to pray and now you don’t seem to spend much time in prayer at all.” “If God is withholding his consolations from you and not allowing success in prayer, it must be because of some sin of which you have not repented.” “If you simply try harder, you will succeed.” These are but some of the suggestions, often judgmental, that the soul already suffering from the seeming absence of God, may be given, advice which only adds to her discomfort since she begins to believe that she must have done something terribly wrong for God to leave her.

Demonic spirits may also add their insults and jeering temptations to fuel the soul’s distress. “You whom God once favored, where is your God now?” “If God treats you this way, get even with God by seeking worldly pleasures.” “If this is the way that God treats you when you have tried so hard, stop trying to be virtuous. Just relax and enjoy life.”

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The Night of the Senses and infused contemplation

There may be another reason for the sensory, emotional and intellectual dryness of the Night of the Senses. It is at this stage that God may begin to reveal Godself directly to the soul, bypassing the natural means of human knowledge. This more direct experience of God is not so strong that the soul is clear about what is happening. But it is strong enough that there is a “disconnect” between this experience and the person’s natural faculties.

The natural faculties – the senses, emotion and the intellect – cannot experience God directly. Consequently, when God begins to reveal Godself more directly to the soul, the natural faculties are left behind. They cannot take part in this experience in any direct way. True, the experience of God may bring great joy or immeasurable peace, but these feelings are not the experience of God. They result from it. And, more frequently than not, the initial stirring of infused contemplation, which is the direct experience of God, does not confer these feelings. They confer instead confusion on the natural faculties which literally do not know, because they cannot know, what is happening.

The natural faculties will, of course, continue to function, trying to do what they did before during a time of prayer, but they will have no success. Therefore, it will seem that the prayer that once was so helpful is now worse than useless since, instead of God seeming present to the pray-er, God seems more distant than ever.

An analogy may be helpful in understanding what is happening. It is as if a person is looking directly into a powerful searchlight. The light is so bright that it blinds the eyes rather than helping them to see. So, too, the “light” of God when it first shines directly on the soul is so intense that the soul thinks itself in darkness.

However, we must always remember that infused contemplation is a gift. God will grant it when God thinks it will help the soul to make spiritual progress, and withhold it otherwise. Whether infused contemplation is present in the Night of the Senses, or absent, the Night of the Senses is a necessary transition for most souls to a deeper relationship with God and purer love that is not founded on consolations and feelings. Our love of God must become more love of God because God alone is worthy of our total, absolute and unconditional love. It is only in the love of God that we can most deeply love ourselves and other human beings. It is only in loving God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength that we find our fulfillment as rational creatures of God.

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Signs of the Night of the Senses

The soul must realize that feeling that one is close to God is not the same as being close to God, just as the soul must realize that holiness does not consist in feeling holy but in conforming her will to the will of God in her regard. A purer, less conditional love of God comes not from more emotional prayer, but from fidelity to God’s will even when one does not feel like being faithful.

Likewise, faith, complete trust in God, becomes stronger when it must be exercised, not when the soul is carried on the wings of her pleasant sensations. God is a God who surpasses our natural abilities as human beings. Whenever we mistake something we think, or imagine, or feel or sense for God, no matter how profound or pleasing our thoughts, images, feelings or sensations may be, we risk going stray. We may become comfortable thinking that we have found what we were looking for, or that what we have obtained is sufficient, so we need seek no further. God must prod us to get us on our way once more toward our real goal which only God can provide.

The Night of the Senses, therefore, deprives us of our customary pleasures in prayer, whatever form these may have taken. We no longer experience the sweet sadness that came from gazing at a crucifix, nor do we feel close to God as we read our favorite psalm. Even the church services that gave such pleasure and excitement may now seem dull and uninspiring. The joy that was part of singing hymns of praise is gone as, seemingly, is the very presence of God. Whereas before our spiritual life was a fragrant garden, now it is a dry and barren desert.

This change is our prayer life is not due to apathy on our part. We want to pray. We yearn for the old times when God felt so close and showered favors on us. We try to pray, and then try again, but the attempts are painful and make us even more distracted than before. Our desire for God is strong; or, at least our desire is strong to return to the fragrant garden we enjoyed so recently and that now seems so far away. We are conscious of what we once thought we had, and now clearly do not have. Whereas before a half-hour meditating on the Cross flew by without effort, now each minute gazing at the Cross requires our strenuous efforts.

Why is this time called the Night of the Senses? This is because it occurs to pull us away from dependence on our senses, our emotions, our intellects – all of which are not God – so that God can draw us more closely to himself in a purer faith and love.

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The what and why of the Night of the Senses

As the soul continues to allow God to draw it more and more deeply into the life of God, there may come a time when aids to that transformation become obstacles to continued growth. How can this be? If some means of prayer causes my heart to burn with the love of God, if it induces tears to stream down by cheeks as I recognize my sinfulness or meditate on the Crucifixion, how can such a means be an obstacle to spiritual progress?

Consider a traveler on a journey to fulfill an important mission. The traveler is well aware that the mission is important and that she still has a long road ahead of her before the mission can be completed. But the traveler lodges at an inn and finds the bed so comfortable, the food of such excellence, and the diversions there so pleasant that she is loath to move on. Indeed, she is so pleased with her accommodations that she begins to rationalize. She tells herself that the mission is not so important after all, or that it is more important that she be well-rested before continuing, and, after a time, she may even come to believe that the inn itself was the goal of her journey and there is no need to go further.

The innkeeper, however, sees that the traveler is in danger of abandoning her mission because the inn is such a comfortable place to be, so he begins to make the stay there less comfortable. He puts rocks in her mattress and instructs the cook to make her meals less tasty. Gradually, the traveler became less and less satisfied with the inn and soon decides to renew her journey toward her intended goal.

The traveler in this parable is the soul which is journeying, with the help of God, toward union with God, this union being the mission God set for the soul from the time of its creation. At the beginning of its journey, God may grant the soul great consolations and satisfying emotional experiences in prayer. These consolations and emotional experiences, of course, are good for the soul at that point in its development, offering rewards and encouragement to stay the course.

But at some point these gifts may become obstacles to further progress. First, the soul may become complacent, and even proud, thinking that it has reached spiritual heights when, in reality, it is still near the base of the mountain. The soul may think that it has achieved its goal of holiness, mistaking feelings of holiness for holiness itself. She may even forget that it is God who must carry the soul further into God’s own life and come to believe that it is her wonderful prayer exercises that cause this transformation.

Fortunately, God is never deceived and is always merciful. God wants the soul to draw the soul more deeply into his own divine life, and so he must wean the soul from the consolations and emotional satisfactions that have now become obstacles to further progress. So like the innkeeper who wants the traveler to move on, he makes the soul’s stay at the point where she has arrived less comfortable. God causes the soul to enter the Night of the Senses.

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Scripture and the stages of spiritual growth

Although there are those who will disagree, I personally believe that Scripture itself evidences the stages of spiritual growth. At the beginning of the Old Testament, God is clearly a severe judge and stern master. He promises rewards, albeit primarily earthly, for strict obedience to his laws, and threatens, and often inflicts, terrible punishments for violations of his law. His law seems to cover even petty aspects of life, and at least segments of the Jewish people, such as the Pharisees, developed lengthy commentaries to provide guidance in how to observe God’s laws faithfully. In other words, the first part of the Old Testament, particularly the Pentateuch, or first five books, have the characteristics of the first stage of spiritual growth.

Later in the Old Testament, God is described in more friendly terms. He is seen as a nurturer, one who cares about his People, one who will hold them in his arms and protect them as a mother would her child. The psalms can be considered spontaneous cries to God spanning the entire spectrum of emotions: joy, rage, sorrow, awe, etc. In other words, later in the Old Testament we see earmarks of the second stage of spiritual growth.

The New Testament proposes a transformed and deepened relationship with God through Jesus Christ. One of Christ’s central teaching is that it is not the outward appearances that matter most but the intention with which we act. While love is mentioned in the Old Testament, it is with Christ that love becomes the central motif of one’s relationship with God and with other human beings. Unity with God is now stated as possible, made possible by unity with and in Christ. God is no longer distant, but is present in creation through Christ. Sacrificial love is demonstrated on the Cross. In other words, one finds characteristics of the third stage of spiritual growth.

We now move on to the transition periods in spiritual growth known as the “nights.”

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Dangers at this stage of spiritual growth

Once again there is the danger of pride, a belief that I must be better than other Christians because I am so close to God. But if the soul really believes this, as opposed to being tempted to believe it, this is evidence that the soul has not actually reached this third stage. A soul in the third stage generally recognizes the immense gulf that separates her from God and that it is only by the grace and mercy of God that she is allowed to come to God at all. Often someone in this stage will consider herself the worst of sinners because she sees herself in relation to God in whose light she feels stained and polluted.

If a soul does fall out of love, so to speak, at this stage, great will be that fall. Great love can turn into more profound hatred than superficial love. The soul that has been close to God and falls away can become demonic in her lashing out at God. But what might cause a soul to fall away once it has reached this stage? The soul, in experiencing one of the “nights” to be discussed later, might feel it has been rejected, abandoned, by God, its love scorned. The nights are intended for purification, not punishment, and, during the nights God is closer at hand than ever, but without proper guidance the soul may fail to recognize this, or to see God with the eyes of faith when the light of God has turned to darkness.

Another danger is scrupulosity, where the soul is so anxious to please God that it becomes obsessed with its sinfulness and compulsively worries about what it may have done wrong and how to conduct itself, even as regards to the most trivial detail, so as to avoid offending God. In fact, scrupulosity is also a danger in the first stage as well where the soul is concerned about “doing things right” in order to avoid sin.

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The third stage of spiritual growth

In the first stage of spiritual growth God was viewed as distant, someone who gave laws and expected them to be obeyed. Someone who would grant an immense reward or everlasting torment depending on whether one passed or failed whatever test existed to separate the saved from the lost.

In the second stage of spiritual growth, the goodness of God becomes more apparent to me, and I view God as close at hand, someone interested in my personal welfare, someone anxious to help me. I begin to share my thoughts more spontaneously with God. Fear gives way to companionship. I begin to want to please God through service rather than merely avoiding sin.

In the third stage, God is recognized as a lover inviting the soul to a deep intimacy, drawing the soul into union with himself so that the soul can experience God as God is.

The soul’s motive now becomes pleasing one who is deeply loved. Just as a human lover is willing to sacrifice for the beloved, so now the soul is willing to sacrifice herself for God, wanting above all else to belong to God, not out of hope of reward or fear of punishment, but because God alone is worth possessing. The soul would willingly give up every earthly treasure to gain the “pearl of great price,” which is God, and only God.

Prayer in this stage may involve contemplation, a quiet resting in God, the beloved. Infused contemplation may occur regularly, although we must always remember that infused contemplation is a free gift of God and can occur at any stage of spiritual growth. It may also be withheld if God feels that a soul would not benefit from it.

The soul wants more than ever to know God, to experience God, to be with God. It is no longer a desire that resides primarily in the emotions or senses, but it is felt at the deepest levels of the soul’s being. It rises above feelings and emotion, just as the love of a married couple for one another must rise above mere emotion and physical attraction if it is to mature and last.

“My beloved is mine and I am his,” the soul cries out in joy. The soul wants to put away all vestiges of sin, anything that separates the soul from God, so that the union with God can be more complete, more consuming.

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Dangers in this stage of spiritual growth

Just as with the first stage of growth, there is the danger of stagnating at this stage as well. The consolations may be so powerful and the prayer techniques so pleasing that one may be tempted to mistake the consolations and prayers themselves as the goals of spirituality. The goal, of course, always must remain God, but we all like emotional highs and the warm feelings that may often accompany prayer in this stage.

Because the sense of God’s goodness and presence is stronger as well, someone may be misled into thinking that they have achieved a high degree of holiness, or, because of what they perceive to be special favors from God, may lapse into complacency or pride. They may become self-satisfied and less willing to engage in the discipline that opening oneself to God’s transforming grace demands. At the worst, they may think that the gifts they are receiving come from their own efforts and that they can manipulate God by engaging in specific prayer techniques to generate the spiritual highs that they come to treasure.

But the consolations will end. They must if the soul is to continue to make spiritual progress, because the soul must not be allowed to substitute a gift from God for God himself. Even a prayer technique that has been immensely valuable in drawing a soul to greater devotion and service to God and neighbor can at some point become an obstacle to further progress toward unconditional love of God.

And when spiritual “dryness” enters a person’s life, discouragement, even despair, may follow. The soul may think that the God whom it considers a dear friend and close companion has abandoned it. God is no longer found in the once familiar places, that is, the prayer techniques that have been so satisfying in the past. The prayer techniques no longer generate emotional satisfaction; in fact, they seem to generate nothing at all. What was once so easy is now impossible, or possible only with an expenditure of effort that is debilitating.

Of course, dryness and seeming spiritual desolation can be caused by factors other than God’s leading the soul into a new and deeper relationship with him. Mental or physical illness, lack of adequate sleep, stress, the loss of a loved one, can all bring about a lack of spiritual energy and an inability to pray in a way in which the soul feels satisfaction. But God may also be calling to the soul into a more mature stage of prayer.

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The adolescent/early adult stage of spiritual growth

God is often viewed as a judge and taskmaster by beginners in the spiritual life. In the alternative, God might also be viewed as a “sugar daddy,” someone who hands out rich rewards to those he favors. In either case, the motivation of the early stage of spiritual growth is either the avoidance of punishment or the desire for reward.

As someone becomes more in tune with God’s action in their lives and opens themselves to that action, she recognizes that God is not the stern judge or harsh master she imagined him to be. God appears more as a friend, a friend to stand in fear of, but fear in the sense of awe and wonder rather than servile fear that causes one to shrink away from what is feared. The motivation for action becomes more a desire to do good because it is recognized as good, something pleasing to God, and to avoid evil because it is recognized as displeasing to God, rather than making choices based on what might enable one to avoid hell or “earn” heaven.

There is not so much emphasis on sin because intentional serious sin is no longer a major issue. God is recognized as good and becomes more and more the focus of life. Because God is recognized now as a friend, prayer becomes more personal. The pray-er is not afraid to open her heart to God and talk to God as she would to any intimate companion. She recognizes that God is with her all the time and sometimes experiences God’s presence intensely, yet in a manner that cannot be communicated to others. Not infrequently, she experiences intense consolations as she thinks about God and how much he cares about her.

A new form of prayer enters her life: meditation. Now she is not only telling God her heart’s deepest desires and making intercessions for her family, her friends and other causes, but she listens more for God’s word to her. She wants to know what God wants of her, not because she is concerned about following various rules and regulations exactly – indeed, she finds rules and regulations have less hold on her – but because she wishes to please God and deepen her relationship with him.

In reading passages from Scripture or other religious texts – which she finds herself doing more and more — she is struck by various words and phrases and stops to think about them, asking herself what God is trying to tell her through them, or imagining herself in the middle of some Biblical event, wondering what it would have been like say to be present at the Crucifixion. Her personal prayer is moving from formality to informality, from rigidity to spontaneity.

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Dangers faced in the first stage of spiritual development

Because a person in the early stages of spiritual growth is so tied to rules and, therefore, often views actions in terms of black and white rather than shades of gray, she risks becoming judgmental. She has clear idea of what she needs to do in order to avoid sin and carry out those obligations necessary to avoid God’s punishment, and she, therefore, may see anyone who does not live in conformity with her views to be living in sin. If she believes that a particular creedal formula is necessary for “salvation,” then anyone who does not adopt that particular formula will be seen as “lost.”

There is, in this stage, also a risk of spiritual stagnation. Such a person is sure of her opinions and will often refuse to consider alternative opinions, unless it is for the specific purpose of debunking them, or to develop strategies and arguments to convert those who hold them. Since exposing herself to alternative religious views might be dangerous, prompting, for example, attacks by the devil to shake her faith, she may leave it to others she considers spiritually stronger than herself to engage in contacts with those, even other Christians, who hold alternative views. If one is unwilling to listen to the views of others, she is building a wall around herself that will insulate her from having to change her own views, which, for her, is precisely what she intends because she believes that this is what God wants of her.

Thus, if even God tries to call someone in this stage to a different form of prayer or a deeper relationship with God, he may resist because he cannot imagine that even God would act inconsistently with what he is certain God has ordained. If God calls him to pray more spontaneously, or to act more in friendship than in fear, the call will often be resisted, not out of malice, but from a sincere desire to obey what he is sure is God’s will for him. His church or denomination may reinforce his reluctance to deviate even slightly from the “straight and narrow” path by preaching that emphasizes that any departure from that path will lead to perdition and that any temptation to leave it is from Satan.

If someone is inside a safe place while he sees naught but danger outside of it, he would be foolish to leave it, but God is not a God of safety or comfort, and if someone is to continue to grow spiritually into the life of God, the attitudes and fears of this stage must be left behind. I do not mean to imply, however, that even someone who stagnates in this stage may not reach a high level of holiness if that person clings tenaciously to what she truly believes is the will of God. Holiness consists in conforming our wills to God’s will as best we can discern that will, even if our discernment is wrong. It is those who recognize that God is calling them to a different mode of life, but refuse to cooperate because they are too comfortable where they are, that are in danger of slipping into a selfish complacency that they mistake for a healthy relationship with God.

Let us now look at the second stage of spiritual growth.

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The beginning of spiritual growth

If we believe with St. Augustine that all human hearts were made by God for God, then we should believe as well that God is constantly reaching out to everyone to open their hearts to him. For some, this invitation will be drowned out by the distractions of the world. Some will hear this invitation, but will misinterpret its meaning and will direct their inner passions toward false gods. Others will hear it and be afraid to accept it, recognizing that accepting it will make demands on them that they may be unwilling to fulfill. Others will hear the invitation and accept it and thus begin the process of growing into the life of God..

The manner and environment within which someone accepts God’s invitation are important factors in how he or she will develop spirituality, just as the circumstances into which someone is born will heavily influence how he or she will develop physically and intellectually. Someone, for example, who is instructed in a denomination that teaches that God is a stern judge will develop differently from someone who is taught early on about God’s mercy and love.

Though I have no statistical data to back it up, I would conjecture that most people develop a relationship with God through Christ because they either want to go to heaven, or they do not want to go to hell, and they have heard that the only way to gain heaven and avoid hell is through an association in faith with Jesus Christ. In other words, God is looked on as someone who will either reward or punish, and any reasonable person would rather be rewarded than punished.

At this early stage of spiritual development, a person probably looks at life as a test to be passed rather than a school to learn what God wants us to know. Often, a person wants to do the least possible to get a passing grade. Sin is generally viewed as an offense against God that will make God angry and may lead to a failing grade, and, hence, hell, if the sin is sufficiently serious and not forgiven by the time of death.

A stage of spiritual growth is characterized in large part by three factors: the motivation for acting as one does, one’s attitude toward God, and the way one prays. An individual in this initial stage of spiritual development has made a commitment to God, but it is a self-interested commitment. He is more motivated by what he will get out of the commitment than by anything else. He considers God remote, high above all, looking down to note whether the individual is acting rightly or wrongfully. God is a judge and the individual is judged; thus, the individual must act appropriately lest he incur a negative judgment.

Because life is a test passed by acting rightly before God, a person in this stage of spiritual growth will often resort to rules to determine what in fact is right action. Often, the emphasis is on obedience to the Ten Commandments as being the essence of Christian living, despite the obvious fact that the Ten Commandments are found in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, a person feels more secure in following rules she feels give clear guidance – not that the Ten Commandments are that clear – than living in ambiguity and taking responsibility for deciding for herself what God might want done in a particular situation. Following a well-worn path exposes her to less risk than the road less traveled.

Thus, a person in this stage feels more secure in “knowing” that if he does thus and so, he will not offend God, or, that by making a particular statement of faith or adhering to a certain creedal formula, he will be assured that God will look favorably on him.

Prayer in this stage is often according to some set formula or using standard prayers that have been memorized, or which are read from an approved compilation, such as a denominational prayer book. The reason is that the pray-er still considers God to be remote and intimidating. To pray “correctly,” so the pray-er is more likely to be heard by God and to avoid gaffes that might offend God, the pray-er prefers the tried and true to the experimental or using prayers of one’s own composition. A set formula does not necessarily does not necessarily imply a written prayer. The pray-er may use a litany of stock points to be covered and stock phrases that must be included because that is the way prayer is done.

In no way do I intend any disrespect for this form of prayer. The pray-er has already made a decision for God and is reaching out to God sincerely and in the way that seems most appropriate to him or her. Though this form of prayer does not enjoy the spontaneity or intimacy that more advanced prayer has, it is a legitimate form of prayer, and, by the grace of God, will lead to spiritual growth if the pray-er is open to that growth.

Furthermore, even persons further along in their spiritual development may often return to standard denominational prayers, particularly in public worship, or may use “formulas” in communicating with God. As we saw with regard to Centering Prayer, as well as the “Jesus Prayer,” a word or phrase can be repeated over and over again, but, in these cases, the repeated phrase is intended not so much as a petition to God as it is a way of establishing a special type pf relationship with God.

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Chapter 8 - Stages of Spiritual Growth

Can we grow spiritually?

When I ask, “Can we grow spiritually,” most people would respond with a resounding yes. But the matter is not as straightforward as it may seem at first glance.

We must first declare what we mean by “spiritual growth.” Does this mean that we become more considerate of our neighbors, more honest is our business dealings, and more generous with our contributions to charity? Is spiritual growth something that we can measure, and, if so, how do we measure it? Is it something that others will observe and about which they will comment, “My, how you’ve grown spiritually since I first met you”?

To begin to answer the question “Can we grow spiritually,” we must remember what our ultimate goal remains: union with God in love through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are to enter into the life of God. We are to undergo “divinization,” as the process is called in Eastern Orthodox theology.

Of course creatures will always remain creatures. We do not become the equal of God, nor do we become God as Jesus Christ was truly God, having both divine and human natures. We are, however, to be incorporated into the life of God by the power of God as much as creatures can share in the life of God so that we can know God, see God face to face, know God as God knows himself because we will be like God.

As noted earlier, we cannot bring this result about by our own power. We cannot bootstrap ourselves into the life of God. Only God can bring about this transformation in us, and it is that transformation, and only that transformation, that constitutes true spiritual growth. We now see that we can grow spiritually, but it is God who enables us to grow spiritually. Our role is to accept God’s invitation to divine union and to be open to God’s transforming grace. This process begins at some point in our lifetimes and probably continues in heaven after we die since a finite creature can continue to grow indefinitely into the life of the infinite God.

It is self-evident that there can be substantial time between the beginning and end of this process. Only Jesus was fully spiritually mature from the beginning of his life to his death because Jesus was, and always will remain, the only human being, unique in all of history, who had a complete and perfect union with God from his birth to his death and beyond. The rest of us take time to mature spiritually. And, as is the case with physical as well as intellectual growth, obstacles and handicaps can arise along our way that stunt our growth and delay us in reaching our full potential.

We ought not be surprised that spiritual growth is a process rather than something that happens to us full-blown when we are converted. Even St. Paul did not immediately present himself to the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem as one called by Christ himself, but, instead, he first went on a long retreat to try to sort things out and let the power of God prepare him for the work God was to give him. A sign of the authenticity of Paul’s conversion was his unwillingness to see himself as someone prepared at the outset to be an apostle. He realized that his work and his soul needed a time of preparation.

As humans, we come into the world as helpless infants and go through many stages as we physically mature. As humans, we come into the world knowing little, relying on our basic instincts. Our minds mature as we grow older. Learning is a process that, if taken seriously, requires time and hard work. Persons who go on to advanced degrees can spend a decade or more in school from kindergarten to post-graduate studies.

Our physical growth requires food and proper care for us to prosper and grow into mature old age. Our intellectual growth requires education and the exercise of our minds if we are to avoid mental stagnation. Spiritual growth likewise takes time and effort. Perhaps the main purpose of our lives is to give us time to come to spiritual maturity.

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What results from sacred reading?

I stress again that sacred reading, like any prayer technique, is not an end in itself. Moreover, sacred reading is not a “workout” to strengthen our spiritual muscles. We may be able to run a faster mile by physical effort and exercises, but we can never bootstrap ourselves more fully into the life of God by any effort of our natural faculties.

Sacred reading, like other means of opening ourselves to God, is intended to be life-transforming. The effects of sacred reading should begin to permeate our entire lives, every moment of each day, as God draws us more and more deeply into his divine mystery. If God is indeed drawing us more and more into his own life, our own lives should become more and more God-like. We should begin to live more and more as Christ would live in our particular circumstances. Our wills should become more closely attuned to, and in compliance with, the will of Christ. Our love for God should translate into our love for neighbor, a burning desire that others will be brought into a more profound and loving relationship with God. We recognize that if God has had mercy on us, the least of his children, how much more do others deserve God’s mercy. We should be willing to sacrifice all we have, if need be, that others might find God and that we might never lose God. If these attitudes do not become more prevalent in our lives, then we must carefully examine whether we are truly opening ourselves to God, seeking God above all else, or merely engaging in spiritual practices for emotional satisfaction or some other selfish motive.

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Various obstacles to sacred reading

The comment about choosing appropriate readings in times of dryness can be extended to any mood the soul may be experiencing. Indeed, one obstacle to success in sacred reading is choosing readings that are unlikely to provide inspiration for meditation or prayer because they are not suited to the reader’s temperament, mood or interests. Even parts of the Bible are unlikely to inspire anyone to anything except sleep. If a particular book or portion of Scripture does not seem to strike a responsive chord, you should not be afraid or ashamed to look for another text.

Sacred reading is not study in the academic sense. It is a technique to open ourselves more fully to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Thus, sacred reading should not be used as a program to work through the entire Bible from cover to cover – as noted above, many parts of the Bible rarely lend themselves well to ordinary reading, much less sacred reading – nor should sacred reading be used to cram in as much reading during the time allotted as possible. Goal- oriented persons may want to cover a lot of ground in their reading, and may, therefore, think that the slow pace of sacred reading is a waste of time, but more may be gained spiritually in many instances from concentrating attention on a single paragraph or sentence. Do not mistake sacred reading for reading to gain information. Accept sacred reading for what it is intended to be, a means to make ourselves available to God and a possible path to contemplation.

As with other contemplation techniques, such as centering prayer, a quiet place and bodily comfort are aids to success. Though not impossible – all things are possible for God – children screaming in the background are not helpful to sacred reading, nor are leg cramps, an uncomfortable chair, nor is the thought that company is coming for dinner in ten minutes and the table is not set. Choose a time and a place and a posture when you can engage yourself as fully as possible in this exercise. Put aside for the time, the cares of the day and the tasks you have yet to carry out. Make the time available for you and God together.

It should be obvious by now that sacred reading is not an exercise that can be rushed. Adequate time must be allotted for each session. Unlike other techniques of moving toward contemplation, this one cannot fit well into say five minute segments. Probably at least 20 minutes, and, preferably, half an hour, are bare minimums since the reader must get comfortable and compose herself prior to reading, including a short prayer asking for guidance from the Holy Spirit. Then there is the slow, meditative reading; the mindful digesting of an inspiring word or phrase; a time of prayer; and then a quiet resting in God if all four of the steps of Guigo’s ladder are covered. Once one is resting quietly in God, this time, the holiest of the exercise, should not be truncated unnecessarily. If there is insufficient time to do justice to sacred reading, another form of prayer should be substituted.

Nevertheless, the practice of sacred reading, like any other prayer technique, requires discipline, concerted effort, to practice it on a regular basis. Just as sporadic dieting is not likely to result in significant weight loss, or occasional practice of the piano is not apt to make someone a proficient musician, so hit or miss prayer is not likely to deepen someone’s spiritual life and allow God the opportunity needed to transform that person into what God wants that person to become.

Disciplined prayer in itself, of course, is not an end. It is a means to make ourselves more available to God, who is the goal of our spiritual practices. The practices themselves do not allow us to share more fully in the life of God; only God can do that. The practices indicate to God that we want to share more fully in the life of God, and, through the practices, we open ourselves to God’s transforming action in us. Sanctification comes from God alone, but God needs our cooperation. To repeat what I have tried to make clear earlier: God invites, but God does not compel.

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Guigo’s ladder

Sacred reading is often described using four steps. In actuality, the four steps come from the writings of Guigo, a 12th century Carthusian monk. The steps are not of the essence of sacred reading, but they may be helpful in identifying where sacred reading might lead the soul and the last of the steps, as we shall see, is contemplation.

The first step in Guigo’s ladder is the reading itself as described earlier in this chapter, holding oneself open to inspiration by a word or passage from the reading chosen. The second step is meditation, often referred to by meditatio, the latin word for meditation. At this step, we think about the passage that inspired us and what God might be trying to tell us through it. The passage may lead us to construct images of an event in the life of Christ or some event in our past. It may lead us to think of passages from Scripture, or some issue of faith or morals, or a life decision with which we are struggling. It may even lead us into a different stream of thinking altogether, the passage being merely a springboard from which to dive into another unrelated issue that God wants us to consider. We should not attempt to force ourselves to go in any particular direction, trying to be as open as we can to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

If, as in the example above using Psalm 23, we are attracted to the word shepherd, we might imagine a field of sheep grazing contentedly with the shepherd standing guard over them, or we might see ourselves as a lost sheep for whom Jesus is searching. We ought to follow where the Spirit seems to be leading without coercing our thoughts to move in a particular direction. Meditation here should be unhurried and restful, just as our reading should be. The more effort we put into it, the less likely it is to bear fruit, just as the more strenuously we attempt to banish distractions in Centering Prayer, the more distracted we will become.

Our meditation on the passage that drew our attention may, in turn, lead to the third step of the ladder, oratio, prayer. The meditation on “shepherd” may cause a spontaneous burst of thanks to God for his loving care of us, or it may cause us to pray that we may never wander from the flock. Or, if we have been led toward a particular decision, we may pray that the decision we have made is, in fact, in keeping with the will of God, and that God will correct us if we are wrong. Our prayer may even be simply repeating the word or phrase that inspired us slowly over and over again, letting into sink into our consciousness.

At some point in our prayer, we may be led to contemplation, contemplatio, that is, a quiet resting in God. Sacred reading is a method that is intended to prepare the soul for contemplation. Is this active, or passive, contemplation? Has the soul actively sought to rest in God using the first three steps of Guigo’s ladder as the inspiration? Yes, but the contemplation may also be a gift from God; that is, God may give the prepared soul a more direct experience of himself.

No one should feel that Guigo’s ladder is the essence of sacred reading. It was created after sacred reading was already an integral part of Benedictine spiritual practices. The ladder may be useful to remind us that sacred reading is not an end in itself – no prayer technique is an end in itself – but it is pointed toward deeper growth into God, and, ultimately, enjoying the vision of God. Some persons may find themselves jumping directly from reading to contemplation. Others may not enter a contemplative state at all.

At times of great spiritual dryness, one may find concentration difficult and no word or phrase inspiring. In such times of dryness, readings selected to reflect that dryness, such as the anguish of some of the psalms, or readings about Christ’s suffering and death may be useful.

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How do we practice sacred reading?

To begin a session of sacred reading, we should, first of all, be comfortable. It is harder to listen for God’s still, small voice if an aching back is clamoring loudly for our attention.

Next, we select a passage to read. We might have chosen a book of the Bible to work our way through, or a psalm, or we might be reading a book that a spiritual companion has recommended to us. We could, conceivably, use the daily newspaper or some other “secular” source that might speak to us about God’s intention for our own lives. We might begin with a short prayer asking the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom.

We read slowly and thoughtfully, chewing on and digesting the words and sentences that we are reading. We hold our minds open to a word, phrase or sentence that grabs our attention, that speaks to us in a special way. We are not reading to cover as much material as possible in whatever time we allot for this exercise. If we read a sentence, we can read it again, even several times, like we might savor a choice morsel of food.

Nor are we seeking the literal meaning of what we read. We are, by our sacred reading, asking God to speak to us, to let us hear God’s words to us through the printed words before us. God may grab our attention with a thought inspired by a word of the text that has little or nothing to do with the meaning of the actual text itself.

Here is an example: Consider the first verse of the familiar Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

As we read this sentence slowly and thoughtfully, dwelling on each word and phrase, we might be struck by the word “my.” Yes, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord cares about me personally. I am important to him as an individual.

Or we might be focus on “shepherd.” The Lord protects me as a shepherd protects his sheep. I am safe under the protective vigilance of God.

Or perhaps “want” attracts our special attention. It may suggestion all the things we want for ourselves instead those things that would be spiritually good for us. It may remind us of other passages from Scripture, such as, “Seek first the Kingdom of God,” or “Seek and you will find.”

We should not force ourselves to focus on a particular word or phrase, but should be open to whatever God is trying to teach us, whatever God wants to draw our attention to.

Perhaps nothing jumps out at us. We might read slowly and not have any portion of the reading seem to speak to us in a special way. That is all right too. We are available to God if God chooses to communicate with us. It is our openness to God that counts. We do not keep score in sacred reading, nor do we compare notes with friends to see who got the most messages. More important than even the insights we gain from sacred reading is our willingness to be available to God.

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Chapter 7 - Sacred Reading

What is “sacred reading”?

There is a practice that is part of the monastic Benedictine practices called lectio divina, or sacred reading. Sacred reading involves more than just reading the Bible or some other religious work. Rather, the practice is intended to foster reflection, prayer and, ultimately, contemplation.

It is not unusual for persons who want to grow spiritually to read the Scriptures or other inspirational works on a regular basis. One might ask, however, why anyone should engage in such reading, or, if someone does engage in it, how he or she should go about this reading.

The question, at first blush, may seem foolish. One reads to learn. But what then does one want to learn, and why?

Remember that the goal is God; that is, we are to accept God’s invitation to come to union with God in love, and, through God’s action, allow God to draw us into his own life so that we can come to know God as he knows us. No amount of study can bring us to the direct knowledge of God. All study can do is teach us about God. And since the mysteries of our faith cannot be adequately expressed in any form accessible to our natural faculties, the result of our study will necessarily be incomplete and may even be misleading.

One reason to study, of course, is to better prepare our minds for the service of God. Anyone who wants to be a physician needs to learn the science and art of medicine. One cannot simply pray one’s way to a medical degree. If someone is to teach Sunday School, that person must know something to teach and learn techniques for presenting the material that are likely to be most effective with his intended audience. If someone wants to tell someone else about her own denomination or about Jesus Christ, it is better that person be well-informed than ignorant.

But sacred reading is not primarily reading for acquiring facts, or to train ourselves for some particular vocation or ministry. We engage in sacred reading to say yes to God’s invitation to come to union with him in love and to open our souls to his transforming action. In sacred reading we actively listen for what God wants us to hear and invite God into our souls to change us into what God wants us to become.

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A note on Ignatian contemplation

One problem encountered in reading about prayer and spirituality is that different authors and schools of thought use the same word to refer to different things. Two theologians, for example, may be discussing “grace,” and seem to be in total disagreement, whereas the problem may be that they each are using different definitions of grace. This certainly occurs frequently with regard to the subject matter of this book since authors and speakers will often use meditation and contemplation interchangeably, and they often do not distinguish between active and passive contemplation, which we will see shortly, is a critical distinction indeed.

Saint Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish nobleman, born toward the end of the 15th century, who founded the Roman Catholic religious order the Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits. When a Jesuit talks about contemplation, he is often referring to a form of meditation known as Ignatian meditation, but he may also be referring to the use of images or religious pictures to inspire active contemplation.

Thus, when a Jesuit author or retreat leader suggests that someone “contemplate” the face of Jesus, or contemplate Jesus on the cross, what he means is that we construct in our imaginations an image of the face of Christ or an image of Jesus hanging on the cross and simply dwell on that image. The image may inspire us with feelings of joy or sorrow, or may lead to a spontaneous outpouring of verbal prayer, or it may provide the inspiration for quietly resting in God, active contemplation.

Let me mention again that active contemplation is a means, not an end. If constructing say an image of the cross in our imaginations, or looking a picture of the crucifixion, leads to spontaneous verbal prayer or to deep emotions that enhance our resolve to serve God more faithfully, we ought not to scorn whatever form of prayer we find ourselves attracted to because it is the not the active contemplation we were expecting. We must always be open to whatever form of prayer the Spirit leads us into. The goal always is God, not prowess in a particular form of devotion.

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The Prayer of Quiet Presence

Two persons who love one another deeply do not always have to be talking to one another, even when they are together. Two lovers are often satisfied simply to be in one another’s presence. They quietly sense and wordlessly enjoy their mutual love.

Our faith tells us that God is present with us always and that God’s love for us is greater than we can imagine. Thus, we might engage in active contemplation by simply recognizing God’s presence and God’s love and resting quietly in that love, conveying to God at the beginning our own love for him and our desire to be with him, to be present to him as one lover to another.

Our effort to be present in quiet resting to God does not mean that we will not suffer distractions any more than simply being in the presence of a dear friend implies that we will not be distracted by concerns or thoughts of what we still have to get done that day. But we can hand our concerns and the various tasks that still await us to God, perhaps with a quick prayer that God help us in our troubles and bless the work that we do by allowing us to make it an offering of love to God and those we serve.

Once again we ought to be comfortable when engaging in this, or any other, form of active contemplation. It may help to have a special location, a “prayer space,” in which we conduct our prayer. A regular prayer space may, like a church, remind us of our intention to open ourselves to God; and our continuing use of that am space may enable us to become so familiar with it that its novelty will not be a distraction.

Breathing and prayer

Some suggest that the way we breath is an important factor in active contemplation. Slow breathing, for example, is considered by many as helpful to the Jesus Prayer. There is even such a thing as “breath prayer.” One form of this prayer involves slowly inhaling, asking God to let us receive the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, in this inhaling. As we slowly exhale, we ask God to take away from us all impure motives and thoughts that are obstacles to God’s transforming grace. We can vary our prayers as we inhale and exhale, for example, asking God to impart holy wisdom or courage to us as we inhale and release to God some fault of ours as we exhale.

The breath prayer can be very relaxing and serve as a helpful preparation for a session of active contemplation. If you do the breath prayer, do not do it for an extended period of time, or breath in and out deeply and quickly, since you may hyperventilate and risk fainting if you stand up suddenly.

Use of the breath prayer as a preparatory exercise for active contemplation raises the question whether there are other exercises that might also perform the same function. As mentioned above, a “sacred space,” including a comfortable chair as well as perhaps candles and religious art, well away from the noise and bustle of the home or workplace, can be a significant aid.

Having other persons present who are also engaging in prayer, as one might find at a retreat house, can often be of assistance because the presence of God frequently seems to be reinforced where “two of three are gathered” in the name of Jesus.

Fasting prior to a prayer session, or some special devotional might help. Reading,
looking at religious art, some form of prayer or meditation other than active contemplation may lead into active contemplation as we will see when we consider Lectio Divina.

All in all, the goal of any form of preparation for active contemplation is to quiet the mind and senses, provide an environment of comfort and freedom from external distractions, and to ask God’s help in opening oneself to God. You should always feel free to experiment with these goals in mind. How you choose to pray is literally your choice, but be open to how God may be calling you to pray. Ask God to direct and teach you. Do not think that you are a failure if you do not “feel” God there when you pray. Nor should you be discouraged if your friends are carried away in prayer and you seem left behind. God asks that we try, not that we succeed. God will give us those gifts we need to come to him in love.

We now consider one additional form of active contemplation.

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Some fruits of the Jesus Prayer

The prayer, faithfully repeated with the proper intention, will result in a positive transformation of life. The same might be said of any well-founded spiritual regimen, provided, as always one remains faithful to it, engages in it with the proper intention, and is willing to be open to God’s will in her regard. Nevertheless, the Jesus Prayer may bring special fruits.

First, the prayer places us in a humble position with regard to God. Through the prayer we recognize that we are sinners and wholly dependent on the mercy of God to come to God. Of ourselves, we can do nothing to bring about our theosis, but, with God, all things are possible. God will have mercy on those who plead for it. This prayer stands in stark contrast with spiritual practices that purport to enable the pray-er to grow into the life of God through her own efforts.

The Jesus Prayer also reminds us that we are talking to a person, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. We are not dealing with an abstract God or a mysterious notion such as “enlightenment,” or a somewhat vague concept such as the “center of our being.” We are calling out to a specific individual, a human being like ourselves, but who is also God, the Way by whom we can come to union with God. Through this appeal to a real and present Jesus we are asking for help in our incorporation into the divine life.

The Jesus Prayer is also an aid in humility. Humility is not unduly putting ourselves down, nor is it belittling the real talents we have or our dignity in the sight of God. Humility is honesty. If we have talents, we are to use them in the service and love of God and other humans. If God has loved us, we are to return love for love, even though we may recognize that we do not deserve whatever favors God has granted us.

But, in honesty, we must admit that we are all sinners. If we generalize sin to mean any obstacle that stands between us and union with God, we recognize that there remain many aspects of our being that do not yet belong to God. Of our own efforts, we cannot come to union with God, so our limited humanity is itself such an obstacle that can only be surmounted by the power of God himself. The Jesus Prayer reminds us that we are sinners and are totally dependent on the mercy of God to achieve union with God. This prayer is a humble expression of our human condition and a plea to God to allow us to transcend our innate limits through God’s grace to enter into the life of God.

In our struggle to open ourselves to God, there is always the danger of deception, either self-deception because we want to control our spiritual progress rather than allowing God to do so, or deception from outside ourselves, be it from malign spirits or other humans who, even inadvertently, might lead us away from the path God would have us follow. It is a common human failing to choose means of prayer and ministries that are satisfying to the person, but that may not be what God would choose for the person. We set our course and ask God to bless us on our way instead of seeking the course that God wants for us.

Most of our self-deception or desire for control is not malicious. It often stems from a need to believe that we are pleasing God by what we do, which, in turn, stems from a genuine desire to know God, the God-instinct that is a part of every human being. Saying the Jesus Prayer with the right intention asks God to lead us as God wants to, not as we might choose for ourselves. We are asking Jesus for mercy, and, implicitly, to take control of our lives and do with us whatever is necessary to transform us into what God wants us to be. In invoking the Name of Jesus, we also protect ourselves from any evil spirits that might wish to distract us or lead us astray since no such spirit can withstand the One to whom all power in heaven and earth has been given and who definitively won victory over the powers of death on the Cross.

Note that in the Jesus Prayer we are not asking God for anything specific except mercy. In this sense the Jesus Prayer simply places us before God with an open mind and heart, asking God to do what God deems best for us according to his mercy.

We might stress once more that there is an essential difference in the attitudes and beliefs underlying the Jesus Prayer and prayer techniques that emphasize the role the pray-er in his or her own transformation. The Jesus Prayer requires an appropriate asceticism and openness on the part of the pray-er, but there is never any doubt that it is God who must effect the desired transformation. The Jesus Prayer places the pray-er as a humble supplicant before God, asking God to do what only God can do.

In some religions such as Buddhism and in New Age practices, actually a form of ancient Gnosticism, it is the pray-er who is the spiritual athlete, the one who by appropriate exercises can recognize that he or she is the Buddha or can fan into flames the divine spark that lies smoldering within every human being. There is little middle ground between “We can do it ourselves,” and “We are totally dependent on God.” One might say, “God helps those who help themselves,” but a basic premise of this book and of Christian spirituality is that God alone has the power to bring humans into the experience of God. Will God do this even for those who believe that they are coming to divinization by their own efforts? I cannot say. I can only say that those who take the view that they have within themselves all the power they need to realize their divinization are not in the Christian spiritual tradition.

We now turn to two other forms of active contemplation.

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The proper attitude for the Jesus Prayer

Because God is so exalted and humans are so sinful and small in relation to God, there is a profound sense of poverty of spirit in daring to offer prayer of any sort to God. As one Orthodox saint, Isaac the Syrian phrased it, “When you turn to God in prayer, be in your thoughts as an ant, as a serpent of the earth, as a worm, like a stuttering child.” Lest this seem a bit extreme, remember that many of the greatest saints, having experienced God as fully as one can in this life, thought of themselves as nothing in comparison with God, and often as the greatest of sinners.

Approaching God in prayer deserves nothing less than our complete attention. One would not dare speak to the President of the United States or the head of a large corporation without a certain amount of fear and without giving the matter careful thought and total concentration on what we are about. As another Eastern saint expressed it, “we ought to stand prayerfully before Him in deepest reverence . . . directing toward Him all our attention, concentrating in our attention all the powers of the reason, heart, and soul, and rejecting distractions and vain imaginings, whereby we diminish alertness and reverence, and violate the correct manner of standing before God, as required by His majesty.” Distractions and an agitated state are, therefore, inconsistent with the proper recitation of the Jesus Prayer. To quote again an Orthodox source, “The Hesychia must be accompanied by lack of worries, watchfulness of guarding of the mind, and unceasing prayer to gain the true union with God.”

The basic premise behind the Jesus Prayer is that vocal prayer said with the proper intention and concentration will turn into mental prayer, and mental prayer will lead to an even higher form of prayer called the “prayer of the heart.”

We note that the prayer itself has power. It is not merely our concentration on saying it, or its constant repetition, that is effective. The very mention of Jesus’ name is enough to scatter the demons that might be tormenting us; the call on the mercy of God brings down on the pray-er the mercy of God. The admission that one is a sinner brings forgiveness and grace to avoid sin in the future.

As was noted with regard to Centering Prayer, any conscious effort to avoid distractions will make the pray-er even more distracted. Therefore, one using the Jesus Prayer must expect that progress in reaching a quiet state of mind will be reached only over time. In a sense, the cliche from Alcoholic Anonymous, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” is suggested here. One prays the Jesus Prayer as best one can with the intention of yielding oneself to God and, over time, the pray-er will find that his relationship with God will deepen as will his mode of praying.

As one might suppose then, using Hesychastic prayer involves strict discipline. One cannot expect results in a day, or a week, or even over a long period if the pray-er devotes herself to this prayer only a few minutes each day. The Jesus Prayer is meant to permeate one’s life, to be recited constantly even while one is engaged in other activities. The Jesus Prayer and an ascetic life-style are meant to go hand in hand. Thus, Hesychasm implies a monastic mentality even if one is living outside a monastery. It is not a prayer for those who wish to dabble in prayer.

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Theosis

A central concept in Orthodox spirituality is theosis, or “divinization in Christ.” This concept was introduced in an earlier chapter, but it bears almost endless repetition because of its centrality, often unappreciated and neglected, in Western Christianity. Through union with Christ, we grow into the life of God. Important theologians of the early Church taught that “God became man so that man might become God,” and “We become by grace what God is by nature.”

Thus, the Incarnation is not merely a means by which sin can be forgiven so that human beings might sneak into heaven under cover of the Atonement. The Incarnation is the union of God with Creation so that Creation might be received into the life of God. The unbridgeable gap between Creator and Creation has been bridged by the God/Human Christ, so that humans might, through union with Christ, come to union with God by the power of God and become God as much as creatures can become God.

Indeed, the only way that we can truly know God is become God. Since we cannot become God as fully as God is God, we can never truly know God as fully as God knows Godself.

Think of it this way. If you are married to someone you love deeply, over time you
become more like your spouse. You understand the spouse more completely because you share that spouse’s life and enter into his or her patterns of thought and being. The shared life becomes more like one life. And in that one life comes a deeper knowledge of the spouse. But you never become the spouse. You always remain yourself so your knowledge of your spouse is never complete. This analogy of our growth into the life of God is imperfect in many respects; for example, God does not change as we are transformed by God’s power. We become like God, but God does not become like us.

Despite the exalted condition to which the Eastern Orthodox believe God invites humans if they will accept his invitation to union with him and allow him to transform them into what he wants them to become, they also have a deep sense of the sinfulness, even the depravity, of fallen humanity, thus, the strong identification with the tax collector not daring to lift his eyes toward God and repeatedly pleading for mercy.

Hesychasm then is not merely the recitation of the Jesus Prayer, but includes the attitude with which it is said and the entire circumstances of one’s life. The Jesus Prayer is said unceasingly to achieve union with God and as a technique for spiritual purification. It is as one Orthodox source says, “a way of life and a fundamental method for healing the soul.”

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Chapter 6 - Additional Forms of Active Contemplation

The Jesus Prayer

One of the most revered and used prayer techniques in Eastern Orthodoxy is the so-called “Jesus Prayer.” The use of the Jesus Prayer is an integral part of the spirituality known as Hesychasm, a which comes from the Greek word for silence, or an inner stillness. The prayer itself usually takes the form of constant repetition of the sentence, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Variations do exist, such as “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner,” or shorter forms such as “Jesus, have mercy on me,” or, even more simply, “Jesus,” but the most authentic form of hesychastic prayer uses the complete sentence that asks the Lord Jesus for mercy on the sinner pray-er. Generally, it is advised to say the prayer slowly and loud enough as to be barely audible to the pray-er.
The prayer is based in the main on the story related by Jesus in Luke 18 in which a Pharisee enters the Temple to brag to God about the righteous life he leads, while a tax collector stands at the back of the Temple, his head bowed, repeatedly saying, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Jesus taught it was the latter who was made right with God by his prayer, not the former, who placed his trust in what he did to make him right with God.

It might seem at first glance that the Jesus Prayer is but a special form of Dom Freeman’s Centering Prayer with “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” serving as the mantra. But though someone using Centering Prayer could choose this sentence as her mantra, viewing the two forms of prayer as equivalent would be radically mistaken.

I note here that our overview of various forms of active contemplation is necessarily incomplete. For example, both Fr. Keating and Dom Freeman have written and taught extensively on their respective forms of Centering Prayer. If you are attracted to one of these forms of prayer, you would benefit from further study in the works referenced for that form.

The Jesus Prayer embodies an ethos that has had an immeasurable impact on Eastern Orthodox spirituality in general and its monastic expression in particular. The Jesus Prayer is but one facet of a multi-faceted life in Christ. To complicate matters further, the Jesus Prayer has been given certain New Age elements in some of its Western interpretations, with particular attention to energy centers in the body called “chakras.” I will not discuss these latter variations on Hesychasm, but will, as best I as a Westerner can, discuss the Jesus Prayer in the context of traditional Hesychast spirituality.

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How do we measure “success” in Centering Prayer?

There is no more certainty that Dom Freeman’s method will be successful for a particular individual than will Fr. Keating’s. But the question must be raised: How do we measure success in prayer? Is prayer successful only if we get what we pray for? What if we are not praying for anything but are simply trying to rest quietly in God, and yet God seems nowhere at hand? If we spend 20 minutes in Centering Prayer and been anxious and distracted the entire period, have we wasted our time?

Keep in mind that prayer is orienting ourselves toward God, intentionally directing our lives toward God in love. Prayer so defined can never be a waste of time even though it does not bring the consolation or results that we hoped it would. This does not mean that we should continue to beat our heads against a wall by continuing to use some prayer technique that makes us more anxious and distracted than other forms of prayer. We are each individuals with individual temperaments, individual environments in which we live and work, and individual life experiences that we bring to prayer. These individual factors will heavily color our prayer lives.

Some persons, for example, think primarily visually, that is, they picture in the mind’s eye what they are thinking about. Other persons are primarily verbal. When a visual person hears the word “tree,” she may imagine the image of a tree, while a verbal person hearing “tree” may think of a verbal description of a tree. If a visual person tries to use prayer techniques that are designed for verbal persons, he is likely to become frustrated and perhaps come to believe that all prayer is a waste of time; and, conversely, a verbal person encouraged to use techniques that involve constructing visual images in his imagination will be frustrated. Few, if any people are purely verbal or purely visual in the way they think, but most are predominantly one or the other.

I strongly encourage everyone to experiment with a variety of prayer techniques to find those most suited to their own circumstances. Do not be afraid to make up your own prayer techniques.

Centering Prayer is not for everyone, but the failure to “feel” that Centering Prayer, or any prayer, has been successful is not the measure of its success. There may even come a time in one’s spiritual life that no prayer technique seems to work. All prayer seems dry. God seems more distant than ever, and concentration at prayer time is an impossibility. Ironically, as we will see later in discussing the “Nights,” such aridity may signal progress in prayer.

Prayer that causes tears to flow or an abundance of laughter is not necessarily the best prayer. Prayer having strong emotional value to us can even become a hindrance to spiritual growth as the prayer becomes more an end in itself, a method to obtain a spiritual high, instead of a means to open ourselves more to the transforming grace of God.

What is the measure of success in prayer? My first piece of advice is not to try to keep score. Although there may be some benefit to keeping records of our achievements if we play golf, bowl or are track stars, there is no such benefit in keeping score while trying to follow Christ. As St. Paul said, “We all fall short of the glory of God.” Even trying to keep score can be a source of distraction and even derail our spiritual progress, which, after all, is God’s work, not ours. Remember, too, that if God kept score, we would all lose.

But we should be aware whether the prayer is leading us to conform our wills more closely to what we believe God desires of us. Holiness consists in the choices we make, not in how we feel. If we are sincerely trying to follow the will of God in our regard as best we can discern that will, then we are moving in the right direction. And if whatever form of prayer we use strengthens us in that resolve, then it is successful. If our prayer makes us more willing to let God be in control of our lives rather than ourselves, it is successful. If our prayer enables us to be more compassionate and loving toward others, more willing to sacrifice for the sake of advancing the Kingdom, it is successful.

If, on the other hand, we are filled with joy and sense that God is next to us every time we sit down to pray, but when we finish we kick the dog and yell at the kids, then maybe our prayer is not as effective as it might be. The biblical cliche, “By their fruits, you will know them,” is still valid today.

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The rationale for the two forms of Centering Prayer

Fr. Keating himself says that the form of Centering Prayer that he teaches is based on an anonymous 14th century English work “The Cloud of Unknowing.” This latter text is firmly within the Way of Darkness described in Chapter 3.

God cannot be known through natural human capabilities. If we are to know God, this knowledge must come outside of anything that can be sensed, felt with the emotions, or created by, or contained in, our minds. Indeed, since those objects or concepts we can know through our natural faculties cannot be God, such objects or concepts, as well as the way we come to know them, can be a hindrance in coming to the genuine experience of God. If we cling to what we can know by ourselves, we will hinder God in God’s action to bring us to a more direct experience of Godself. We must, therefore, empty ourselves of all such natural impressions and create an emptiness that God can fill. God is encountered in the “cloud of unknowing” which we enter after passing through the “cloud of forgetting.”

The sacred word in Fr. Keating’s Centering Prayer is to help us remain in the emptiness and darkness in the hope of experiencing God there. It is, one might say, a gentle guardian at the gates of the darkness in which we place ourselves to engage in this form of Centering Prayer. The sacred phrase, or mantra, of Dom Lawrence Freeman’s Centering Prayer, however, is not used for this purpose.

Phrases repeated over and over again can have a calming effect, somewhat like counting sheep to fall asleep. There is, of course, also power in sacred words and phrases, remembering St. Paul’s statement that no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except with the help of the Holy Spirit. Saying a mantra over and over with the intention of accepting God’s invitation to come to union with God in love and to open ourselves to God can have the effect of focusing the mind on God and bringing us to a state of quiet resting in God. The mantra itself is, in effect, a petition to God to take control and allow us to enter a deeper relationship with him.

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A digression on distractions

A common problem that almost everyone who attempts a regular regimen of prayer has is concentrating on praying when there are some many other demands on his attention: thoughts bouncing about in the mind, stomach rumbling, the anxiety produced by all the tasks that still must be completed, an argument with a friend, the severe illness or death of someone close, etc., etc., etc. The mind, the emotions and the senses all seem to team up to try to keep us from praying, particularly when we are trying to rest quietly in God. Distractions may be less of a problem when we are talking to God, but they often become a significant issue when we find ourselves alone in silence.

Nevertheless, humans have an amazing capacity for filtering out interference from external signals in order to gain the information the signals contain. For example, a television picture can be “fuzzy” due to poor reception, but the viewer may still have no trouble recognizing the images on the screen in spite of the fuzz. Radio or telephone reception can include static, but much of the time, the listener can still understand what is being said. It takes an unusual amount of fuzz or static before the picture or sound becomes unintelligible. Another analogy we can use is traffic noise in the street outside our workplace. The street noise is always there to a greater or lesser extent, but, unless the pattern of noise becomes unusual, as when, for example, there is an automobile accident close by, we do not find that the street noise is a significance hindrance to our concentration.

Likewise, if we think of distractions as simply static on the line, or street noise outside our window, we can more easily ignore it. We do not fight the potential distractions but just filter them out so that we are left with the quiet resting.

We might think of placing our souls in the stratosphere high enough so that we are well above the clouds, wind and weather which are our potential distractions. The clouds and weather float beneath us, but they do not disturb us. They are simply there. We need pay no more attention to them than we would the weather as we float high above it.

You may well say that this is all fine in theory, but it is difficult in practice, and you would be right. The mind, emotions and senses are not quieted by God except in higher forms of infused contemplation, and they may well become genuinely annoying in the early stages of infused contemplation as God begins to communicate Godself directly to the soul, a communication that may yet be too vague for the soul to recognize, yet this communication bypasses the mind. emotions and senses so that these redouble their efforts to regain the attention of the pray-er.

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Fr. Freeman’s form of Centering Prayer

    Fr. Freeman’s method, as noted earlier, involves the use of what he himself calls a mantra; therefore, we will use that term as well. Fr. Freeman suggests the use of “maranatha,” usually translated as “Come, Lord Jesus,” as a suitable mantra, but persons are free to choose their own. Presumably, however, the mantra will have some significant religious meaning to the one choosing it.

    Whatever mantra is chosen is repeated quietly again and again by the pray-er. The mantra is, of course, itself a prayer. Repeating a phrase such as “Jesus, I love you,” or even, “Love,” or “Jesus,” focuses the mind on the phrase and the reality that underlies the phrase. Constant repetition can help the mind relax and put aside other thoughts.

    However, one must take care that the phrase itself, and repeating the phrase, do not themselves become distractions. If you are constantly reminding yourself that you must repeat the phrase, you must repeat the phrase, you must repeat the phrase, because there are many other things you would really rather be doing or thinking about, then this form of prayer is not likely to be useful.   Or if the phrase is repeated for its own sake, rather than because you are saying yes to God’s invitation to come to God in love and open yourself to his transforming power, then the exercise may not even be a prayer at all. Prayer, by definition, must be directed toward God, and even holy words said without that purpose, for example, as in a play, or for the sole motive of relaxation, do not form a prayer.   On the other hand, almost any phrase chosen and repeated for the purpose of saying yes to God and asking that God bring us to union with him according to his will expressed through Jesus will be a prayer.

Fr. Keating’s form of Centering Prayer

    Centering Prayer as taught by Fr. Thomas Keating involves a sacred word. The word in this case, however, is not a mantra, nor is it intended for constant repetition.   Its purpose to help the pray-er to gently brush aside distractions in a manner to be described shortly. Fr. Keating suggests that the word be short, one or two syllables, or at most three, unlike Fr. Freeman’s mantra which can be longer, even an entire sentence. Words such as “Jesus,” “love,” or “God,” are typical sacred words used in Fr. Keating’s form of Centering Prayer. Once again, a word should be chosen that will remind you that you are saying yes to God’s invitation to come to God in love and to be open to God’s work within you.

    The primary use of the sacred word in Fr. Keating’s form of Centering Prayer is to gently brush aside distractions. You do not fight the distractions since such a struggle, as noted earlier, will only serve to focus your attention on the distractions and will itself then become a distraction. Nor is the sacred word to be thought of as a shield or sword to drive off since these images imply a struggle or warfare. The sacred word is more akin to a feather used to gently brush aside a distraction that may threaten your quiet resting in God. And unlike a mantra, which is continually repeated, the sacred word is used only when necessary to regain one’s focus.

    A “mantra,” as the term is usually used, is a word or phrase that one uses each time one prays. A sacred word, on the other hand, can change from session to session of Centering Prayer, but it should not be changed during a session since seeking for another sacred word will itself be a distraction.

    How long should a Centering Prayer session be and how often should one pray using this method? Generally, 20 minutes twice a day is suggested, but this should be taken as a suggestion only and not as a hard and fast rule. Trying to “squeeze prayer in” in the middle of a hectic day is often difficult and could easily make such prayer time chaotic and anxious.   Often the best times to attempt Centering Prayer are early in the morning before the day’s rush begins or later in the evening after the day’s work has been completed. In any case, a quiet, comfortable location free of distractions is advisable. You do not want to have interrupt your prayer time to answer the phone or rush to remove a pot that is boiling over on the stove.

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Chapter 5 - Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer, a technique for active contemplation

One of the most difficult problems that anyone attempting active contemplation faces is distraction. A distraction is simply any thought, noise, annoyance, etc., that prevents us from quietly resting in God. Distractions are like static on the line or fuzz on the television screen. They are the phone call in the middle of an important task that requires intense concentration. Quite clearly, distractions are an obstacle to active contemplation.

One of the major distractions a person can face is discomfort. Some may tell you that you must pray with your palms up, or your arms raised, sitting in the lotus position, kneeling or standing. However, if you are going to engage in active contemplation, it is vitally important that you be comfortable because a sore back or cramps in the legs are going to be big-time distractions.

You may worry that if you are too comfortable, you will fall asleep. Don’t worry about going to sleep. Maybe you need the sleep more than you do the active contemplation. If you are worried about what others may think of your snoozing during prayer time, or you are concerned that your snoring may be a distraction for others, then practice active contemplation alone. There is no rule that says you have to be in a group to pray, and Jesus even once advised that when we pray, we should pray in secret.

The fact is that active contemplation can be quite relaxing. The techniques of Centering Prayer, the form of active contemplation we explore in this chapter, can be used even by non-believers as means to ease tension and to put aside the pressures of the day. So what is Centering Prayer?

There are two principal schools of Christian Centering Prayer. One form is a “baptized” version of the mantra prayer used by Hindus. Fr. John Miles, an English Benedictine monk, lived for a time in a Hindu ashram(or commune) where he learned how to pray with a mantra. He recognized that this form of prayer could be adapted for Christians. His colleague, Fr. Lawrence Freeman, also an English Benedictine, travels all over the world teaching this form of Centering Prayer and heads an organization devoted to promoting it, the World Community of Christian Meditation.

A second form of Centering Prayer is taught by Fr. Thomas Keating, Trappist monks, and was also promoted by Fr. Basil Pennington before his untimely death. Fr. Keating is a much-sought-after speaker and also offers retreats at his monastery in Colorado to train persons to teach Centering Prayer. Such advanced training is required before someone can offer workshops under the auspices of Contemplative Outreach, an organization devoted to promoting this form of Centering Prayer.

Why are there two forms of Centering Prayer? Indeed, why are they both called “Centering Prayer” in the first place? Both are intended to help an individual find his or her “center,” that special place within the soul where the “true self” is to be found, or where God dwells. I myself do not find these concepts of the “true self,” or the “center” of my being where God dwells, to be particularly helpful, even though I believe Centering Prayer in either form can be an aid in active contemplation. To me, the essence of both of these methods is that they enable the pray-er to overcome distractions so that he or she might be better able to rest quietly in God.

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The role of the senses in active contemplation

Attempts at active contemplation will generally convince the average person, even a devout average person, that the senses, the emotions and the mind do not easily engage in a quiet resting in anything, much less in a God who is totally beyond their comprehension. The senses, mind and emotions will continue to be engaged by sounds, sights and smells that come their way; anger about a botched car repair; or some slight at work. The mind will be thinking about this, that and whatever, particularly if the person trying to meditate has numerous pressing concerns.

The harder one tries to suppress distractions, the more distracted one becomes. Suppressing distractions itself becomes a major distraction. What then is one to do about distractions? We will specific techniques to suppress distractions in the next chapter. For now, we note that a continued focus on whatever it was that inspired the soul’s movement toward God and initiated the quiet resting in the first place, that is, the initial seed for contemplation, might be an aid to avoiding distractions. If we are intent on one task, we might not then be bothered by thoughts of all the other tasks that remain to be completed. Thus, continuing to listen to an inspiring musical work, for example, may assist in achieving a quiet, or at least semi-quiet, resting in God. Continuing the contact with the inspirational work of art may assist us to go beyond ourselves, leaving the distracting influences inside of us behind.

Paths to Contemplation - 15

2011-03-19T03:07:00.000-07:00

The Arts as inspiration for contemplation

    If Nature is God’s creation might contain seeds for contemplation, so too might human creations, especially those that are devoted to the glory of God. Art can point the mind toward God and help it enter a quiet resting in God.

    Some theologians say that humans are co-creators with God. This means that God allows humans to complete and extend the work of creation that God began. Through the exercise of their free will and the talents they possess, humans make new objects that would have not have otherwise existed. Therefore, human creativity also is a reflection of God’s creativity, and may thereby serve as the inspiration for active contemplation.

    Humans also can sense beauty and experience awe. The ability to appreciate beauty and to be awe-struck by the power and grandeur of nature are probably uniquely human traits. Indeed, it is through observation of the splendor of nature that humans that formed the foundation for their belief in gods, and they then attempted to express this splendor through the arts.

    The transcendent, by definition, lies beyond our natural abilities. If we can understand an object or idea, it is not transcendent, nor is it mysterious. Some suggest that we must go within ourselves to our “center” to find our “true selves,” and even to encounter God. Perhaps, in some sense, this is true, but if anything is transcendent, it is God. God is supremely and absolutely beyond the reach of our natural capabilities, be they sensory, emotional or intellectual. To encounter God, I must go outside myself because God cannot be transcendent and be fully contained within my own narrow limits. By seeking God outside myself, I let God draw me where I could not otherwise go. It is only in this way that I truly come, through the power of God, to the knowledge of God.

    Great art should enable us to go beyond ourselves into realms we would not otherwise enter. Great art, like parables and myths and nature, enables our senses, our emotions and our minds to reach out to, and come in contact with, however feebly, the transcendent reality of God. We may not see God in a painting or hear God in a symphony, but we may indeed be led to recognize that some transcendent power underlies such works, a power that is not merely human but that is supernatural, literally beyond nature.

    The Eastern Orthodox use icons for religious inspiration. Icons, in Orthodoxy, are more than art. They are more than symbols of what the icons portray. They are windows to the realities that underlie the icons.   When one gazes at an icon of Christ, one is drawn through the icon into the reality of Christ. The icon is a window through which one can look to see Christ with the eyes of faith. To gaze on an icon of Christ is to bring oneself in contact with Christ, not the Christ of the icon, but the Christ, the Son of God.

    Like icons, art should enable us to pass beyond what the art portrays into the reality, the truth, that underlies the art.   This is not to say that when we see a picture of a can of tomato soup, we think of tomato soup and somehow come in contact with the “reality” of tomato soup. In a sense, the more “real” art is, the less it is helpful to us in transcending our natural limits, just as we might say that newspaper articles are not as useful as myth in aiding us to come into contact with transcendent truth.

    Art of whatever kind can point our minds toward God and help us to come to a quiet resting in God. And we might also use art as an aid in forms of prayer other than active contemplation. Creating the art itself can be a powerful form of prayer, as is the case, for example, with the painting of icons. Or the art may lead us to verbal prayer or cause us to sing in adoration, but this is not contemplative prayer, though it may still be a holy and useful form of prayer. Once we have entered a state of active contemplation, we may shut our eyes or our ears and rest quietly in God for the art has then finished its role in leading us into a contemplative state.

    But one might argue that by continuing to gaze at a painting or to listen to inspiring music may be the best way to keep us focused and enable us better to avoid distractions that would disturb our quiet resting. Can we not use our senses to keep our mind from wandering by continued attention to a painting or music to that the mind is better directed toward God alone?

Paths to Contemplation - 14

2011-03-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

Contemplation inspired by Nature

    God created all things, and when God looked on his creation, so Genesis tells us, he pronounced it good.   The Gospel of John tells us that all things were created through the Word of God and with him was made nothing that was made. When someone creates something original, his or her imprint is found on what is created.   God’s imprint is found in Creation.

    Scripture tells us even more about God’s creation of humanity. Humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Thus, while God’s imprint is found on all of Creation, it is found in a special way in humans.

    There are those who believe that material Creation is evil. Some believe that even if material Creation is not evil in itself, it is a hindrance to a genuinely spiritual life; thus, a person must practice spiritual exercises that allow the soul to free itself from matter in order to ascend into the “pure” spiritual realm where “true” bliss is to be found.   If this is, in fact, the case, then God prepared a trap for humans by placing them within the context of a material universe. In effect, God put them in a prison from which they must escape to have any hope at all of coming to know God. The notion that Creation is good and bears the imprint of God does not seem consistent with a view that Creation is evil and is a obstacle that God deliberately placed in our way to thwart our coming to know him.

    There are also many Christians who believe that fallen humanity is so corrupt that it is an abomination in the eyes of God and deserves nothing but eternal torment in hell. This view denies the idea that humanity is part of a Creation that God called “good.” Although created in the image of God, humanity is viewed by God in much the same way that God views Satan. This is not my own belief, nor probably the belief of most Christians. If Creation was good once, it is still good. If human beings were created in the image of God, they remain so today.   God’s desire is not find a way to condemn us, but to grace us with whatever we need to come to the knowledge of God, to share in God’s own life through love. To believe that God loves us and wants us to love him requires that we believe God wishes to enjoy some form of intimacy with us. If God found humanity abhorrent, why would he want to share himself with us in such an intimate and enduring way, much less assume our nature in Jesus Christ?

    If Creation somehow carries the imprint of God and reflects God’s glory, even in a modest and derivative manner, then Creation can serve as the inspiration for active contemplative prayer. Many persons, even those who are not avowedly religious, have looked at a sunset and sensed an awesome beauty and power that they cannot adequately express. New parents look into the face of their child and experience a wonder and joy that cannot be communicated. Others look at the complexity of a living being and see therein a design that leads them from what they see to a hint of a Creator whose intelligence soars far beyond their own. This is the stuff of natural contemplative prayer.

    Remember that we are discussing contemplative prayer. A sunset may inspire someone to pour out words of praise to God. A newborn may inspire its parents to prayers of thanksgiving as well as prayers for the well-being of their child. But prayer involving words or song or mental exercises is not contemplation, however appropriate and useful it may be otherwise. Natural contemplation involves using Creation to lead our souls into a quiet resting in God.    It is the quiet resting that is essential to contemplative prayer.

    But someone may object that when many see a sunset, they are led to sing hymns. That is well and good. Let them sing hymns. Active contemplation is not the only form of prayer, nor, for many, is it the “best” form of prayer. Prayer should be an expression of our acceptance of God’s invitation to come to union with God in love and an opening of ourselves to the transforming work that only God can perform to bring us to that union. Remember that every moment of our lives should be a prayer. Certainly, not every moment of our lives can, or should, be spent in active contemplation. For many devout souls, active contemplative prayer may not be helpful to spiritual growth.

    What can we use to “trigger” natural contemplation? Almost any aspect of creation can draw the mind toward God. Here are but a few possibilities:

    - A sunset, clouds, a star-filled sky, a stream or body of water, or a scenic view;
    - The human hand as a marvel of God’s creative power;
    - The sounds of nature;
    - The beauty and grace of an animal, perhaps of a pet;
    - Any form of life, even the most humble.

    A powerful inspiration to active contemplation is the human face. To look into another person’s face with the realization that that person is beloved of God and created in God’s image can arouse awe and wonder.   There is an immense power in the human face, so much so that it is often threatening or too evocative to gaze deeply into another’s eyes.   There is a saying that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. If we could see the souls of others, we would be dazzled by their radiance.

    Once the mind has been directed toward God by whatever inspiration is employed, the mind should be allowed to rest quietly in God. The resting may be coupled with strong emotions such as joy, or happiness, or even sorrow, but we should simply rest with these emotions, neither fostering them nor denying them. Once our attention is directed toward God, we may even want to close our eyes so that the initial inspiration does not then become a distraction from our quiet resting.

    Nature, however, is but one possible source of inspiration to active contemplation. We now turn to another.

Paths to Contemplation - Post 13

2011-03-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

"Seeds" for active contemplation in the Way of Light

The Way of Light, you may recall, uses "light" as a metaphor for God. God may dwell in unimaginable, inexpressible light, but God is still thought of as dwelling in light rather than darkness. The Way of Light and the Way of Darkness(more about the latter in the next chapter) are distinguished in part by the means they use to inspire active contemplation. As the names imply, the Way of Light allows the use of the senses -- most notably, but not exclusively, sight – while the Way of Darkness applies techniques that bypass the senses. In the Way of Light, we attempt to focus our senses and our minds on an image, sound, smell, etc., that might direct the mind toward God. In the Way of Darkness, we attempt to quiet the senses and "empty" our minds.

The use of images and sensory impressions may lead one to believe that contemplation is essentially the same as meditation. This is not the case, although the literature sometimes uses the two concepts interchangeably. It may be helpful, therefore, to digress a moment to discuss the difference between meditative prayer and contemplative prayer.

A key aspect of contemplation is that it is a quiet resting. Meditation, however, involves the intentional use of one or more mental faculties. There are various forms of meditation of which an extended discussion would take us far from the intended scope of this book. In meditation I might use my imagination to make myself present in some biblical event, or I might engage in an intellectual reflection on an important life issue in order to clarify God’s will. I might gaze at a picture of Christ and listen with my heart for any words of wisdom the Lord might provide for me. The initial inspiration for meditation might even be the same as the initial inspiration for active contemplation, but, in meditation, the purpose of the initial inspiration is to help my mind reflect on some aspect of my faith, not to enter a quiet resting in God. It is certainly true that meditation may lead to contemplation, but it is not true that meditation is, in fact, contemplation. The states of mind in meditation and contemplation are different. In meditation, the mind is active; in contemplation, it is at rest.

What then are some of those things that can help lead into a state of active contemplation?

Paths to Contemplation - 12

2011-03-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Paths to Contemplation - Post 11

2011-03-15T03:26:00.000-07:00

The Way of Darkness and the Way of Light

    Of course God is neither dark nor light. But we have no words to describe God so we do the best we can with what we can know by means of our unaided intellects. The Ways of Darkness and of Light portray in an imperfect way means by which the soul approaches God. The Way of Darkness(the apophatic way, or the via negativa, the negative way) has been dominant in Western spirituality, while the Way of Light(the kataphatic way, or via positiva, the positive way) has been dominant in Eastern Orthodoxy. Both point toward means to enter contemplative prayer.

    The Way of Darkness is grounded in the truth that no verbal descriptions, no images, no sounds – in short, nothing that we can either create or sense with our natural faculties – is, or can be, God. To experience God directly, we must put away all thoughts and feelings and enter into what one anonymous writer called the “cloud of unknowing.” We enter the cloud of unknowing by passing through the “cloud of forgetting,” leaving behind all mental constructs, emptying our minds, creating a darkness, a void, into which God can enter. Obviously, given the dynamic nature of our intellects, it is no easy task to create this cloud of unknowing. But, as we shall see, there are techniques that have been developed to try to do just that.

    The Way of Light is grounded in the truth that God is ineffable light – using the term “light” here as a metaphor to express something that is essentially inexpressible. The Psalmist and other holy writers remind us that God’s glory is reflected at least dimly in creation, much as the light of the moon is merely a reflection of sunlight falling on the moon’s surface. Therefore by the use of appropriate objects and images, and exercises directed at seeing God’s reflection in these objects and images, we will open our minds to the direct experience of God, should God choose to grant that experience to us.

    Icons in Eastern Orthodoxy, which are believed to be windows through which one can look to glimpse the reality that underlies what the icon represents, not to mention the strongly sensual beauty of the Orthodox Liturgy, are examples of the Way of Light.
    One should not conclude, however, that the Way of Light is not found in Western spirituality, or that the Way of Darkness is unknown in Eastern Orthodoxy. Some Western spiritualities, such as Ignatian and Franciscan, are kataphatic(the Way of Light), and the Jesus Prayer, so integral a part of Orthodox spirituality, may well be considered apophatic(the Way of Darkness).

    With this brief introduction to the nature of contemplative prayer and the two basic approaches thereto, we move on to techniques of active contemplation.

Paths to Contemplation - Post 10

2011-03-14T03:09:00.000-07:00

What is contemplative prayer?

Contemplative prayer is a quiet resting in God. It might, therefore, be considered practice for heaven when we will experience God directly.

Contemplative prayer is “quiet” because in this prayer we do not try to talk to God or otherwise communicate our thoughts or desires to God. Contemplative prayer is a prayer of silence.

Contemplative prayer is “resting” because in this prayer we seek to avoid action rather than foster it. We are not only silent, but we do not engage in bodily motion, such as dance, to express ourselves to God, nor do we deliberately engage in any activity, even thought. Contemplative prayer is a prayer of “being,” rather than doing.

And, although any prayer, by definition, is directed toward God, in contemplative prayer we are silent and relaxed so we are trying to be more in God and with God than simply pointed toward God or directing our activity to God. In contemplative prayer we are simply there for God.

And how will God respond to an effort to quietly rest in God? We cannot say. Perhaps it will seem that God is not responding in any way whatsoever. Our minds may be flooded with distracting thoughts, such as work we have to get done by the end of the day, or the noise of children playing outside. As we will see later, there are ways to try to minimize such distractions. Nevertheless, contemplative prayer is not necessarily for everyone, or even for any particular individual at all times.

In contemplative prayer we are trying, in essence, to create a opening within our minds and souls through which God can enter; or, we might think of this prayer as emptying part of ourselves so that God can fill the space created. Through contemplative prayer, we are attempting to experience God in a special way.

But God transcends natural human experience; that is, we can experience God only through God’s freely granting us this experience. We cannot know God directly through our own efforts no matter what spiritual or ascetic practices we engage in. Only God can bring us to know God. Thus, in some sense, the attempts at contemplative prayer that we ourselves undertake are petitions to God to grant us the knowledge of God, the foretaste of heaven we referred to earlier. Thus, there are actually two forms of contemplative prayer: active contemplation that we initiate, and passive contemplation that comes from God alone.

Because God cannot be known through our natural mental capabilities, we must conclude that if we do have an authentic experience of God, we cannot communicate that experience to anyone else through mental images, such as verbal descriptions or drawings or music. But we do think about God, and we do talk about God with others, and we do read about God in books. Consequently, we form images of what God is like, or what characteristics God must have, even though we have to admit that God lies altogether beyond such limited concepts.

In worship, art, poetry and music we may be more successful in overcoming the limits of our natural inability to know God. But although poetry and art can often convey deeper truths than can a more “realistic” account, they are still limited because our minds, however stretched, cannot reach all the way to God. Tradition and experience indicate that as we seek a deeper and deeper understanding of God, a God who surpasses all understanding, we will find ourselves on one of two paths.

Paths to Contemplation - Post 9

2011-03-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

Is one form of prayer better than another?

    One may argue that some forms of prayer are better than others. The question is analogous to asking what gift of the Spirit is best?   John Howe, the Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida, once spoke to the question of what gift of the Spirit was most important. He said that that spiritual gift is most important that is most needed at the time. The gifts of the Spirit are given for the good of the Body of Christ, the Church. If some members of that Body need a particular gift for their collective growth in the Lord, then that gift is most important for that group at that time. Similarly, we can say that that that form of prayer is best which helps us to be most in harmony with God’s will in our regard, and this may vary from time to time and situation to situation.

    When we direct our thoughts and actions to God, we engage in prayer. Our prayer may be intended to help someone else, such as when we pray that an ill friend will be healed. Because prayer intended to aid another is less “selfish” than prayer for a personal favor, we might say that the former is better than the latter. Or we might suggest that prayer that praising God is better than that prayer that asks God to do something.

    However, we must remember that our goal as Christians is to come to the knowledge of God, to come to know God as God knows us. Moreover, only with God’s help can we achieve this goal. God will indeed bring us to this goal if we allow God to do so. That prayer is of greatest benefit to us then that most opens us most completely to God’s transforming power.   The more that our will conforms to the will of God, the more open to God we are; and the more we yield our own desires to God’s desires, the more we give control to God rather than striving to keep control for ourselves. That prayer is best that is most in tune with God’s will for us at any given moment.   In sum, when we pray in a manner that is most in keeping with the way God wants us to pray, we pray “with God” rather than just to God.

    That prayer is best at any given time that is best fitted to God’s will for us at that time. But we might well desire most that form of prayer that is closest to our ultimate objective as Christians, that is, prayer that brings us to the direct knowledge or experience of God, that is, prayer that is a foretaste of heaven. This is the prayer of infused or passive contemplation – the direct experience of God that comes as a gift from God -- that we will talk more about later. So long as we keep in mind that passive contemplation may not be that form of prayer that we most need, in other words, that prayer through which we are able to be most open to God’s transforming grace, there is no problem in wanting it. And if we want it, we may well seek forms of prayer that may better prepare us to receive it should God grant us this gift.

    I frankly believe that the best preparation for passive contemplation is to abandon oneself to God, to seek at all times to choose as we believe God would have us choose, to offer all we have and are to God in love. But there are exercises that have the weight of tradition behind them that many have used to try to open themselves more fully to God and to prepare themselves for passive contemplation should it come. Most of these exercises involve “active contemplation.”

Paths to Contemplation - 8

2011-03-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3 - Contemplative Prayer

What is prayer?

    No Christian will doubt that prayer is an essential component of the devout life, but what is prayer and why is it important; and is one form of prayer better than another? Most Christians, even those who are well-versed in their faith, will say that prayer involves talking to God. We tell God we are sorry for our sins, the prayer of contrition. Or we ask God for some favor for ourselves, the prayer of petition, or for others, the prayer of intercession. Or we thank God for some favor received, the prayer of thanksgiving. Or we praise God for his goodness and glory, the prayer of adoration. In all of these forms of prayer, we are speaking to God, giving God some message that we want God to hear.

    Talking to God, of course, is not the only way in which we relate to God. For example, if we want God to hear what we have to say to God, we must also be open to what God has to say to us.   We can listen to God through the study of Scripture, hearing the word preached at services or simply sitting quietly, trying to be attentive to the still, small voice of God. Listening to God is as important and, arguably, a more important form of prayer than talking to God. Too often we are quite adept at conveying our desires to God but are less willing to attend to God’s desires for us.

    So what is prayer? Prayer, generally, is directing our thoughts, words and actions to God, orienting ourselves toward God in what we say, think and do. This broader notion of prayer enables us to obey the Scriptural injunction to pray always.

    Many times I have heard someone say that he or she does not have enough time to pray. What they mean is that they are having trouble finding time for “formal” prayer, a time to read Scripture, or to recite prayers from a book, or simply to recount a list of intercessions for family and friends in need. But there is nothing that prevents anyone from talking to God while at work or driving the kids to school. Even verbal prayer does not have to be lengthy. A short, “God, I love you,” or “Lord, protect my children through the day,” or, “God stand with me in this meeting that I might say and do what you would want me to say and do,” can be as, or more, effective, than a prolonged lecture directed at God.   But in addition to talking to God, we can make our actions into prayers by dedicating them to God, by orienting them and ourselves to God as we do them.

    For example, most people do not think of sleep as prayer, but adequate sleep is necessary for good physical and mental health. The need for sleep is built into our bodies. It is an integral part of being human, so it could not be sinful. If sleep is not sinful, then it can become a prayer by our deliberately offering it to God. On going to bed, we might well say, “Lord, I offer my sleep this night to you so that I might wake refreshed and better able to serve you tomorrow.” That offering of our sleep to God, accepting God’s will that we should get adequate sleep, intentionally orienting our rest toward God, makes our sleep into prayer, even though we are not talking to God while we sleep.

    Again, prayer is directing our thoughts, words and actions to God, orienting ourselves toward God in what we say, think and do. Every aspect of our lives can, and should, be prayer.

Paths to Contemplation - 7

2011-03-11T06:11:00.000-08:00

How can we come to the knowledge of God?

    As stated above, we ourselves do not have the power to come to the knowledge of God. We cannot, by whatever study or spiritual exercises, bootstrap ourselves into the life of God. Only God can transform us by the power of the Holy Spirit to remove whatever obstacles keep us from loving God with all our hearts and minds and souls and strength. For it is only when we are conformed to God in perfect love so that we can look into the face of God without pain or fear.

    There are two aspects to our coming to know God. First, we must accept God’s invitation to allow God to bring us to that knowledge. Second, we must allow God to bring us to that knowledge. We must open ourselves to God so that God can do the work that only God can do. The more we try to control the process, the less control God has and the longer the process will take. To paraphrase a statement of St. Paul’s, I must become less and less and God has to become more and more. Put another way, we must die to self so that we will be able to live more fully in God. Spiritual growth is a process of yielding ourselves up to God.

    As we become more conformed to God, we grow in holiness because God is the measure of holiness. The more we live in God, the more loving we become because God is the measure of love.

    But we ought not to mistake emotional feelings, or even some experience of God through contemplative prayer(a subject we will explore in the chapters that follow) with genuine holiness or Christian perfection.

In what does holiness consist?

    Christ was a perfect human being. But what made him perfect? It was not the color of his hair, or his facial features, or the fact that he was a man. Christ, the human being, was perfect because his human will was totally in accord with the will of his divine Father. Christ always did what the will of God required of him. Christ perfection was in his will. It was the choices Christ made, choices always in harmony with his Father’s will, that made Christ perfect and gave us the example for which ourselves are to strive.

    Our union with God in this life is perfected in conforming our will to God’s will in our regard, as best we can discern that will. By always trying to act as we believe God wants us to act, we can best accept God’s invitation to open ourselves to his transforming grace and to remove any obstacles to the action of that grace to mold us into what God wants us to be. God gives us directions not to demonstrate his authority or even to test our obedience, but to help us to cooperate with God to bring us more quickly into conformity with God. The more our wills are attuned to God’s will, the more we are conformed to God; and the more we are conformed to God, the easier it becomes to discern and obey God’s will.

    Holiness is not found in emotional highs or special mystical gifts. Our love of God is reflected first and foremost in our wills, in the choices we make, in the control of our lives that we give to God. When God gives us spiritual gifts, God will give the gifts that we need to progress spiritually, or he will give the gifts that the Church needs for the good of the Body(and not for our glorification or as a sign of how special we are), but the gifts we receive may, or may not, reflect our spiritual maturity. Perhaps God gives us some gift to try to jog us from our spiritual laziness, or to encourage us because we are only baby disciples of Our Lord. Remember this throughout the discussion of contemplative prayer.

Paths to Contemplation - 6

2011-03-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

What does the knowledge of God mean?

What does it mean to know something? In one sense, to know something is to be able to describe it so that others will also know it. In this sense, I can teach others what I know. In the case of some object, if I know the object, I will recognize it when I encounter it. The abilities to describe and to recognize, to know in the sense just outlined, are mental or intellectual abilities. They are powers of the natural mind.

When we refer to the “knowledge of God,” we are not referring to knowledge in an intellectual sense, as something of which our natural minds are capable. God, in God’s infinite and uncreated Being, totally surpasses the natural mental abilities of even the most intelligent human being who has ever lived.

No writer can describe God in words. No artist can draw a picture of God. God cannot be contained within the finite boundaries of our imaginations or reason. This is not to say that we cannot talk about God with some degree of accuracy. After all, Jesus himself taught about God in an authoritative way. Rather, anything we say about God in whatever natural medium we use is necessarily incomplete, and, to some extent, misleading. Jesus also said, “Whoever sees me sees the Father.” It is through Jesus that we can come to see God since Jesus is both created and uncreated being, both human and divine. When we truly see Jesus, we will see God.

I am not suggesting that there is no value to good theology or good preaching since we cannot, in this life, “look into the face of God and live.” We do what we can do with the resources available to us. We must, however, also be wary of mistaking our images of God for God, or what we say about God as adequately describing God. God is, and must always remain, the Ultimate Mystery.

Knowledge through experience

There is also a sense of knowing that relates to experience. To experience something is to come to know that thing. But I can know something intellectually without ever experiencing it. I can talk intellectually about human love, but this is markedly different from actually experiencing human love. Once I have experienced human love, I will recognize that my intellectual knowledge was woefully inadequate. If someone who has experienced deep human love is asked to describe that love, he or she may well reply, “If you have to ask, you would not understand.”

Our most profound human relationships are often indescribable. They take place at some deep level of our being and are so personal that no one but ourselves can truly know them.

Suppose I ask myself the question, “What does it mean to know my wife?” I could, of course, think of characteristics that would enable anyone who encounters my wife to recognize her, but this trivializes something that ought not to be trivialized. My relationship with my wife is both profound and unique. There is a union of lives. There is the love we exchange and the experiences we share. My wife, like any human being, is extraordinarily complex, someone about whom I am always learning new things. I experience my wife on a daily basis in ways that define and modify our relationship. To try to convey what it means to know my wife is an impossible and inherently frustrating task. My rambling about my wife would bore others, not enlighten them, and would not, in any case, adequately describe what it means to know my wife in the sense that I know and love her.

So it is with the knowledge of God, but infinitely more so. To know God, we must experience God as God is. We must somehow live into the “mind” of God to understand God as God understands himself. We must be so attuned to God that we can comprehend God as God comprehends us. Such knowledge cannot come about through our intellects or through any capacity that comes from human nature alone. How then do we acquire such knowledge?

Since we have no power within us to come to the knowledge or experience of God, we must rely entirely on God to gift us with that knowledge. That is, the knowledge of God can come only from God.

Three questions immediately pop to mind? Why would God allow us to know himself? Will God indeed allow us to know him? What must we do to come to this knowledge of God?

The answer to the first question - why would God allow us to know him - is a mystery buried in the heart of God. God is love, and it is the nature of love to pour itself out generously. Although God is sufficient onto himself and has no need of creatures to be God, God is the very essence of love, and love must be shared. Two expressions of God’s love are creation in general and humanity in particular. Humans are beings who can know, who are self-conscious, who can recognize that there is a higher order than just the natural order. Thus prepared, humans are ready to receive the greatest proof of God’s love God has to give, the experience of himself through sharing in his own divine life. God wishes to share his life and self-knowledge with us because of the love that he has for us.

But will God give us this knowledge? After all, the direct experience of God is hardly something that we dare hope for, much less something we can demand. What proof have we that God desires to share this wonderful gift with us?

The proof of God’s desire that we know him through loving union is Jesus Christ, at once both fully God and fully human. If God had no desire that we share in his life, he would not have shared in ours. Through our union with Christ, as members of the Mystical Body of which St. Paul speaks so eloquently, we share in the life of Christ, and, through Christ, we share in the life of God. And through sharing in that life, we can hope someday to know God, not merely know about God. As Christ and the Father are One, so the more we are conformed to Christ, the more we also become one with the Father. Though we always remain created beings, we are drawn by God’s grace and power into a relationship with God that would be impossible without Christ. Christ is both the promise and the means that God provides to prove to us that we can come to know God directly. But how is this happy goal to be achieved?

Paths to Contemplation - 5

2011-03-09T03:02:00.001-08:00

Chapter 2 - Why Are We Here?

The purpose of life

We may approach the question of coming to know God using a question that most people ask themselves at some point in their lives: What is the purpose of life? Why am I here? An atheist might say that the is no purpose for life other than perpetuating life. We live in order to perpetutate our gene pool. That’s all there is to it. This, of course, is not an emotionally satisfying answer, nor is it the answer that a Christian.

I suspect that asking a group of 30 devout church-goers for the purpose of life would bring forth 30 different responses. But most of those responses would boil down to a small number of basic ideas:

- To go to heaven,
- To serve and glorify God,
- To do good and avoid sin,
- To love God with all our hearts and souls,

to mention a few possibilities. But most Christians will not answer that their goal is the knowledge of God, to know God as God knows us, to see God face to face.

There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to go to heaven, or to serve and glorify God, or to do good and avoid sin, or to love God. We have been commanded to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength. But these responses are incomplete. They take us part of the way toward our goal, but they do not say what the ultimate goal is.

For many, going to heaven is not going to hell. Heaven is place of happiness and hell is a place of pain. And anyone is his or her right mind would choose happiness over pain. But why is heaven a place of happiness and hell a place of pain? It could not be just because heaven is full of earthly riches and pleasures. Heaven is for eternity and, as noted in Chapter 1, we would soon tire of streets of gold and grand palaces and chats with the great figures of the Bible if that were all there is to heaven.

The only thing that can fill us with happiness and joy for all eternity is the intimate knowledge of God, to experience God directly, to be able to look into God’s face, as it were, and see God as clearly as God sees us. This knowledge of God is the only thing that makes heaven heaven. Without the knowledge of God, every earthly pleasure would ultimately grow stale, and we would realize we were in hell, not heaven. For it is the absence of God, the inability to know God, that constitutes the ultimate horror of hell.

Likewise to serve God, or to do good and avoid sin, are not ends in themselves. They are means by which we cooperate with God, by God’s grace, to remove obstacles to our union with God, for it is through growing into the life of God that we come to know God.

Paths to Contemplation - 4

2011-03-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

God’s invitation to come to know him in eternity

If we cannot know God through our mind, emotions or senses, what are we to do? If our hearts yearn for this unknown and unknowable God, and no images we can create ourselves can satisfy us, what are we to do?

If only God’s intervention can allow us to know God directly, then the crucial question is whether God will intervene to give us this knowledge, and, if so, under what circumstances? For example, are there exercises we can practice that will bring about God’s intervention? Must we have a particular state of mind or soul before God will intervene? Does God even want humans to come to know him, and, even if God does want humans to know him, can this knowledge be found while we are still living on earth?

For Christians, the answer is clear. Scripture, tradition and the experience of mystics testify through the ages that God has chosen to allow humans to “see” him as he is. There are instances even in the Old Testament when God allows at least certain individuals a glimpse of himself. In this regard, there is Moses on Sinai as well as the experience of Elijah recounted in 1 Kings Chapter 19. The glory of God filled the temple at its dedication (1 Kings Chapter 8) and was apparent in visions like those of Isaiah (Isaiah Chapter 6). But it is in the New Testament that God’s invitation to come to union with himself in love, and through that union to know him, is made clear in, through and by Jesus Christ, who is both fully God and fully human.

Jesus’ divine glory was partially revealed to three terrified disciples at the Transfiguration. So important was this event considered to be in the early Church that it is recorded in all three synoptic Gospels and is mentioned by Peter, an eye witness, in 2 Peter Chapter 1.

It is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, however, that we read one of the clearest descriptions of the destiny to which Christians are called: “Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face. The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I am known.”(Jerusalem Bible translation) And how is this face to face vision of God to come about? The sight of God is the fulfillment of love. Of faith, hope and love, it will be love that we carry into eternity.

Faith concerns what is not yet seen or possessed. It is a firm trust that God is faithful, a confidence in God’s present activity in our lives, even when we do not sense God close at hand or feel God’s power working in us. Hope looks to the future. It is the belief that God will be true to his promises and grant us the Kingdom through Jesus Christ. When we see God face to face, we will have no need of either faith or hope. Then it is only through absolute love of God, that we will be able to look into the face of God without pain.

Perhaps we think of heaven as a place that is filled with every earthly pleasure. What would such a paradise include? Perhaps championship golf courses, or magnificent sunsets on demand, or the ability to wish for meals exquisitely prepared but without the calories and having to clean up afterwards. Whatever we can imagine, whatever pastimes or gastronomical joys we build into heaven, they will not, they cannot, satisfy us for eternity. Only the knowledge of an infinite God into which we continue to grow forever will satisfy us. Our hearts were made for God, as Augustine said. They were not made primarily for sensory or sensual enjoyment.

Sensual and sensory enjoyment is not necessarily sinful. It is can be source of enormous legitimate pleasure, as ought to be found in sexual intercourse between a husband and wife who love one another dearly. Food was given to enjoy as well as to sustain life. Sunsets are beautiful to look at. But our bodies have been given to us first and foremost to enable us to learn what God wants us to learn that we might come to God in love. It is only in God that we can find our fulfillment as human beings.

What if we had to live on earth for two hundred years? I suspect we would all get tired of life well before we died, even assuming we could maintain good health until almost the time of our deaths. If heaven were merely an extension of earth without the aches and pains and obligations of our present life, then we would soon get tired of life in heaven as well. After we have played golf for a thousand years, what would joy golf hold for us? After we have sampled every delicacy that can delight our palates, what joy would eating hold for us? After we had mastered every branch of science and read every book that had been written, what would we do then? But if we can look into the face of God and know God as God knows us, love with the love of God, know with the mind of God, what does anything else matter?

We might also ask: If we come to know God after death, can we come to know God while we are yet alive? We have already seen that we cannot know God except by the power of God, but does God only give us that knowledge after we have died?

There are many who believe that once one has been “saved,” by whatever act or statement brings about salvation, there is nothing more to do than to wait to collect the reward the saved are assured of when they die. Some would agree that one should lead a “good life” once one is saved, but they would also say that because no one can earn salvation through works(or lose it through bad ones), at most good works are signs that someone is saved, and not a means of salvation in themselves.

The immediate effect of being saved is to have personal guilt due to sin completely removed and the punishment remitted that one might have otherwise had to suffer because of sin. Although the punishment to be imposed because of sin is often graphically described in terms of fiery torment, the “eternal reward” that one gains from salvation is usually left rather vague. Often it is simply earthly pleasures pumped up to a higher degree, just as God is often described in pumped up human terms. If a human is good, God is all-good. If a human is just, God is all-just. You get the pattern. Thus, if playing golf on earth is fun, playing golf in heaven is all-fun.

But, as noted earlier, playing golf is not what humans long for. They long to know God, even though they cannot describe this God. Heaven cannot be heaven without imparting a direct vision of God.

Paths to Contemplation - 3

2011-03-07T04:49:00.000-08:00

A God of our own creation

We might believe that we have progressed beyond the primitive religious impulses of those Israelites, but such is generally not the case. God remains as indescribable, as awesome, as mysterious as he was to Moses and the Israelites. All we can honestly say about God is the same thing that God told Moses when Moses asked God to describe himself: God is God.

But most of us are not satisfied with an indescribable, mysterious God. We much prefer a God who is accessible, a God whom we can approach and to whom we can talk, and, preferably, a God whom we can see and touch and understand, a God who is a good friend and companion in time of need. Mark Twain once said that God created man in his image, and, ever since, man has been returning the compliment. Not only do we want a God who can be embraced within the confines of our minds as well as described in familiar terms, but we are most comfortable with a God who is like us, who thinks as we do, who behaves as we would like God to behave. Each person, to a greater or lesser extent, creates God in his or her own image.

If I believe the wicked should be punished when they die, “my God” will be a just and often vengeful God, taking retribution on those who I believe deserve it and sparing those – like myself, of course – who have the special key to God’s mercy. If I believe that God is beautiful, I will conjure up a beautiful image of God. If my God must be good, I will make my image of God good. But the justice to which my God adheres will be my idea of justice. The beauty of my God will be shaped by my idea of what is beautiful, and the goodness of my God will depend on what I believe is good.

This is not to say that God is not just, or beautiful, or good. Rather, when we ascribe characteristics to God, we are limiting God because our own description of these characteristics is limited. If we knew God, we would know justice. If we knew God, we would know beauty and goodness, but we do not know God by imposing our own ideas of justice, beauty and goodness on God.

We are accustomed to hearing that God is love, and most people will interpret this to mean that God is loving, or that God loves us. But at least one theologian wrote that this means that God is the definition of love, the essential nature of love. God and love are identical. We cannot truly know what love is until we know God, and when we know God we will know love.

Thus, we seem caught in a vicious circle. We want to know God, but whatever image we construct of God cannot be God, and may even lead us away from any chance to know God as God is. Are we then to be frustrated in our desire to know God, or must we wait until the hereafter to glimpse at last the face of the hitherto unknown Diety?

Paths to Contemplation - 2

2011-03-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

The God of the Old Testament

The Old Testament begins with accounts that expressly mention or imply only one God. There is the Spirit that moves over the waters in Creation, not the spirits. One God creates Adam and Eve. This same God is the God whom they disobey and who expels them from the Garden of Eden. One God punishes Cain for murdering his brother Abel. One God deals with Noah and is responsible for the flood described in Genesis Chapters 6 through 9. One God deals with those building the Tower of Babel described in Genesis Chapter 11. In other words, the Old Testament from the time of the Creation assumes that there is only one God. But it is not until Abraham, or Abram as he is first introduced to us in Genesis Chapter 12, that God’s relationship with humanity, and humanity’s understanding of God, begins to change radically.

We are told that God called Abram to leave his hometown and family and go to a place that God would show him. What is somewhat remarkable is that Abram’s family was polytheistic and remained so long after Abram left his ancestral home at (the one) God’s command. That they were polytheistic is shown in Genesis Chapter 31 in which we are informed that Rachel stole the household gods from Laban, her father, when she departed with her husband Jacob. “Now it may be that you had a longing for your father’s House,” says Laban, “but why did you steal my gods?” Rachel probably stole the gods because she wanted their help and protection. The road to monotheism is not one without many potholes and detours.

One should also note that just as the polytheists thought of their gods as being personal gods, the descendants of Abraham also had this attitude. God was not the universal God of heaven and earth, but a God whom one could adopt or reject depending on whether or not God showed himself able to take care of those who made him “their God.”

Consider Jacob on his way to Abraham’s ancestral homeland to seek a wife(Genesis Chapter 28). Jacob makes this vow, “If God goes with me and keeps me safe on this journey I am making, and if he gives me bread to eat and cloths to wear, and if I return home safely to my father, then Yahweh will be my God. This stone I have set up as a monument shall be a house of God, and I will surely pay you a tenth part of all you give me.”(Jerusalem Bible translation) Thus, Jacob bargains, if this God shows he can take care of him, then he will make this God his God. Presumably, if God had not taken good care of Jacob, Jacob would then has sought another god who was better up to the task.

God himself, when he calls to Moses from the burning bush(Exodus Chapter 3) does not identify himself as the God of all Creation, but, rather, as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moreover, God refers to the Israelites as “my people.” There is a close, possessive relationship between God and those whose God he is. God ordered a reluctant Moses to go to Egypt to free God’s people from slavery.

Moses wanted God to describe himself. “What should I say when they ask me who sent me,” Moses asked God. God would not give Moses a description because no description God could give would be adequate. “ I am who I am,” God answered. God basically said, God is God and that’s all you can say about me. No doubt this did not please Moses who was not enthusiastic about this mandate from God to begin with, but Moses went anyway. Gods were common in those days, and they were associated with nations and even individuals. So when Moses informed Pharaoh that his, that is, Moses’, God had sent him, Pharaoh understood what Moses was saying even though God was left undefined. Pharaoh, however, thought his gods were stronger than Moses’ God, and had to be convinced by a series of disasters that his gods could not protect him against Moses’ God. Then he let the Jews go to follow Moses into the desert.

While Moses on Mount Sinai talking to God, the Hebrews were looking up at the wild thunder clouds which Moses had entered, and they were frightened. Moses had led them from a land they knew into a wilderness they did not know. Miracles were needed to keep them fed and to provide an adequate supply of water. At one point, after Moses had been missing for a long time, the people felt they had had enough of this God they could not see, and who was literally unapproachable under pain of death. They wanted a visible god to whom they could pray, an approachable god, a god in whom they could place their confidence, a more familiar god like the ones they knew in Egypt. So Aaron, Moses’ right hand man, made the people a golden calf, proclaiming that this was the god that brought them out of Egypt.

This return to idolatry even in the very presence of God on Mount Sinai teaches us several things: First, the Israelites Moses led out of Egypt were more familiar with idolatry and polytheism than with monotheism. They would not have asked for an idol if they were not already familiar with idols and had worshiped them in Egypt. Second, in times of stress humans are more comforted by a god they can see and “understand” than by an abstract and mysterious God. The Israelites were not evil to want the golden calf. They were frightened and needed something they understand that might furnish them with at least a sense that they were being cared for and protected. So they turned to that with which they were already familiar rather than to the strange, inaccessible God who talked only with Moses.

Paths to Contemplation - 1

2011-03-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

With the first post of my new blog I am beginning a serialization of a manuscript I wrote some years ago that was never published, but which I believe may have some value for those interested in contemplative prayer. I will generally provide one or two sections of the manuscript with each post. Your comments are most welcome. If there are any topics you would like me to write on, please let me know. My email address is mgmign2@verizon.net.

PATHS TO CONTEMPLATION

Introduction

The appears to be substantial interest today in “contemplative prayer.” Exponents of contemplative prayer such as Dom Lawrence Freeman and Father Thomas Keating have large followings. Retreat houses and even secular institutes are giving workshops on contemplative prayer as a way of getting more in touch with God, or, if the group’s orientation is secular or New Age, as a means of relaxation or a method to get in touch with your “inner self.”

Contemplation is not a new idea in either Western of Eastern Christian spirituality. Writings concerning contemplative prayer date back to the early centuries of the Church, and contemplative prayer has been a staple of monastic communities such as the Benedictines and Carmelites. Many Christians engage in contemplative prayer without knowing that that is how they are praying.

This book has three major goals. The first is to lay a theological foundation for the importance of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition.

The second goal is to distinguish between active and passive contemplation, a distinction that is often overlooked in teachings about contemplation. Knowing this distinction can help those who practice contemplative prayer better understand certain experiences they may have that would otherwise puzzle and discourage them. In keeping with this second goal, I include chapter on the Nights of the Senses and the Night of the Soul.

The third goal is to offer a brief overview of the more popular techniques for active contemplative so that readers can practice those that most appeal to them.
To assist in gaining additional assistance in contemplative prayer and prayer techniques in general, I include a suggested reading list as an appendix and a chapter on spiritual direction. I firmly believe that spiritual direction can be a powerful aid to persons engaged in contemplative prayer, or any regular prayer discipline.

I am convinced that if we open ourselves to God through prayer, allowing God to transform as God wills, not as we choose, God will draw us more completely into himself so that we can know him, even in this life, and, through that transforming knowledge, become more loving and faithful servants of Christ on earth.

Chapter 1 - God the Unknowable

The God Instinct

We cannot know God through the natural abilities of our minds, emotions or senses. This is not to say we cannot come to know about God through the applications of our senses and our intellect. We may reason that the grandeur and order of the universe requires some unknown higher power to create and guide it. Or we may sense that the magnificence of a sunset or the wild beauty of the ocean is somehow a pale reflection of a beauty that is even more sublime that we cannot see. We may call this higher power or this supreme beauty God, but this still does not enable us to know this God directly.

Archeological evidence and historical records indicate that human beings have always had beliefs and rituals pointing toward powers that they intuitively sensed governed their lives and events in the world around them. Some might argue that such beliefs and rituals were but vain attempts to overcome fear of the unknown and to bring an often capricious and unpredictable environment under human control. No doubt there is some truth in this argument, but human beings also seem to have a yearning for something or someone that is greater than themselves, a restlessness that is constantly searching for something or someone that has not yet been found. As Augustine put it, “Our hearts were made for thee, O Lord, and they cannot rest until they rest in thee.” Humans intuit that there is a “God,” even if they cannot “see” him.

This instinct that there are “higher powers” led early humans to worship the sun, the moon, and various forces of nature, and to invent other “gods,” who often possessed many human attributes, and who controlled various aspects of human lives, nature and the universe. Gods were often tribal or national gods who looked after the fortunes of their people. There were frequently personal gods as well that looked after a particular individual or family.

The basic point is that to have a god or gods seems integral to humanity, and it is, in fact, only in recent years that atheism, the belief that there is no God, has attracted a significant, though still small, following. A recent poll in the United States indicated that 90% of the respondents believed in God, whatever God meant to each of them. And that raises the question, “If I believe in God, who is my God?”