Contemplative Prayer in the Western
Tradition
(Rob Moore, October 2001)
(Much of the thinking in this paper has its origins in Willigis Jäger's books, Contemplation and Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and reflections on the
Mystical Life).
The contemplative way
The desert fathers are the first to tell us about the practice of contemplative prayer, the prayer they called ruminatio or rumination. Saint Anthony wrote in the fourth century:
"A camel needs but a small amount of food. It saves it until it comes to a stable, where it regurgitates it and chews it until it seeps into its flesh and bones. A horse, on the other hand, needs a lot of food. It eats constantly and immediately loses what it has eaten. Therefore, let us not be like a horse, constantly reciting the word of God yet without embodying it. Let us follow the example of the camel, retaining every word of Holy Scripture we recite until we have embodied
it."(1)
John Cassian wrote twenty-four Conferences to help those who would practice rumination. In Conference 4 he focuses particularly on the verse of Scripture that begins the Prayer of the Hours, "Come to my aid, O God; Lord make haste to help me". Cassian extols the virtue of having this verse ever on your lips and in your heart as "it will lead to that fiery urgency of prayer which is indescribable..... as it has the strength to reject and to refuse all the abundant riches of
thought."(2)
These early texts begin to tell us already of Lectio Divina and the Christian contemplative tradition founded on the simple method of prayer Anthony, Cassian and others taught. "Unlike verbal prayer or meditation, each of which makes use of the senses, intellect and emotions, contemplative prayer takes root beyond the level of sense perception and discursive
thought." (3) From earliest times then prayer at the contemplative level was seen as the Christian's goal, what contemporary psychology calls the "transpersonal" level, where we enter into a deeper relationship with God. A good analogy is the difference between the dreaming and the 'awake' state. In the 'dream' state we believe everything is real yet when we are awake we know otherwise. It is in awakening to the contemplative state that we recognise the limitations and distortions of the rational 'awake' mind. I will come back to the implications of this important realisation later.
Repetition
As Anthony and Cassian imply, repetition is important (at least initially) as a way to enter into the contemplative state. It allows us to let go of images and pictures and to give ourselves over entirely to the presence of God. The Jesus Prayer and the modern John Main tradition of Christian meditation are both examples of this mantric prayer which lead to contemplation. The rosary was originally and can still be a mantric prayer. It has been
suggested (4) that the thinking mind came up with the mysteries of the rosary to have something to think about and the contemplative opportunity could be lost. In mantric prayer, the divine is experienced through sound. Consider the Taize chant; simple repetition takes us away from ordinary consciousness to a well within by aligning with a rhythm or vibration that already exists within. In doing this, ego boundaries fall away. Reflecting on a visual image (eg. an icon) is another way into contemplation.
The Practice of Contemplative Prayer
Although the entry into contemplative prayer can take many forms, it usually involves:
* A quiet place, a place of quiet away from distractions and interruptions. Silence has a quietening effect on the total person.
* An appropriate posture, commonly sitting in such a way as to be comfortable, usually with the back straight, on a chair or on the floor.
* An appropriate breathing pattern, an easy, steady and regular pattern of breathing conducive to contemplation; our breathing stills the mind and body as it aligns with the basic rhythms within.
* A short word or syllable, commonly suggested by teachers that is repeated within the pattern of breathing. As almost all teachers of the method insist, you must not reflect on the word's meaning.
* Time, commonly two half hour periods each day at the start of the day and prior to the evening meal. The time soon becomes 'acceptable' as the practice continues and the prayer in time will not be restricted to the formal times but will accompany the person throughout their daily activities.
Since the early writings of Anthony and Cassian, there have been many who have practiced and taught the contemplative way; notable among them were the author of the Cloud of Unknowing and St John of the Cross, first Church Doctor in mystical theology.
The Cloud of Unknowing
In The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Council, a fourteenth-century English monk describes how a student might be lead to the practice of contemplation. The author quickly advises that in contemplation, in what he calls "the darkness of the cloud of unknowing, the beginner must not let ideas about God, his wonderful gifts, his kindness or his works distract us from attentiveness to God himself... They have no place here." At first that seems surprising that we should let go of even our noble thoughts and images of God if we are to travel this path. To our 'awake' thinking mind this is a paradox.
To keep oneself focussed when distractions come (including "holy" thoughts), the author of The Cloud suggests centring attention on a short word:
"Choose a short word. Fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may. This word will be your defence in conflict and in peace.... Should some thought go on annoying you, demanding to know what you are doing, answer with this one word
alone." (5)
The author of The Cloud constantly advises the beginner to strongly associate with this 'word' your faith in God and his providence and goodness:
"Let this little word represent to you God in all His fullness and nothing less than the fullness of God. Let nothing except God hold sway in your mind and
heart." (6)
Contemplative prayer has often been misconstrued as an inward even selfish practice. The author of The Cloud strongly dispels this suggestion:
"Your fellow men are marvellously enriched by this work of yours, even if you may not fully understand how; the souls In purgatory are touched, for their suffering is eased by the effects of this work; and, of course, your own spirit is purified and strengthened by this contemplative work more than by all others put
together." (7)
This is the experience of those who practice contemplative prayer whether they be saints of ages past or the saints of today who are choosing this path again. The author of The Cloud says:
"In the contemplative work itself, he does not distinguish between friend and enemy, brother and stranger. I do not mean, however, that he will cease to feel a spontaneous affection toward a few others who are especially close to him. ... The point I am making is that during the work of contemplation everyone is equally dear to him since it is God alone who stirs him to love. He loves all plainly and nakedly for God; and he loves them all as he loves
himself." (8)
Indeed, the ideal presented by John the Baptist when he says "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30) is the ideal of contemplative prayer:
"And so reject the thought and experience of all created things but most especially learn to forget yourself, for all your knowledge and experience depends upon the knowledge and feeling of yourself. All else is easily forgotten in comparison with one's own self. See if experience does not prove me right. Long after you have successfully forgotten every creature and its works, you will find that a naked knowing and feeling of your own being still remains between you and your God. And believe me, you will not be perfect in love until this, too, is
destroyed." (9)
Contemplative prayer then according to the author of The Cloud cannot be considered as self-serving or focussed on self. He says unequivocally "do not think what you are but that you
are" (10). Indeed this path is surely what the world needs now, for all to reflect on not "what" we are but just "that" we are.
This denial of the self however comes at a cost - detachment. This terrible burden is acknowledged by masters of both the Christian and the Eastern contemplative traditions. This indispensable stage is what St John of the Cross calls the "dark night of the soul". In contrast, and by the grace of God, the person on the path also receives "consolations" from God that encourage perseverance. Focussing on these consolations, however, is to be discouraged as the risk of clinging to the graces and not going on is to be guarded against. The author of The Cloud cautions:
"With all due reverence for God's gifts, it is my opinion that we should be quite careless of all delights and consolations of sense or spirit, regardless of how pleasurable or sublime they may be. If they come, welcome them but do not rest in them for fear of growing weak; believe me, you will expend a good deal of energy if you remain long in sweet feelings and tears. Possibly too, you may begin to love God on their account and not for
himself." (11)
As time passes in the practice of contemplation, the author of The Cloud tells us our prayer will gather its own momentum and continue day and night beyond conscious control:
"In the midst of all, you will be offering to God continually each day the most precious gift you can make. This work will be at the heart of everything you do, whether active or contemplative and bring deep spiritual strength and nourishment to renew both your body and your
spirit." (12)
Centering Prayer
The ancient method of contemplative prayer described by the author of The Cloud has been revived in our day as Centering Prayer. This practical method was developed by Fr
William Meninger (13) and subsequently made popular by other members of the Cistercian communities in the USA including Frs. Thomas
Keating (14) and Basil Pennington. (15) This method has found great acceptance today within Catholic and non-Catholic communities alike.
St John of the Cross
In Spain in the sixteenth century, St John of the Cross wrote of the practice of contemplative prayer and its transformative effects. In his introduction to the Ascent of Mount Carmel, St John writes "this treatise describes how to reach the divine
quickly." (16) This is the intention of all of his writing. Like the author of the Cloud, St. John stresses the need to act passively in contemplative prayer, what he calls "passive loving receptivity". It is by God's grace we enter into the Divine relationship and not by anything we do. God "speaks to the heart in solitude." The person seeking the contemplative path must in his practice of prayer completely disengage memory, intellect and will:
"A person can with the greatest ease disturb and hinder these anointings by no more than the least act he may desire of his memory, intellect or will, or by making use of his senses, appetite, knowledge, or his own satisfaction and pleasure. This is all seriously
harmful." (17)
Even consolations as the author of The Cloud similarly warns must be ignored because when they leave us then we lose faith:
"One should not desire to clutch sensory communications nor suffer encumbrance from them, since they are what most derogates from faith. Manifestly, these visions and sense apprehensions cannot serve as a means for union since they bear no proportion to God.... As I have declared, a man desiring these apprehensions becomes coarse in his faith and even exposes himself to many
temptations." (18)
St John also dwells on letting go of self; he draws an important analogy for the emptying which we must arrive at. St John likens it to the complete emptying of self Jesus attained on the cross. This is the mystery of the Paschal Mystery we as his followers are called to share:
"If you are my disciple, come take up your cross and follow me." (Matt. 10:38)
In this emptying or 'nothingness' as St John calls it, the contemplative feels forsaken, as Jesus did:
"My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
But Jesus as St John reminds us will provide. "The cross is a supporting staff and greatly lightens and eases the journey. Our Lord proclaimed through St Matthew: My yoke is easy and my burden light (Matt.
11:30)." (19)
While St John writes much of the annihilation, the Dark Night, he writes also of the unspeakable happiness that finally comes with the divine presence:
"For this awakening is a movement of the Word in the substance of the soul, containing such grandeur, dominion, glory and intimate sweetness that it seems to the soul that all the balsams and fragrant spices and flowers of the world are comingled, stirred, and shaken so as to yield their sweet odour, and that all the kingdoms and dominions of the world and all the powers and virtues of heaven are moved; and not only this, but it also seems that all the virtues and substances and perfections and graces of every created thing glow and make the same movement at
once." (20)
As already stated, St John was writing to those "who would reach divine union". He frequently advises that those on the path should be accompanied and of how important it is that the spiritual director be very familiar with the contemplative life and able to recognise the stages of the journey so as to be able to give the right advice to the novice. St John warns in particular about holding back people from experiencing the "dark night":
"Do not say, therefore: 'Oh, the soul does not advance, because it is not doing anything.' For if it is true that it is not doing anything, I shall prove to you that it is accomplishing a great deal by doing nothing. If the intellect empties itself of particular knowledge, natural or spiritual, it advances, and the freer it becomes of particular knowledge and acts of understanding, the farther it advances in its journey toward the supreme supernatural
Good." (21)
At the same time, St John also warns:
"These directors should reflect that they themselves are not the chief agent, guide, and mover of souls in this matter, but that the principal guide is the Holy Spirit, who is never neglectful of souls, and that they are instruments for directing them to perfection through faith and the law of God, according to the spirit God gives each one."
"Thus the director's whole concern should not be to accommodate souls to his own method and condition, but he should observe the road along which God is leading them, and if he does not recognize it, he should leave them alone and not bother
them." (22)
There are some very important messages here for anyone considering this vocation today.
There are many other mystical writers who have written extensively on the contemplative way and contributed to the wealth of knowledge we have to this day on this spiritual path. Authors include saints like Sts. Therese of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila and venerable women and men like Julian of Norich and Meister Echardt. Their message of all is universally founded on love and the contemplative way and the unity with God and all things that it brings is the goal of the Christian life, that is, for everyone.
Given this extensive and rich heritage, then, why is the contemplative way not generally well regarded as relevant and practiced in the Christian churches today? Why do Christians when the word "mystic" is mentioned think of the New Age and regard anyone claiming to be mystical with suspicion? Thomas Keating, a modern contemplative, offers some answers in an essay on the history of contemplative
prayer. (23) Keating tells us that aspiring to the contemplative way was the norm up to the end of the first fifteen
centuries. (24) It has been regarded as negative for only the past five centuries for a number of reasons which I will summarise here.
In response to a period of decadence and moral decay in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, an emphasis on "mental" prayer as a means of self discipline arose. Prayer got into the head and its efficacy relied on the efforts of the person alone. Prayer became divided into
compartments: (25)
+ discursive meditation (if thoughts predominated)
+ affective prayer (if the emphasis was on acts of will)
+ contemplation (if graces infused by God were present)
These forms of prayer were already well known; what was different was that each was thought to be a distinct form of prayer instead of different acts in the same prayer experience. As a result, each form was seen as separate and ordered from the first to the last; this implied that contemplation was to be aspired to but only achieved by a few.
With the coming of the Renaissance, the emphasis of the church changed to apostolic ministry and new and 'appropriate' (ie. less individualistic) forms of prayer arose. Thankfully Ignatius of Loyola recognised the need for prayer to be relevant to the times yet maintain the tradition and developed his 'spiritual exercises'. They offered each of the forms of prayer and included the practice of contemplation. It was always Ignatius's intention that his exercises be prayer of both contemplation and action.
Unfortunately, Ignatius's vision was lost and the tendency to use the Exercises as just a method of discursive meditation was encouraged by the Jesuits who came after Ignatius. In 1574 the Superior General actually forbade the practice of affective prayer. As a result, the predominant intellectual character of this prayer continued to grow throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Given the Jesuits were key to the counter-reformation, this attitude affected greatly the spirituality of nearly three centuries. "Most manuals of spirituality until well into the twentieth century limited instruction to the schemas of discursive
mediation." (26)
Other set backs to mysticism included Quietism and the heresy of Jansenism. The contemplative path was somehow connected with these errors and mystical experience was discredited and discouraged. As well, although Jansenism was condemned, Jansenistic attitudes of pessimistic piety and the evil of human nature continued, especially in French and later Irish churches whose emigrants later gave rise to the stock from which most of western society's priests and religious have come. These attitudes have for a long time greatly influenced the outlook of seminaries and religious houses of formation in the western world.
During the nineteenth century, there were many saints but few mentioned contemplation. The practice of prayer even by contemplative orders was restricted to discursive meditation. Contemplation as we see practiced in The Cloud was regarded as both "miraculous and dangerous, to be admired from a safe distance by the average layperson, priest or religious. The final nail in the coffin of traditional teaching was that it would be arrogant to aspire to contemplative
prayer." (27)
Why is Christian contemplative prayer being rediscovered?
Despite nearly five centuries of 'at best' passive resistance to contemplative prayer, there is now considerable interest in mystical spirituality for clergy, religious and lay people alike. Modern scholarship has done much to rediscover the richness of the mystical tradition by making translations and commentaries on the written works of the masters of the spiritual life such as St John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, the Cloud of Unknowing and Julian of Norich. A wealth of writings on the subject now exists including texts like Abbe Saundreau's The Degrees of the Spiritual life first published in 1896 and other foundational works like Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism: A study in the nature and development of spiritual
consciousness. (28) The expansive series of titles published as Classics of Western Spirituality has made previously unknown works readily available to all. Even on the Internet a wealth of information can be found; complete editions of foundational texts can be found on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library site (see http://www.ccel.org). International organisations like Contemplative Outreach (see http://www.centeringprayer.com) and The World Community for Christian Meditation (see http://www.wccm.org) provide information and support in the practice of contemplation.
Why the renewed interest in the contemplative life? Why is the Holy Spirit leading people back to truths previously lost? Why have so many people in the West, many previously Christian, turned to the religions of the East and to the New Age? Why is the rediscovery of the contemplative way so important today? The answer I believe is rooted in the "immense longing" all people feel, the longing Karl Rahner has written much about. As Harvey Egan says reflecting on Rahner's work "the hunger of the heart is revealed in the mistaken belief that the thing or person that will fulfil us totally is just around the corner.... The God-experience (then) is the cause of our dissatisfaction with life, for nothing measures up that rests on our deepest
centre." (29) As one thing dissatisfies, we try something else; this was the sin of Adam and Eve and is our sin today, to seek to "try" the ultimate and be like God.
How is this hunger, this longing to be satisfied? "The human person has an immense longing quenched only when he or she has surrendered fully to Mystery's all-embracing Spirit of
Love." (30) "Rahner maintains that our deepest, primordial experience - what haunts the centre of our hearts - is a God who remains Mystery, the Word that illuminates our spirits, and the Love that embraces us. This is not a particular or categorical
experience" (31) but one beyond all particulars, a transcendental experience. This is the experience of contemplative prayer. This truth is expressed in Saint Augustine's lament "our soul fails to find rest until it rests in You". This is why Rahner wrote about the "mysticism of the ordinary" and said that men and women of the future will be mystics or not be (meaning they will not survive). We see evidence of this everywhere in our "dissatisfied" world today. All are called to follow the contemplative path; only then can the immense longing be satisfied.
How is it that contemplative prayer satisfies the longing we seek to satisfy? I'd like to return to the observation I made at the commencement of this paper. In the dream state we believe everything is real yet when we are awake we know otherwise. It is in awakening to the contemplative state that we recognise the limitations and distortions of the rational, the 'awake' mind. So what is it we awaken to? St Paul tells us:
"In my inmost self I dearly love God's law, but I can see that my body follows a different law which my reason dictates." (Romans 7:22-23)
Before the abiding Presence of God made possible through contemplative prayer can be apparent to us, God addresses the self-seeking ego or "false"
(Merton) (32) self. In dealing with the false self, God transforms us. This process is described by Keating:
"The false self is a monumental illusion, a load of habitual thinking patterns and emotional routines that are stored in the brain and nervous system. Like programs in a computer, they tend to reactivate every time a particular situation pushes the appropriate button... By means of contemplative prayer, the Spirit heals the roots of self-centredness and becomes the source of our conscious activity... The emotional programming of the past has to be erased and
replaced." (33)
The union with God that we seek then means dying to self. This reprogramming is what John of the Cross describes as the "dark night of the soul", a time of dryness and darkening of the intellect and senses as we progress along the contemplative path. Intellect, memory, and will play no active part in this purification process. The 'false' self recognises this and fights back; in this time we feel a great loss. St John describes this time as a transformative process that he compares to the effect of fire upon wood, the divine loving fire of contemplation:
"Before transforming the soul, it purges it of all contrary qualities. It produces blackness and darkness and brings to the fore the soul's ugliness; thus the soul seems worse than before and unsightly and
abominable." (34)
This path is the one entered by the 'narrow gate', the one Jesus asks us to follow in taking up our cross and following Him. The Pascal Mystery that Christians proclaim is then the way of contemplation and the "dark night" and it is imperative that people of our time rediscover this. Merton sums this up well when he says:
"Contemplation is a mark of a fully mature Christian life. It makes the believer no longer a slave or a servant of a Divine Master, no longer the fearful keeper of a difficult law, no longer even an obedient and submissive son who is still too young to participate in his Father's counsels. Contemplation is that wisdom which makes man the friend of God, a thing which Aristotle thought to be impossible. For how, he said, can a man be God's friend? Friendship implies equality. That is precisely the message of the
Gospel." (35)
Pope John Paul confirmed this at the opening of the new millennium:
"The great mystical tradition of the Church of both East and West ... shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). It is a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the "dark night"). But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as "nuptial union". How can we forget here, among the many shining examples, the teachings of St John of the Cross and saint Teresa of Avila?"
"Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine 'schools' of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love". Intense prayer, yes, but it does not distract us from our commitment to history: by opening our heart to the love of God it also opens it to the love of our brothers and sisters, and makes us capable of shaping history according to God's plan."
"It is therefore essential that education in prayer should become in some way a key-point of all pastoral
planning." (36)
Conclusion
The rediscovery of the ancient wisdom of the contemplative way is the hope of our future. It is by this way we discover, often for the first time, our 'true' self. When we live by the norms of the "false" self, "we make ourselves the self-proclaimed source of God's identity. God then becomes the one made in our image and
likeness." (37) When we travel the contemplative way, we enter into the "dark night" but we find in doing so what truly satisfies, the presence of God. It is in the personal discovery of the love of God that we are transformed; we are never the same again. We can now see others and their goodness as God sees them and this is what offers hope to our world.
References
(1) Jager, Contemplation, p.23.
(2) Luibheid, John Cassian: Conferences, p.135-6.
(3) Jager, Contemplation, p.25.
(4) Richard Rohr, pers. comm., November 2000.
(5) Johnston, The Cloud of Unknowing, (7) p.55.
(6) Ibid., p.56.
(7) Ibid. (3) p.48.
(8) Ibid. (25) p.81-2.
(9) Ibid. (43) p.102-3.
(10) Johnston, The book of privy counselling, (2) p.152.
(11) Johnson, The cloud of unknowing, (50) p.112.
(12) Johnston, The book of privy counselling, (7) p.162-3.
(13) Keating, Finding grace at the center, p.23.
(14) Keating, Open heart, open mind.
(15) Pennington, Centered Living.
(16) Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, The collected works of St. John of the Cross, p.68.
(17) Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, The living flame of love, (3) p.33.
(18) Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, The ascent of Mount Carmel, II, 11, 11-12.
(19) Ibid., 7,7.
(20) Ibid., 8-11.
(21) Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, The living flame of love, (3) p.47.
(22) Ibid., p.46.
(23) Keating, Open mind, open heart, p.19-31.
(24) Ibid. p.19.
(25) Ibid. p.21.
(26) Ibid. p.23.
(27) Ibid. p.25.
(28) see http://www.ccel.org/u/underhill/mysticism/mysticism1.0.html for the full text
(29) Egan, The mysticism of everyday life, p.10.
(30) Ibid. p.7.
(31) Ibid, p.7-8.
(32) Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere.
(33) Keating, Open Heart, Open Mind, p.16.
(34) Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, The collected works of St John of the Cross, p.399.
(35) Merton, The new man, p.17.
(36) Novo Millennio Ineunte, p.44-5.
(37) Finley, Merton's place of nowhere, p.67.
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