Nine Themes in Carmelite Spirituality 3. Carmel is spiritual
by Fr. Patrick Thomas McMahon, O.Carm.
Lay Carmelites seek God's presence in prayer while living an active life in the world. This duality of contemplative prayer and active ministry was modeled by the first Carmelites who lived as hermits on Mount Carmel, then later became mendicants in the cities of Europe.
Carmel is spiritual
We are a community centred on the word of God. The prayer book of the Carmelite is the Bible. Lectio Divina is a prayer form that the whole Order is rediscovering. Lectio Divina means the “Sacred Reading,” the prayerful, prayer filled, attentive reading of the word of God. This takes place certainly in the liturgy, both in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. But as we go about our day we continue to feed off the liturgy and in particular to feed off the scripture which we pray both in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass.
Our vocation is outlined in our Rule, The Rule of St. Albert, and that is a text which echoes and re-echoes the Sacred Scripture. It is a pastiche of texts that are drawn from the Bible. The Rule of St. Albert is a brief text. It’s about three pages typewritten and yet in those three pages there are at least forty-two direct references to scripture and an uncountable number of indirect references. This Rule of St. Albert encourages, in fact it demands, that we be a people of the Word. It says in one of my favourite quotes: “The sword of the spirit, the Word of God must abound in your mouths and hearts. Let all that you do have the Lord’s Word for accompaniment”.
What is the heart of Carmelite life? Traditionally, following St. Teresa of Avila, we’ve always said that it is the part of The Rule of St. Albert that says: “Each one of you is to stay in your own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law (that is the Lord’s Word), day and night, and keeping watch at your prayer unless attending to some other duty”. How do we Carmelites pray? Well, The Rule of St. Albert tells us those who know their letters and how to read, that they should read the Psalms appointed for each of the Hours of the Divine Office according to what “our holy predecessors laid down, in the approved custom of the Church appoints for that hour.” In the revision of the Rule by Pope Innocent IV in 1247 this was changed to the recitation not only of the psalms but of the entire Divine Office. In other words, the reading of The Psalms and, in particular, the Divine Office, is at the very heart of our Carmelite prayer Life and all Carmelites should begin to use The Liturgy of the Hours.
The early Carmelites had a life that was impregnated with the Word of God. They interrupted their day seven times to pray the Psalms. After the revision of the Rule in 1247 they listened to the Sacred Scripture as they ate their meals. They listened to the readings for Mass each day, and throughout the day and into the night whenever they were not busy at some other task they pondered this Word of God. They reflected on it. They searched out its meanings. Furthermore, subsequent Carmelite spiritual authors were totally dependent on the Word of God. We can look at these documents, The Fiery Arrow or The Institute of the First Monks. We can look at the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross. We can look at the writings of St. Therese, who practically knew the Gospels by heart, or Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, whose writings are drawn from St. Paul’s epistles. And we can see just how this entire Carmelite tradition has been shaped by knowledge of and an immersion into the Word of God. And so the Carmelite today must be a person who is impregnated with the Word of God. This is perhaps why Carmel has never much been given to devotional prayer. The sort of devotions that characterized some other Orders, especially those from the 18th and 19th centuries never took hold in Carmel. The prayer life of Carmel has always been simple: The Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and meditation on the sacred text of Scripture.
Over the past two years I have given parish missions or other renewal programs in various churches around the United States. And in each of about ten Churches I asked the congregation to stand. Then, when they were all standing, I told those who had read the Scripture in the last twenty-four hours that they should be seated. Then I asked those who had read the scripture in the last forty-eight hours please be seated; after that, the last seventy-two hours, and finally those who had read the scriptures any time in the previous week. At this point in seven out of the ten congregations, more than fifty percent were still standing. That is to say, more than fifty percent had not looked at the scripture in the last week. In the remaining three congregations, almost half sat down on the first cut. Almost half had read the scriptures in the last 24 hours! Those three audiences were Lay Carmelite communities. I often tell Lay Carmelite communities that I do not want to see them with shiny and new bibles. Bibles are meant to be worn out.
Nine Themes in Carmelite Spirituality 2. Carmel is Eucharistic
Patrick Thomas McMahon, O.Carm.
Lay Carmelites seek God's presence in prayer while living an active life in the world. This duality of contemplative prayer and active ministry was modeled by the first Carmelites who lived as hermits on Mount Carmel, then later became mendicants in the cities of Europe.
Carmel is Eucharistic
The second characteristic I’d like to talk about is that Carmel is Eucharistic. Carmelite life has always been centred around the Eucharistic celebration. The first hermits on Mount Carmel gathered daily for the Eucharist. The Eucharist was their one, daily community exercise. That first generation of Carmelites prayed the Psalms alone in their cells. They ate their meals alone in their cells. The one time each day they came together was for Mass. We think of monks and nuns and friars as always having had daily Mass as part of their lives. But this is not so. Many Orders such as the Benedictines initially only celebrated mass on Sundays and major feasts and introduced the practice of a daily mass later in their history. But the Carmelites chose to be together for daily Mass from their first days on Mt. Carmel. Now, notice that they were together for Mass every day, but unfortunately, in those days, people usually received the Eucharist rarely. And the first Carmelites most likely did not receive Holy Communion each day. Indeed they probably only received it several times a year as that was the custom of the time. It was only at the beginning of the last century that Pope St. Pius X authorized daily Communion. We are certainly glad of that practice because we know how important receiving the Eucharist has always been for Carmelites. We see it in St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, the Little Flower, St. Edith Stein, Blessed Titus Brandsma. They all write about the importance of receiving the Eucharist.
In our Carmelite tradition the emphasis has always been on participating in the Eucharistic liturgy, that is in the Mass. While Carmelites believe that Christ’s presence continues in the Eucharist, reserved after Mass in the tabernacle, Eucharistic worship outside of Mass has never been a central part of Carmelite spirituality. We know that those hermits on Mount Carmel did not go to the chapel and pray to the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass time. Their Rule explicitly commanded them to stay in their cells and to meditate there, in their cell, day and night, on the law of the Lord. In Carmelite convents and monasteries in Europe before Vatican II, it was most often impossible for the friars or the cloistered nuns to even see the Blessed Sacrament on the altar of the Church because their choir was most often located on the far side of a wall behind the altar. Among the Franciscans and the Dominicans the custom arose of communities dedicated to perpetual adoration. Thus we have Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, or Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Adoration. But this custom never arose in Carmel, primarily because the Carmelite has always prayed in the solitude of his or her cell and not in the oratory. Perhaps I should put the idea this way: the principal oratory of the Carmelite is his or her cell, not the community chapel. The Carmelite certainly can participate in all the rites and ceremonies of the Church including Perpetual Adoration. But this devotion is not of itself part of our Carmelite tradition. The Carmelite finds his or her Eucharistic centre to be the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy of the Mass. And if called by the Church, one wonderful ministry that the Lay Carmelite can offer his or her parish is to be willing to bring the Eucharist from the Mass to shut-ins to enable them to receive the Lord more often. Bringing the Eucharist to the sick we also come to them with the Word of God in Sacred Scripture which is another characteristic of our Carmelite life and spirituality.
Nine Themes in Carmelite Spirituality - 1. Carmel is Christocentric
by Fr. Patrick Thomas McMahon, O.Carm.
Lay Carmelites seek God's presence in prayer while living an active life in the world. This duality of contemplative prayer and active ministry was modeled by the first Carmelites who lived as hermits on Mount Carmel, then later became mendicants in the cities of Europe.
Carmel is Christocentric
The first characteristic of Carmel is that we are Christocentric. Carmel is first and foremost about following Jesus Christ. The Rule of St. Albert outlines the purpose of our vocation. It says: “Many and varied are the ways in which our saintly predecessors laid down, how everyone, whatever one’s station in life, or kind of religious observance one has chosen, should live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ, how pure in heart, stout in conscience, we should be unswerving in the service of our Master”. Carmelites live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ whom the Carmelite rule calls: “our only Saviour.” I will mention Mary at a later point. But let me say now that while Carmel is a Marian Order it is not so in the same sense that St. Louis Grigon de Montfort advocated for his Institute. We Carmelites never take our eyes off Jesus Christ. The first Carmelites came to the Holy Land drawn by the places where Our Lord had lived. They wanted to read the Gospels, live the Gospels, in that land. They wanted to see what his eyes had seen, and to set their feet in the paths where he had walked. I think the Holy Land still is, and always will be, a very special place for Carmelites. Carmelites are profoundly incarnational in our approach to Jesus Christ. St. Teresa tells us in The Interior Castle, book 6, chapter 7: that even at the heights of the spiritual life we cannot leave behind us our focus on the humanity of Jesus Christ. Carmelite spirituality stresses the humanity of Jesus Christ. The humanity of Christ is often misunderstood today. Many good people buy into the Monophysite Heresy which perceived Jesus so divine that his human nature has been eclipsed by his divinity. Yet this is not the faith of our Church. The faith of our Catholic Church celebrates two natures in the one person, Jesus Christ. Jesus has a divine nature exactly the same as the Father’s, and a human nature exactly the same as ours. These two natures each remain intact, and distinct. One does not absorb or eclipse the other in any way. St. Teresa advises us that the humanity of Christ should be a constant source for our meditation. We should focus on his fears in the garden as he struggled to be faithful to his Father’s will. We should focus on his bewilderment that he had been obedient to his Father’s will, but his faithfulness led not to glory but to shame – or so it would have seemed on that Good Friday. We should focus on his sense of abandonment by his friends. We should focus on the trial of faith he underwent in his passion. We need to know that as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that he was tempted in every way that we are, and we need to know as Paul tells us in the Letter to the Philippians that he did not consider his equality with God something to cling to, but he emptied himself taking on himself the nature of a slave being born in human estate. To understand our vocation as Carmelites we need to identify with Jesus as he goes into the desert for forty days to discover his father’s plan for him. We need to go with him up the mountain to spend the night in prayer. We need to go with him to the lonely place where we, like he did, can search our lives to see if we are still on track with God the Father’s will. The sacred humanity of Christ, sinless as it was, but beset by every other human condition and was even tempted, tempted far greater than we are, to sin. The humanity of Christ is our life’s breath for in his sacred humanity is the path to our salvation. As the Fathers of the Church teach us, God became human so that we might become divine. In the humanity of Christ we see our invitation to share in his divinity. This is the end, the purpose of Carmel, like the end of the Christian life in general. It is transformation into Christ so that we may share in the divinity of him who humbled himself to share in our humanity. That is why the Rule of St. Albert calls him: “Our Only Saviour”. We never take our eyes off him. We never set our feet on any path but his. We walk after him in the company of Mary, his mother, and with the other disciples, but we run after him and him alone. Like the Syro-Phoenician Woman, we grasp at the hem of his garment for our salvation.
IN SOLLEMNITATE B.V. MARIAE DE MONTE CARMELO
Flos Carmeli, vitis florigera,
splendor caeli, Virgo puerpera singularis.
Mater mitis, sed viri nescia,
Carmelitis esto propitia, stella maris.
IN SOLLEMNITATE B.V. MARIAE DE MONTE CARMELO
Fernando Prior Generalis
Domusque Generalis Communitas
16. VII. 2012
(Pietro Novelli, Madonna del Carmelo – Palermo)
Letter of the Prior General on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
By Fr. Fernando Millán, O.Carm.
Dear brothers and sisters in the extended Carmelite Family throughout the world, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is approaching. In many places there will be novenas, processions, and other ways of honouring Mary, our Mother and Sister under this title, which is so much at the heart of Carmelite life.
On the 16th of July the whole Carmelite Family feels united around the feast of Mary and celebrates joyfully the motherly protection that comes from the Mother of all Carmelites. That is why I would like, first of all, to share some of that joy with you, and encourage you to continue journeying under the sure guidance of the one we invoke with the title, Star of the Sea.
The Carmelite scapular (the humble sign of our devotion and our consecration to Mary) is used in many places as a emblem and a reminder of our Carmelite identity, our consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and her gentle and tender protection for all of us. As a sign it identifies us and brings us together. The people in their simplicity have known how to capture the power and the significance of this tiny sacramental and they show it off with great pride during this period of Carmelite festivity.
As Carmelites we know that the Feast of our Lady of Mount Carmel is not only a matter of sentimental or fleeting devotion, but something that makes us think about our vocation, identity and mission. From the very beginning there has been a feeling in Carmel of being united with the Mother of God, in the way that she was seen as the domina loci, and the way in which the order entrusted all its hopes, dreams and projects to her protection. Now, many centuries later, we too continue to place in her hands all our missions (especially in places where there is violence or extreme poverty), our pastoral plans, our communities and our hopes. We ask her to give us fidelity, wisdom and generosity in order to be able to draw on our charism and respond to the challenges, both great and small, that the Church and our society have to face today.
May Mary, our Mother, help us each day to be more like brothers and sisters to one and another, more at one in solidarity, more compassionate and more present to the men and women of our times.
I wish you well and embrace each one.
Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm.
Prior General
Lectio Divina July 2012
Lectio Divina
General Intention: Work Security. That everyone may have work in safe and secure conditions.
Missionary Intention: Christian Volunteers. That Christian volunteers in mission territories may witness to the love of Christ.
Lectio Divina July – Julio - Luglio 2012
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Decree of Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God, Mother Mary Angeline Teresa, O.Carm.
The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI gave his consent yesterday, 28th of June 2012, to the promulgation of the Decree of Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God, Mother Mary Angeline Teresa, O.Carm. (Bridget Teresa McCrory) Foundress of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm in Germantown, New York, U.S.A. Venerable Mary Angeline Teresa was born in Ireland and became a Little Sister of the Poor. While working in the Bronx, New York, she and six companions separated themselves from their former Congregation to found, with the help of the Cardinal Archbishop of New York and the Carmelite Friars there, the new Congregation affiliated with Carmelite Order. Venerable Mary Angeline Teresa died in 1984. The Diocesan Phase of the Cause, conducted in the Diocese of Albany, New York, began in 1992 with Father Mario Esposito, O.Carm. (SEL) as Postulator. Doctor Andrea Ambrosi is the present Roman Postulator.
We congratulate the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm who have seventeen houses in the United States and one in Ireland. The Sisters are leaders in the area of geriatric care and strong defenders of the sanctity of life in keeping with the charism of their Foundress, Venerable Mary Angeline Teresa.
Electoral Chapter of the Monastery of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, was held 22 June 2012. The following were elected:
- Prioress: Sr. M. Antonia Acevedo Lorenzo, O.Carm.
- 1st Councilor: Sr. Ivette Mediavilla, O.Carm.
- 2nd Councilor: Sr. Carmen Josefina Morales, O.Carm.
- Director of Novices: Sr. Lourdes Ma. Avilés, O.Carm.
- Treasurer: Sr. María Rodríguez, O.Carm.
- Sacristan: Sr. Ivette Mediavilla, O.Carm.
The Carmelite Tradition and Centering Prayer Christian Meditation 2
by Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm.
The Carmelite Tradition
We are now ready to look at the Carmelite tradition for its evaluation of these two new methods of prayer. The sources we shall examine are The Rule of St. Albert, The Institution of the First Monks, the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and the Touraine reform. I shall identify each of these sources as we address them.
We begin our inquiry with the earliest document of the Carmelite Order, The Rule of St Albert, composed between l206 and l214. It was originally a letter from the patriarch of Jerusalem that presented a “formula vitae” or life pattern for the hermits; it was revised into a full-fledged rule by Innocent IV in 1247. This latter is the “primitive rule” in Teresa of Avila’s understanding and the ideal to which she recalled the Order.
The Rule describes a life rather than particular practices of prayer. This is brought out by the Dutch artist Arie Trum in the beautiful symbol designed to express the rule entitled “No Image Satisfies.” The entire text of the rule is written out in cruciform with a golden circle in the center. The Rule leads one into the circle. The circle is empty and it is the place of encounter with God. This empty space represents “purity of heart,” which is the condition for full “allegiance to Jesus Christ.” (Rule, prologue) Emptiness and fullness are the core of the Carmelite rule.
The Rule itself is eminently Scriptural, being a collage of explicit and implicit citations. The word of God forms the Carmelite and it is mediated through the liturgy (daily Mass), the psalms (originally read privately, later in the Divine Office), public bible reading at meetings and in the refectory, and above all through lectio divina prescribed in the famous chapter VII (n.10 in the new listing): “Let all remain in their cells, or near them, meditating day and night on the law of the Lord and keeping vigil in prayer, unless occupied with other lawful duties.” This is the defining chapter of the Rule, though the communitarian aspects emphasized in studies today are likewise foundational. The community is the place where personal transformation takes place and ministry originates.
What is the meaning of “meditating” and “keeping vigil in prayer” in this primary text of the Rule? The model will be the monastic practice of the time, which came from the Desert Fathers and Mothers through John Cassian and the ancient rules of Pachomius, Basil, and the Master. The monastic practice of the time included many forms of praying, such as Our Father’s, the psalms, the Jesus prayer, as well as different ways of reflecting on the word of God. One special way of meditating or pondering the word of God was repeating phrases of Scripture, often aloud. Cassian develops this method and suggests the words, “God, come to my assistance; Lord, make haste to help me”.5 This use of a mantra fits the prayer of the heart, which is Thomas Merton’s characterization of meditation in the Desert tradition.6 This prayer was not intellectual analysis or active use of the imagination. Prayer of the heart consisted in entering deeply into one’s self to seek purity of heart, i.e., utter detachment and surrender to the indwelling God. The way to the heart was the word of God. Biblical phrases were repeated and pondered as in the Jesus prayer, which is a perfect example of the method followed. The goal was both transformation and continuous, loving conversation with God according to the exhortation of chapter XIV (now nn.18-19), which says: “May you possess the sword of the spirit, which is God’s word, abundantly in your mouth and in your hearts. Just so whatever you do, let it be done in the Lord’s word.”
This way of meditation was the “hagah” tradition of the Old Testament, which consisted in reciting passages from Sacred Scripture aloud from memory and repeating short phrases of the psalms to root the thought in the mind and heart.7 The continuous repetition was called “murmuring.” Kees Waaijman describes the practice in an Old Testament context:
One ‘murmured’ the Torah, ‘ruminating’ it until the text had completely become one’s own, and began to ‘sigh from within’ as the cooing of a dove. One made the Torah his own bodily, emotionally, cognitively, memorizing it so that he ultimately became one with Torah.
The whole person was involved — the voice, the imagination, the feelings, the mind and heart — and the whole person was to be “clothed” with the word of God. A new person emerged.
The method of meditating, therefore, was not objectified thinking, but pondering the word of God in one’s heart, with one’s whole interior being in non-discursive attention. Even the mouth and the tongue participated, so that the pondering was physical as well as interior. This was one reason for placing the solitary cells at a distance from each other in order not to disturb the neighbors by noisey prayer.9 The end in view, however, was both public praise and the transformation of the person, letting the word of God penetrate one’s very being for a new, personal identity after the Scriptural model.
How close all this is to the mantra of John Main and to a lesser extent to the sacred word of Thomas Keating. The Carmelite is called to the prayer of the heart, a prayer thoroughly contemplative in method and goal. The prayer is holistic as well, involving body and soul. John Main’s “selfless attention” and Thomas Keating’s “consent” to the divine presence are expressed in the ancient practice. All these forms are ways into the golden circle of Arie Trum, where self-emptying makes room for the living God.
The Institution of the First Monks
The same perspectives of the Rule are found in the second document under inquiry, The Institution of the First Monks, a treatise on Carmelite life written by Philip Ribot in Catalonia in 1370 A.D. The work is a symbolic history of Elijah that is to function as a spiritual directory for the Carmelites who were now living in new circumstances in Europe away from Mount Carmel. Originally the book purported to be history, then it was interpreted to be a record of myths and legends, and today it is regarded as symbolic history, a serious effort to interpret Carmelite life through the life of Elijah. The mystical character of the Order is affirmed in the strongest terms with the same perspectives on emptiness and fullness found in the golden circle of Arie Trum.
The key passage is a commentary on the command to Elijah to “go eastward and hide in the brook Carith,” where he would “drink of the torrent.” (I Kings 17:2-4). The spiritual or mystical interpretation of these words is as follows:
These words to Elijah...reveal the twofold aim of religious life and the path
God wants us to follow to perfection:
1) ‘To offer to God a heart holy and pure from all stain of sin’.
* this is attained by our efforts, with the help of God’s grace;
* signified in the words ‘hide in Carith’, i.e. in perfect love.
2) ‘To taste in our hearts and experience in our minds, not only after death but even in this life, something of the power of the divine presence and the bliss of eternal glory;. *this is a pure gift of God;
*signified in the words ‘ you shall drink of the torrent’
In an unpublished paper delivered at a study week at the Washington Theological
Union in September, l996, Hein Blommestijn used John Cassian to analyze this passage and to show that the twofold purpose is one movement of the Spirit with a proximate objective (skopos) and an ultimate goal (telos).
The skopos is to present to God a pure heart; the telos to experience God. Like the farmer’s planting and cultivating his field with a view to the harvest, the work of purification is done in view of the experience of God. The first step occurs when one leaves one’s own center and enters the empty circle; there God meets the person in a mystical encounter. The work is all God’s. I enter the center and I become a new person, the result of what God is doing in me. The self-emptying and the encounter continue progressively throughout life. They are one movement with two stages, not first a life of asceticism and then another of mysticism. “Before Elijah could take a single step,” the Institution says, “God had already set him in motion.” (Chandler, 5)
The theology of Christian Meditation parallels this perspective of Philip Ribot. The mantra is an exercise in self-emptying. The mantra is the prayer, as Main repeats, and it is an exercise in selfless attention, the experience of poverty before God. At the same time it is an invitation for God to come and this is the contemplation hoped for in the practice. John Cassian extends the role of the mantra beyond formal prayer into continuous prayer. It will effect purification and union, he says: Never cease to recite it in whatever task or service or journey you find yourself... This heartfelt thought will prove to be a formula of salvation for you. Not only will it protect you against all develish attack, but it will purify you from the stain of all earthly sin and will lead you on to the contemplation of the unseen and the heavenly and to that fiery urgency of prayer which is indescribable and which is experienced by very few.11
Centering prayer too has the same tasks of purification and union. Early on its practice reveals and confronts the false self, the wounded believer who is the victim of false emotional patterns of happiness that stand in opposition to the call of grace. These false systems are largely unconscious; centering prayer uncovers them, helps one recognize them as one’s own, then effects their release, much as in the teaching of St John of the Cross about the dark night of the senses. The emphasis on receptive consent in centering prayer hastens the unloading of the unconscious, to use Keating’s phrase, and therefore addresses the work of purification with more intensity.12 In both Christian Meditation and centering prayer the organic connection between self-emptying and fulness, kenosis and pleroma, is basic to the practice.
The Carmelite Tradition and Centering Prayer Christian Meditation 1
by Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm.
Introduction:
In this paper I propose to interface the Carmelite tradition on contemplative prayer and two popular forms of contemplative practice called centering prayer and “Christian Meditation.” We are asking how these widely used, current practices fit into that tradition. Do the new forms agree or disagree with past thinking? What does the Carmelite tradition have to say pro and con about them?
We have a double question: what can Carmelites learn from these new movements and what can centering prayer and Christian Meditation learn from our tradition? These forms are new, though their proponents maintain that they are simply the contemplative tradition of the Church in contemporary dress. How should Carmelites regard them? Are they in continuity with the past and to what extent do they represent something new? These are the questions of this paper.
An Historical Vignette
Let me begin with a little history that sets the stage for our inquiry. One of the first generations of Discalced Carmelite writers, José de J.-M Quiroga (1562-1628) set down the method of mental prayer taught by St John of the Cross. It consisted of three steps: 1) the representation of some mysteries; 2)
pondering them; and 3) experiencing the fruit of the process in “an attentive and loving quietude toward God,” “a peaceful, loving and calm quiet of faith,” or a “simple attention to God.”1. The method was contemplative, because it led into passing moments of contemplation; these moments became longer and longer and soon dominated the prayer.
The moments coalesced into the habit or state of contemplation, as taught by St John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel [2.14.2.]. Thus the habit of contemplation was built up, according to the adage: sow an act and you reap a habit. This result was called acquired contemplation, a contemplative experience of God that by definition could be achieved by ordinary grace and human industry.
Contemplation was thus deemed accessible to any sincere seeker. According to Quiroga, John of the Cross expected his novices to reach at least this state of initial contemplation by the end of the one-year novitiate, an opinion shared by Thomas of Jesus (1564-1627) and others. (Arraj, 64-65).
This thumb-nail history recalls a time very much like our own, a time of great enthusiasm and optimism about reaching contemplation. The concept of an “acquired contemplation” democratized contemplation and made it available to all. John himself spoke explicitly only about the gift of special, infused contemplation, a mystical gift which presumably was not available to everybody. This transitional, acquired contemplation was there for the taking according to the early Discalced teachers, who claimed John of the Cross as warranty for this opinion.
In this paper we accept both kinds of contemplation as valid outcomes of contemplative practice.2 We believe that acquired contemplation is the same reality as initial infused contemplation; only the naming and theological explanation are different. The legitimacy of acquired contemplation was defended as recently as the l940’s by the eminent Discalced Carmelite, Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen.3
Contemplative Prayer Today
We cite this history as a backdrop for the topic of this paper. Today thousands of devout Christians are pondering the mystery of God’s presence in daily contemplative prayer. They sit silently before an ikon or the tabernacle and if asked, they would describe their prayer as simple, loving attention beyond words or images. “I look at him and he looks at me.” They ponder in very simple attention as John of the Cross’ second step directs and they experience a sense of loving presence as in the third step of John of the Cross’ method of meditation. The third step in fact is the point of the prayer, its beginning and end. The ability to stay in this posture of attention to God is assumed, and no clear distinction is drawn between the discrete acts and the state of contemplation that is developed.
The ancients postulated a long and consistent effort at daily meditation to reach the state of acquired contemplation — one year was thought sufficient but also necessary among the Carmelites cited above. This view would be considered optimistic by older religious and clergy who were trained to expect progression in mental prayer that saw contemplation as a far-off goal. Now we are being taught to practice directly and immediately a quiet, gentle resting in God that is itself considered to be contemplation and to lead to ever higher degrees of contemplation.
The contemplation that is the outcome of theses contemplative acts is seldom defined. The contemporary methods consist in the very acts that were seen as the fruit of the representation and the pondering in John of the Cross’ meditation. The contemplation in these contemplative acts is seldom defined. It is left generic in nature, having lost its specificity. In modern writing contemplation describes almost any mental prayer that is silent and wordless, from quiet resting in the divine presence to infused contemplation. Infused contemplation remains as a special mystical gift, admittedly rare and extraordinary in the spiritual life. But contemplation as such is for everyone to practice in these new methods.
What are these methods? We single out centering prayer, taught by Contemplative Outreach under the leadership of Thomas Keating, and Christian Meditation as developed by John Main and promoted by the World Community for Christian Meditation under the leadership of Laurence Freeman. These two methods of simple, non-discursive, loving attention to God are chosen for study out of a plethora of non-discursive ways of praying, because they are widely known and practiced in North America today. They are lumped together, because they are similar in approach. They have the same roots in the western mystical tradition, and while they have significant differences, they are more alike than different and they offer name recognition for each other
Lectio Divina
Let me introduce these prayers in the context of lectio divina. Lectio divina is the ancient, monastic formula for appropriating the biblical text and for leading the practitioner into the experience of contemplation. A biblical text is read, pondered, prayed over, and finally experienced. The first three acts of lectio divina — reading, meditating, praying — culminate in the fourth act of tasting or touching the reality in the text. The fourth act is called contemplation; it is more receptive than the first three, though the whole lectio divina in the monastic tradition is a contemplative exercise.
Thomas Keating often presents centering prayer as a way to restore this contemplative dimension of lectio divina. For too long the prayer has been too heady and rationalistic; the first three discursive acts have received almost exclusive attention and the final act is neglected. He would correct that imbalance by promoting the fourth act on its own as the way to renew the contemplative character of lectio divina. The Trappists designed a prayer form that begins and ends with the fourth act. This centering prayer is to be practiced methodically and regularly twice a day as the keystone of one’s prayer life. Centering prayer does not replace lectio, nor is it a new form of lectio divina. It is an exercise to sharpen one’s contemplative awareness, a way to renew all four acts by raising the contemplative character of a person’s life. Christian Meditation has a similar purpose. John Main considers his discipline of meditating to be the traditional, Christian meditation of the past. He is simply renewing the meditative or contemplative practice of the past, and both of these are the same one practice. He calls his prayer “contemplation, contemplative prayer, and meditative practice,” all three terms being synonyms of meditation.4 John Main’s meditation, in his view, is mainline Christian practice from the past, and it is practiced in the rosary or litanies, in the “Jesus prayer” and in the short ejaculatory phrases as taught by John Cassian and The Cloud of Unknowing. Christian Meditation for him stands on its own as the meditation of the Christian tradition over against the rational, discursive methods of the counter-reformation; it is receptive and non-discursive by definition.
These two methods of prayer represent one answer to the yearning for the experience of God in our time. Centering prayer came out of the sixties and seventies, when many people, youth especially, were turning to Eastern religions and transcendental meditation for spiritual experience and enlightenment. Older spiritually awakened Christians were likewise experiencing a hunger for God and for a deeper prayer life. Both young and old were concerned with the practical question of how to pray contemplatively. They were looking for methods like those available in the Eastern religions.
The architects of these new prayer forms learned from the East, but they based their teaching on the ancient, western mystical tradition. The Trappists at Spencer, Mass developed centering prayer largely from The Cloud of Unknowing. John Main discovered Christian Meditation in John Cassian. As a layman he had learned the original lines of his approach from an Eastern swami, but he found his way of meditating in John Cassian and The Cloud. John Main made the teaching of contemplative prayer to lay people the life¬work of his latter years.
The new styles of contemplative prayer go right to the heart of prayer, seeking experience and contact with the living God in loving faith and quiet presence. The new methods are “spiritual exercises,” designed to raise up the whole spiritual life as aerobics or a workout in the gym tone up the physical body. The practice takes place twice daily, for twenty minutes to a half hour, and the two periods are the anchors and the catalysts of the rest of the prayer life of the participant. These two periods represent a conversion, a new commitment that is to be the heart and soul of a new prayer life. The two periods are to be faithfully carried out as the first order of one’s prayer life each day. The rest of one’s spiritual life is energized from here. The contemplative union fostered in centering prayer or Christian Meditation brings a contemplative dimension to the celebration of liturgy, to bible reading and the practice of lectio divina, to vocal prayer, to community life and ministry.
The new methods are not magic. They are providential discoveries of our time, gifts of God that are there for the taking and promising intimacy with God. They are active prayer, but the activity is simple and receptive. One sits before the Lord, and the hoped for outcome is the in breaking of God “from the other side,” the divine touch that is God’s response to the human efforts, which themselves are antecedently inspired by God.
The contemplation or experience of God is not necessarily verifiable psychologically. The divine visit is validated by the fruits of the Spirit. The person strives to be open and welcoming, to be empty and poor in spirit, and these attitudes are invitations to a deeper divine presence. Whatever the empirical experience in the human consciousness the contemplative activity is bringing about transformation in the depths of the person, and this conversion will show itself in the person’s life.
The whole person - body, soul, and spirit — is engaged in the prayer. The body is brought into the process via posture,breathing, relaxation, and the use of a holy word or mantra. The psychological functions of thinking, feeling, willing and loving are definitely in play in muted, simple ways. The main task of the one praying is non-discursive attention by use of the mantra throughout the prayer in Christian Meditation or attending and consenting to the presence of God within and using the sacred word as needed in centering prayer. The one praying is knocking ever so gently at the door of the Spirit deep within, awaiting further action from the indwelling God.
