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The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. Today’s Contemplative Forms: Are They ?

Today's Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation?

Ernest E. Larkin O. Carm, now retired from his teaching of at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., keeps active with retreat work, teaching, and writing. His address is Kino Institute; 1224 East Northern; Phoenix, Arizona 85020.

A simpler title could be: infused contemplation. John Main, the Contemplation and today’s contemplative architect of Christian , begins a prayer—are they the same or different? And, series of talks by saying, “I am using the term if different, what is their content and how are meditation as synonymous with they related? This paper attempts a contemplation, contemplative prayer, clarification of terms. meditative prayer, and so forth.”1 Sometimes But more than semantics is involved. the two terms mean infused contemplation, the The deeper question at issue is: What are we classical mystical experience of the felt doing when we practice contemporary forms presence of God, as in the following: of contemplative prayer, such as centering “Whenever I experienced contemplative prayer or the “” of John prayer, there was absolutely no doubt that I Main? Are we praying actively, calling on our was in God’s presence. The silence was of human resources under the impulse of grace, varying degrees, sometimes so deep that the or are we submitting passively to some mind could not even think, other times a bit presumed action of God within us, such as more shallow as in the .”2 In infused contemplation that is too subtle to other places the words are used more fluidly recognize? Do these prayer forms presume and less restrictively, as in the very title of we have reached a state of contemplation William H. Shannon’s article— beyond the level of ordinary meditation? Or ”Contemplative Prayer, Contemplation”—in may anyone, beginner or experienced, take the New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality. them up? Or, bluntly, could our silence and This article equates the two and surveys their quietude, our disengagement from the work of historical development in a variety of imagination and intellect in our prayer, be an meanings. Thomas Keating follows this usage exercise in woolgathering, daydreaming, in referring to centering prayer, perhaps the spinning our wheels, and thus wasting time by most popular form of contemplative prayer in willful inactivity? Worse still, could we be the United States today, equating the two as a falling into the error of quietism, cultivating resting in God that is open to all seekers of idleness and passivity, with nothing going on goodwill. inside? This error gave contemplative prayer As a step toward defining the two a bad name from the 17th century to the terms in their contemporary context, I propose beginning of the 20th. It could crop up again a distinction between contemplative prayer today. and contemplation: Contemplative prayer is What do we mean by contemplative the way, contemplation the terminus. The prayer and contemplation? For many writers distinction is an inadequate one, for there is the two terms are interchangeable and their certainly an intimate and organic connection content is variable, running the gamut of between the way and the goal; one includes mental prayer from ordinary meditation to the other. Contemplative prayer is designed to

Page 437 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation? achieve contemplation; what begins as and hearts to the presence of God in the contemplative prayer quickly becomes universe. Others just talk to God. … contemplation. But I make the distinction for Assuredly these ways cannot immediately clarity’s sake, not just to be splitting hairs. be called mystical. But they are gateways to . They all lead to silence and to the Contemplative prayer begins with wordless state that St. Teresa calls the prayer of one’s own activity, however simple and quiet [and] to the higher mansions.4 nondiscursive; and it seeks silence before William Johnston has thus related God, silent presence beyond thinking, contemplative prayer to contemplation in a imagining, and making affections. Edwina heuristic fashion and with a distinction. Gateley has seized the genius of this Today’s methods of contemplative prayer are contemplative prayer in the following psalm not automatically mystical, but are steps in 3 titled “Let Your God Love You”: that direction. The word contemplation has no clear boundaries in common usage today. Be silent Let your God He only wants to Contemplation is generally a broader Be still Look upon you. Look upon you and less precise category than infused Alone. Empty. That is all. With his love. Before your God He knows. Quiet. contemplation in the strict sense. Say nothing He understands. Still. Contemplation in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ask nothing. He loves you with Be. Ignatius, for example, is more inclusive than Be silent. An enormous love. Let your God Teresa’s prayer of quiet or ’s Be still Love you. infused knowledge and love. William McNamara’s well-known description of This poetic catalogue intimates what contemplation as “a long, loving look at the happens when people practice centering real” fits the contemplative prayer forms prayer or Christian Meditation. Are these Johnston refers to above (and fits infused prayer forms contemplation? Yes; they seek contemplation as well). The phrase appealed and find the experience of God’s love and to the Jesuit Walter Burghardt because of its presence, and this is contemplation in the down-to-earth, fully human, and existential general sense. Neither prayer form directly quality. It became the title of his famous describes the experience of classical infused article on contemplation, which is a moving contemplation. reflection, not on the contemplation of Teresa William Johnston shows great insight or John, but about the bodily, emotional, and in seeing the typical forms of today’s spiritual awareness of concrete singulars in contemplative prayer as neither Eastern nor creation and their rootedness in God.5 It is the Western, but something new in the world, “a “mindfulness” Johnston mentions. third way, a tertium quid,… the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a new world.” He lists some of Infused Contemplation the methods and then relates them to mystical prayer in the strict sense: There are exceptions to this generic …For the fact is that everywhere we see usage. In the Carmelite and Dominican Christians of all ages and cultures sitting quietly traditions, contemplation means infused in meditation. Some sit before a crucifix or an contemplation. Occasionally, of course, ikon in one-pointed meditation. Others sit and writers within these traditions use the term in breathe as they look at the tabernacle. Others practice mindfulness, awareness of God in their a broader sense. But, in Teresa of Avila and surroundings. Others recite the mantra to the John of the Cross, contemplation is specific rhythm of their own breath. Others, influenced and exclusive. It is the general, loving, by Zen or yoga or vipassana, open their minds obscure experience of God that begins with the passive dark night of the senses. It is

Page 438 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation? infused knowledge and love; it is mystical; it valid, however, because the two kinds of is a pure gift of God that cannot be achieved contemplation remain distinct experiences. by human effort under the ordinary working of Rahner’s theology does not erase the grace. There are other forms of infused considerable differences between the two on contemplation in the strict sense besides this the experiential level, and this is the terrain of apophatic experience, but all of them have in our inquiry. We are asking questions that are common their passive and mystical quality. important for spiritual direction, whatever the In today’s spiritual theology the explanations offered by systematic theology. distinction between active and passive prayer Rahner does make the immense tends to be downplayed. Long ago Thomas contribution of helping us to see the spiritual Merton rejected the distinction between life as a unity and to think in terms of process, infused and acquired contemplation as being development, and transitions. Contemplative irrelevant. The experience is the thing, not an prayer and contemplation fit into the four abstract explanation of its principles. steps of . The first three steps— Moreover, the mystical or grace character of reading, meditation, prayer—are obviously the entire spiritual life is being emphasized in active; and the fourth step, contemplation, many sectors, for example, in twelve-step indicates rest, quiet, and passivity. Where spirituality and in writings inspired by Karl does the contemplative prayer we are Rahner’s theology. discussing, fit in this conspectus? I like to For Karl Rahner, all experience of God locate it between the third and fourth steps. It is the expression of faith and love, all of it is is a specially designed form of active prayer, rightly called mystical, and all knowledge and consisting in simplified efforts to quiet down, love of God are infused. Not only prayer to be attentive, and to be open to the divine experiences, but even the mundane influence. But it is rightly called experiences of average Christians which are “contemplative,” since it anticipates and products of faith are movements of the Holy moves as quickly as possible to its terminus of Spirit and constitute “ordinary mysticism” or resting in the Lord. In this perspective it is the “mysticism of everyday life.” In Rahner’s easy to see why most writers identify view, what has been designated as infused contemplative prayer and contemplation as the contemplation in the tradition is a high degree same thing. One of the classic definitions of of the one basic experience of a loving faith. the fourth step of lectio divina comes from the The classical mystical experience of the saints 12th-century Ladder of the Monks by Guigo remains “extraordinary,” not because of its II, which describes contemplation as principles, but because of its and happening “when the mind is in some sort rarity. Theologically, the experience of God lifted up to God and held above itself, so that in meditation or in human activity or in it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.”6 classical infused contemplation is the same This flowery language can well be describing one gift of God working within us, the same infused contemplation; but it is also obvious one , different not in kind but in degree. that, as the term of the process of lectio divina, In the light of this Rahnerian theology, it is an ordinary experience at prayer.7 the question raised in this paper is less urgent: the contemplative prayer forms are Meditation and Contemplation contemplation in one or the other sense, broad Further light can be thrown on the or strict, ordinary or extraordinary, and the nature of contemporary contemplative prayer two outcomes are only different degrees of the if we look at the traditional Catholic teaching same one gift of God. Our question remains about meditation and contemplation. Does

Page 439 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation? contemplative prayer in the form of centering and immediately as the total intent of the prayer or Christian Meditation belong to prayer. meditation or to contemplation as these words In this frame of reference, we can see are used in the Catholic tradition? Meditation that centering prayer and Christian Meditation is active prayer, discursive in method, do not fit handily in the category of either controlled by the practitioner, and available to meditation or contemplation. They are all persons of goodwill. Contemplation is something new in contemplative prayer knowledge by way of love, the fruit of a practice. Thomas Keating has emphasized search, the experience of God’s love poured that centering prayer is not lectio divina, but a forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is form of prayer designed to give new life to given us (see Rm 5:5). Contemplation is lectio and to the whole Christian life. given, as pure gift, when the person is Centering prayer is one’s own doing, but it is disposed to receive it. These descriptions contemplative in its very structure. It is leave intact what we have said about the two ordered directly to the heart of the matter, kinds of contemplation. contemplation itself. It depends on but it is Jurgen Moltmann offers an analysis of contemplative the prior endowment of grace, meditation and contemplation that clarifies the the divine indwelling, and the presence of distinction. Meditation, for Moltmann, is faith, hope, and charity. One needs to have reflection on the cross, the paschal mystery, put on the Lord Jesus Christ through the word the gospel message of Christ-for-us. of God heard, appropriated, and welcomed Contemplation too is biblical and through the agency of meditation in its many Christological because it is the awareness of forms, through liturgy and common prayer, the knowledge and love evoked in oneself by through community, and through spiritual this reflection, and hence it is a return to self- discipline. Centering prayer or any legitimate awareness. Contemplation is the awareness of form of contemplative prayer comes along to Christ-in-us. He writes: harvest the fruits, fine-tune the process of I understand by meditation the loving, Christian living, highlight the gift aspect of sympathetic, and participatory recognition of the whole journey, and give one rest and something, and by contemplation the reflecting enjoyment in this new life in Christ. coming to awareness of oneself in this Centering prayer pulls the spiritual life meditation. He who meditates sinks himself in the object of his meditation. He is absorbed in it together and goes far beyond “morsels of and “forgets himself.” The object of his spirituality,” John of the Cross’s phrase for the meditation in turn sinks itself in him. Then in moments of contemplation that are the fruit of contemplation he comes again to self-awareness. active meditation or are the underlying grace 8 He registers the changes in himself. in psychic phenomena like visions and Contemplation, accordingly, is the locutions. experience of what God is doing in my own being in Christ. It is what is left over in my Teresa of Avila and John of the body, , and spirit as the aftermath of my Cross meditation. There are moments of contemplation in every meditation. Such How does this analysis relate to the moments, prolonged and deliberately indulged teaching of Teresa of Avila and John of the to the exclusion of further meditation (that is, Cross? Teresa’s “active recollection,” which further thinking, imagining, or making she developed out of her own life experience affections), are what the contemporary and, in The Way of Perfection (chaps. 28-29), methods mean by contemplation. They are described in doctrinal terms as simple the fourth act in lectio divina, pursued directly presence to God, is a transitional prayer form

Page 440 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation? that is between meditation and contemplation Cross, contemplation is pure gift and simply and is very similar to modern contemplative received; there is no room for active prayer.9 Active recollection is the equivalent collaboration. John’s contemplation is not the of centering prayer, the image or memory immediate horizon of contemporary from the gospel focusing, for Teresa, a contemplative prayer forms.12 person’s attention, just as the mantra does in centering prayer. For Teresa, in the Fourth Concluding Observations Mansions, contemplation begins with passive Throughout this paper we have seen recollection or the prayer of quiet, both of that contemplative prayer and contemplation which are mystical. In the imagery of the have two levels or degrees of perfection, waters, contemplation happens when the which we have designated as ordinary and bucket or aqueduct is no longer necessary extraordinary, or general and infused. Their because the water bubbles up from an inner identity depends on how fully they emanate spring. Active recollection is the personal from the human heart, which is the seat of all cultivation and enjoyment of the divine valid prayer. The Catechism of the Catholic presence through one’s own efforts. It is the Church describes the role of the heart in these door to the mystical prayer of quiet and union, words: as indeed are centering prayer and Christian …The heart is our hidden center, beyond the Meditation in due time. grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit John of the Cross has no explicit of God can fathom the human heart and know it counterpart to Teresa’s active recollection or fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper to the new forms of contemplative prayer. For than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, him, the first fruits of contemplation are where we choose life or death. It is the place of experienced in the passive dark night of the encounter, because as image of God we live in relation; it is the place of covenant. (§2563) senses, when the person cannot pray in the old In John of the Cross, the level of the ways, finds no satisfaction in any particular heart is the realm of the spirit (as opposed to goods, and has a profound yearning for God. the sensibility). It is the ground of our being, Before that time one is to use one’s faculties the fine point of the soul, the center that holds in the practice of meditation. John has no our whole being, the place where God dwells transitional form between meditation and within us. It is not a physical place, but a contemplation; the pray-er is praying one or level of our operation in which God is the the other. He does counsel simple attention or agent and we are receivers. God comes in loving awareness at the onset of the dark fullness when we are empty and pure of heart. night. While it is tempting to identify this God comes in proportion to our openness, our practice with our contemplative prayer, the freedom, our poverty of spirit. God as Holy advice applies to a different situation. The Spirit possesses us and forms us in the image simple attention presupposes the presence of of the Son. This is the work of grace within God’s special action infusing light and love in us. The Spirit is operative in all good actions a subtle way, at times so subtle that the divine 10 and completely takes over when we are acting action may go unrecognized. We are on the level of the spirit, when we let go of dealing with the beginning of infused ourselves in some complete fashion. This contemplation in the strict sense. The three action of God within us is contemplation, and signs will validate its presence, and the person it takes place in proportion to our poverty of gives a loving attention that is passive, spirit. This poverty of spirit is practically the “without efforts … as a person who opens his same thing as the contemplation itself. eyes with loving attention.”11 For John of the

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Centering prayer and Christian Meditation takes seriously the teaching of the Meditation are more fully prayer from the masters that creating silence and emptiness is heart than discursive prayer is. They attempt the best invitation to the Spirit. In the dyad of to move the spiritual life to deeper levels than poverty and contemplation, Christian exterior, psychic, or conceptual activity. They Meditation goes through the door of poverty. take their practitioners to the center, to true, Centering prayer takes the other door of authentic, and mature spirituality beyond mere simple, loving presence to God. In the end the sensibility. But, unlike infused contemplation two methods are searching for the same in the strict sense, they are not mystical or fullness and emptiness. fully passive forms; they have an active My sense is that other popular forms of element, and they depend on human contemplative prayer follow the same lines collaboration. that we have drawn for the two exemplars. The dynamics of centering prayer and These prayer forms are gifts for our time, Christian Meditation are similar, but they making more available the entrance to a differ in emphasis. Both call the person to deeper life with God. A figure from twelve- enter within, to move to the realm of silence step experience may help us understand the and solitude, the level of the heart, to let go of widespread attraction of these new forms of thinking and imagining or controlling and to contemplative prayer and at the same time cultivate simple presence to the Divine serve as a bridge to St. John of the Cross. The Presence. One is lovingly attentive to the figure is this: It used to be said that a person Divine Indwelling. had to “hit bottom” before he or she would be Centering prayer suggests the saying a candidate for the twelve-step program. of the mantra, some simple word like Jesus, as Today, I am told, clients are advised to “raise a way to express consent to God’s working in the bottom” and begin the program before a the soul. It is the response to God’s love, crisis occurs. Something like this may be accepting and welcoming the action of God. working in contemplative prayer today. The The mantra as a sign of consent is to be used forms do not presuppose infused to focus attention as needed. contemplation or even an advanced spiritual In Christian Meditation, the mantra— state. They teach the person to be which is usually the word Ma-ra-na-tha appropriately active in the prayer, and they (“Come, Lord Jesus”)—is spoken throughout promise a fuller outpouring of the Spirit. In the prayer as an effort, not only to be totally this time of ours, contemporary contemplative attentive, but to be empty and silent and alone prayer forms are a providential gift of the before God. The mantra is the instrument that Holy Spirit. creates the emptiness; it hollows out the soul.

1 Talks on Meditation (Montreal, 1979), p. 10. 2 Philip St. Romain, in the newsletter “ and Contemplation Forum,” no. 8 (April 1997): 4. Address: Chiloquin, Oregon 97624. 3 From There Was No Path So I Trod One: Poems (page 17) by Edwina Gateley, copyright @ 1996 by Edwina Gateley. Reprinted with permission of the publisher: Source Books; Box 794; Trabuco Canyon, California 92678. 4 (London: Harper Collins, 1995), p. 134. 5 Walter J Burghardt, “Contemplation, a Long, Loving Look at the Real,” in Church 5 (Winter 1989): 14-17.

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6 Cited in Lawrence S. Cunningham and Keith J. Egan, Christian Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 93-94. 7 A Monk of New Clairvaux, Don’t You Belong to Me? (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 114-149. 8 “Theology of Mystical Experience,” Scottish Journal of Theology 32 (1980): 505. Moltmann cites , Contemplation in a World of Action, and for these distinctions, and also J.V. Taylor, The Go-Between God (London, 1972), whose revealing thesis is that “the thought of the awareness of awareness [is] an experience of the Holy Spirit.” 9 The present author has discussed Teresa's early personal prayer style in "St. Teresa of Avila and Centering Prayer," Carmelite Studies 3 (Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1984), pp. 191-211. 10 According to Max Huot de Longchamp, the subtlety of the grace of infused contemplation is partially due to the fact that the infused light and love go directly to the object without any return to the self. Huot gives a convincing analysis of St. John of the Cros s for this opinion. Infused contemplation in this view does not find its full explanation in the analysis of Moltmann above. See Saint Jean de la Croix: Pour Lire le Docteur Mystique (Paris: Fac-editions, 1991), p. 164. 11 Living Flame 3.33. 12 The dark night is the entree to the infused contemplation of John of the Cross. But even the dark night has a wide sense that does not include the presence of contemplation as described in the third sign of The 2.13.4, according to James Arraj in a tape titled “Are There Contemplatives Today?” and published by his own Inner Growth Ministries in Chiloquin, Oregon. Without that express contemplation, the person experiencing the dark night needs to make acts of faith and love and not be simply idle in the prayer. This is to avoid the error of quietism. There is no contradiction here to the conclusions of this paper.

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