Contemplative Haven: How Can You Tell? 
How Can You Tell?
Our realization that we are being called to take the contemplative path can be triggered in different ways. Our prayer life may change slowly and imperceptibly, finally reaching the point where we convince ourselves we no longer even have the ability to pray. This may cause feelings of near-despair, abandonment and heartache, until we discover this thing called the "apophatic" way.
Or, we may already be receiving infused prayer, recognize this difference in our prayer life, allow it to flow naturally, and seek out increased knowledge through writings or a spiritual director.
Yet again, we may be living generous, loving, prayerful lives, even though actually in the state of sin, and God will give us experiences or consolations, in or out of prayer, which may frighten or intrigue us. This can push us into an investigation of these types of experiences, which will lead us to the discovery of the contemplative tradition within the Catholic Church.
The ideal situation would be to receive some spiritual direction from a contemplative religious, in order to ascertain, together in God, whether or not we are being called down this path. But here are two clues, from the author of The Cloud of Unknowing:
"The interior sign is that growing desire for contemplation constantly intruding in your daily devotions....It is a blind longing of the spirit and yet there comes with it, and lingers after it, a kind of spiritual sight which both renews the desire and increases it....The second sign is exterior and it manifests itself as a certain joyful enthusiasm welling up within you, whenever you hear or read about contemplation....As for the discernment of this sign, see if that joyful enthusiasm persists, remaining with you when you have left your reading. If it disappears immediately or soon after and does not pursue you in all else you do, know that it is not a special touch of grace. If it is not with you when you go to sleep and wake up, and if it does not go before you, constantly intruding in all you do, enkindling and capturing your desire, it is not God's call to a more intense life of grace, beyond what I call the common door and entry for all Christians."
"It is in the nature of this gift that one who receives it receives also the aptitude for it. No one can have the aptitude without the gift itself. The aptitude for this work is one with the work; they are identical. He who experiences God working in the depths of his spirit has the aptitude for contemplation and no one else. For without God's grace a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire or long for it. You possess it to the extent that you will and desire to possess it, no more and no less. But you will never desire to possess it until that which is ineffable and unknowable moves you to desire the ineffable and unknowable."
So, are you sensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer? Does the awareness of it, and the desire for it, permeate your daily routine and way of being in the world? If so, then contemplation is very likely a gift God has given you. He is waiting for you to accept it and unwrap it slowly and appreciatively, to give Him thanks, and to use it.
Or, we may already be receiving infused prayer, recognize this difference in our prayer life, allow it to flow naturally, and seek out increased knowledge through writings or a spiritual director.
Yet again, we may be living generous, loving, prayerful lives, even though actually in the state of sin, and God will give us experiences or consolations, in or out of prayer, which may frighten or intrigue us. This can push us into an investigation of these types of experiences, which will lead us to the discovery of the contemplative tradition within the Catholic Church.
The ideal situation would be to receive some spiritual direction from a contemplative religious, in order to ascertain, together in God, whether or not we are being called down this path. But here are two clues, from the author of The Cloud of Unknowing:
"The interior sign is that growing desire for contemplation constantly intruding in your daily devotions....It is a blind longing of the spirit and yet there comes with it, and lingers after it, a kind of spiritual sight which both renews the desire and increases it....The second sign is exterior and it manifests itself as a certain joyful enthusiasm welling up within you, whenever you hear or read about contemplation....As for the discernment of this sign, see if that joyful enthusiasm persists, remaining with you when you have left your reading. If it disappears immediately or soon after and does not pursue you in all else you do, know that it is not a special touch of grace. If it is not with you when you go to sleep and wake up, and if it does not go before you, constantly intruding in all you do, enkindling and capturing your desire, it is not God's call to a more intense life of grace, beyond what I call the common door and entry for all Christians."
"It is in the nature of this gift that one who receives it receives also the aptitude for it. No one can have the aptitude without the gift itself. The aptitude for this work is one with the work; they are identical. He who experiences God working in the depths of his spirit has the aptitude for contemplation and no one else. For without God's grace a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire or long for it. You possess it to the extent that you will and desire to possess it, no more and no less. But you will never desire to possess it until that which is ineffable and unknowable moves you to desire the ineffable and unknowable."
So, are you sensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer? Does the awareness of it, and the desire for it, permeate your daily routine and way of being in the world? If so, then contemplation is very likely a gift God has given you. He is waiting for you to accept it and unwrap it slowly and appreciatively, to give Him thanks, and to use it.
posted by Gabrielle at 9:11 AM
1 Comments:
How does one use it?
Post a Comment
<< Home