Spiritual Life Dictionary

Today's Term: Contemplation

The communication of God untied to the senses, of the particular, received passively by the spirit in an attitude of faith an love, of general loving attention. Also called mystical theology. May be referred to as infused because the soul receives it passively, just as one receives sunlight by doing no more than opening the shutters. Takes away the satisfaction associated with discursive prayer.

Matthew 7: 14 - How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.

Many people are intrigued by contemplative prayer. They think it is very complicated. We who study the teachings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Jesus have come to learn that deep union with Christ in contemplation is a very simple prayer of the heart. So, as we are progressing in the spiritual life, our prayer should become more simple.

St. John of the Cross tells us that many people begin the road of prayer but few there are who follow through once the hard work of dying to ourselves begins. As the scripture above states, few there are who accept the Lord's invitation to take up our cross and follow him.

St. John of the Cross gives three signs that the Holy Spirit is leading a soul out of meditation and into the gift of contemplation.

Sign #1: An inability to practice discursive meditation or receive satisfaction from it as before. Meditation must be discontinued only when the soul is placed in that peace and quietude to be spoken of in the third sign.

Sign #2: An awareness of a disinclination to fix the imagination on other objects, exterior or interior.

Sign #3: The third and surest sign is that a person likes to remain alone in loving awareness of God, without particular considerations, in interior peace and quiet and repose, and without the acts and exercises of the intellect, memory and will. Such a one prefers to remain only in the general loving awareness and knowledge we mentioned, without any particular knowledge or understanding.

To leave safely the state of meditation and sense and enter that of contemplation and spirit, spiritual persons must observe within themselves at least these three signs together.

Excerpts from The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 13
From the Collected Works of St. John of the Cross Translated by Kieran Kavanugh

Let us pray for each other: that we be given the gift of true contemplation.

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS