In the fourth dwelling places a profound but subtle conversion takes place. Up to this point the mind and imagination have played the dominant role getting the person in touch with God. Now in our prayer God acts in new way. The task of the fourth dwelling places is to let go and surrender to make space for God.
There is switch of focus. With God’s new role in our prayer, the mind, the heart, and the entire being face this new reality. Our perception and, even more, our experience of God as well as our understanding of self, begin a radical make-over. These changes produce a feeling of turmoil. Our sense of clarity and security in things spiritual crumbles. Surrender and acceptance are the way forward. The question of who God is and how God responds to our expectations is at the heart of this confusion and darkness. St. John of the Cross says:“Contemplation is none other than a secret, peaceful and loving infusion of God, which, if the soul allows it to happen, infuses a spirit of love.” (Dark Night 1.10.6)
Contemplation brings a change in our style of love. Slowly our need to control, manage and manipulate our relations with God, others and our life situation fades away. In turn, a deep sense of being loved by God and a desire to share this love blossoms. We let go and stop resisting the urge to control God and all reality. We let God take charge of us.
God is taking a specific initiative in our prayer through a silent inflow of loving knowledge. Since our mind is as yet unconditioned for God it reacts with confusion to a conversation that takes place in silence.
In contemplation God moves the soul in ways that are totally new to us. This presence takes place without images, in silence and with a loving communion. Our usual manner of reflecting and thinking in prayer lessens as a new mode of prayer slowly evolves. Our thoughts often roam about in the outskirts of the castle while, as Teresa reminds us, “The soul is perhaps completely joined with God in the dwelling places very close to the center. (IV.1.9)”
To the extent that we now move ahead in faith and trust, we experience a new style of presence. Contemplative prayer demands openness to change. The fourth dwelling places, through surrender and cooperation, offer a degree of transformation and purification not possible in the third dwelling places. Here God acts to move us away from the control and deception of the ego and the false self. We then begin to see as God sees and to love as God loves. The prize demands a letting go of our deepest attachments and addictions. The false self hungers to maintain these illusions and deceptions. A wide range of mind games flow from this apprehension of the false self. It desperately wants to avoid the necessary darkness that brings the true freedom of contemplation. This purification becomes the major task in the fifth and sixth dwelling places.
The journey to the center occurs with new and unimagined breakthroughs. At this level, there is participation in the life of God never experienced before. This new awareness is contemplation.
In his New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton says,
“Contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real.”
This is the goal of the Christian vocation: to experience contemplation, this inviting and special presence of God in our life. A faithful life of prayer and service helps but contemplation is always a gift of God.
In contemplation we are in love with God with a new depth of awareness that only God makes possible. God now gives himself in love in a more intimate way. This love creates changes that are deep and transforming. The ironclad control of the ego melts away. A new peace bubbles up from the depths. Letting go now means a freedom never conceivable before.
The Carmelites describe contemplation in their Constitutions #17:
“Contemplation is a transforming experience of the overpowering love of God. This love empties us of our limited and imperfect human ways of thinking, loving, and behaving, transforming them into divine ways.”
Teresa’s message is that prayer makes possible the pilgrimage to God that is energized by the contemplative experience. Prayer as a multi-layered event continues to grow. This new level of prayer is relentless in its demands. Teresa says this new contemplative prayer needs to lead to good works and openness to our neighbor’s needs. In this dynamic prayer and service are indispensable on the pilgrimage to God. In contemplation God energizes us to quicken the journey by growth in prayer and service. In the conclusion of the seventh dwelling places which is the height of union with God Teresa says it is ultimately all about good works!
We need to avoid making the possibility of contemplation either too exclusive or esoteric or, on the other hand, simply too ordinary. Contemplation is not an experience of bliss given to some pure and chosen souls nor is it some simple gesture with a minimal personal sacrifice. It comes from deep generosity in hearing and responding to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. In consequence of this deep commitment we are gradually purified and transformed
In contemplation Jesus’ message of the Kingdom expands our horizons and increases our depth. It offers a new vision of reality moving toward its completion in God. The key to understanding contemplation springs from a full and generous following of Jesus Christ.
To enter contemplation we need to stand before the Lord with all our vulnerability, even though our fragmented heart is fiercely pulling us away from this encounter. A new depth of self-knowledge is both embarrassing and painful yet it invites us to turn to God in a new openness and freedom. God’s love simply takes charge in spite of an expanding consciousness of the evil still present within us. The pull of the true center is relentless. God’s love is edging us into the purifying process that escalates in the fifth and sixth dwelling places. This concludes with the total fulfillment of the heart in the union with God in total wonder rof the seventh dwelling places.
