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OUR SLOW JOURNEY OF LOVE INTO GOD’S WORD-III

The God of the Bible Is the God of Our Life

A centerpiece of this journey for God’s people was the Exodus: the liberation from slavery, the passage through the desert and the entry into the Promised Land. The power of this experience guided the people all through an often-torturous history. Again and again, in their times of trouble, the children of Abraham reflected on the faithfulness of God setting them free. They found strength and fortitude in encountering the revelation of this God of the Exodus in their troubled plight over the centuries.

The same is true of the death and resurrection of Jesus. This ultimate expression of God’s saving love has become the gateway to the new day, the New Exodus, in Christian history. The Cross and Resurrection are our constant hope no matter where life leads us in this valley of tears.

The central point of the story of salvation in the Bible is that the books in all their variety and depth are the result of the people’s experience of God. The power and significance of the Bible is that the very same God of the Chosen People is the God in our own life. The word in the Bible is the light that enables us to encounter the reality of God’s continuing presence in our time. We are invited to participate in the call and promise, the pilgrimage through history to the Kingdom of God. The gift of God’s word in the revelation of the Bible is always a call to new life and new horizons.

The Gift of the Prophets

In the twelfth week of Ordinary Time, there are some exceptional daily readings from the Second Book of Kings. The first event in 721 BC deals with the destruction of the Northern Kingdom. The second, in 587 BC, describes the destruction of the temple and the exile of the Southern Kingdom. To all appearances, God had abandoned his commitment to his Chosen People. There were few darker moments in the entire history of Abraham’s family.

At this most intense period of despair and hopelessness, God inspired three of the greatest prophets of the Jewish Scriptures to proclaim his presence once again.

Jeremiah was a prophet of doom. He confronted the comfortable and materialistic prosperity that led to negligence of religious practice and a self-centeredness in total neglect of their religious heritage. He foretold the chaos that was coming,

Ezekiel shared the same message of Jeremiah but he joined the people in the exile. This led him to change his tone. Caught in the total despair and complete poverty of the life in Babylonia, he switched to a message of profound hope and compassion.

Isiah spoke only a message of consolation and deliverance. His voice rang out in the final and darkest days before the return to Jerusalem. His message of beautiful trust in God is often described as the foreshadowing of the gospel.

While these prophets spoke in the bleakest of times, they spoke in the most decisive of times in Israel’s long search for the true experience of God. The people were stripped down to their most feeble and empty condition. They came to God with truly empty hands.

These prophets had a powerful message of renewed faith in the God of their ancestors. They called for a revitalization the old traditions of seeing God acting in history. They led the fight to return to true worship and the practice of observing the teachings of Moses.

Out of the darkness and desolation of fifty years of the Babylonian banishment, we encounter some of the most insightful spiritual teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. Particularly strong is the unrelenting commitment to monotheism. There is no God but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In the experience of the exile, we have an invitation into our own experience. Our darkest times find us stripped down to our most feeble and desperate condition. We are free to see with a new clarity and power our total dependence on God. In our poverty, we are drawn to a new burst of insight: only God can save us and set us free!

Now the words of the bible, with a lifetime of a tired familiarity, are transformed with a new authority and light to reveal a God who always hears the cry of the poor. In our weakness, we now know this is our cry. God will not forsake us.

Whether it is in the pandemic or a family crisis, a loss of a job or a troubled child, a lifetime of racial or sexual hostility, a continuing surge of a gun-spawned violence, or the constant violation of nature’s gift, there is hope. The Word of God has spoken. Love will win out. We need to embrace that message in the reality of our darkness and tears. The story of salvation is truly our story.

Union with God

“The Word of God is something living and effective, sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.” Heb 4:12-13.

At the heart of the Bible’s story of salvation is the call. From Abraham to Jesus, the call is always a central part of the message. As the clarity of the message evolves, the call opens to the final destiny, the pilgrimage to God. We are called to be one with God. This union with God is the shared and final vocation of all God’s children.

As we steadily become aware of how God is clearly and convincingly in our lives, there are consequences for us. God always wants more and is working to transform us in the image of his Son. This call to change is never easy.

The word of God is indeed a two-edged sword that opens up the part of our life we work hard to keep hidden. We are called by the word, expressed in the Bible and also in our life experience, to be the seed that falls into the ground to die, only to sprout to new life and bear the fruit of God’s Kingdom by our surrender to God’s call.

The Chosen People’s Experience of God

I recall a simple gesture in one my classes some time ago. A husband arrived late and gave a short, affectionate kiss to his wife of many years as he sat down next to her. That kiss was quite modest yet expressive of a deep reality. It was not just a display of affection. It carried the weight of their mutual journey for better or worse, in sickness and in health over the decades.

The Bible is like that kiss. It is a story of love between God and his people. It is simple but also extravagant. It mirrors a story of human allegiance, ambivalence and rejection covering centuries.

The creation accounts in Genesis have their own style. They convey a deeply symbolic message. They contain profound insights about the human experience and our historical reality. Their description of the human venture is rooted in three fundamental and deeply connected relationships: with God, with neighbor and with creation. The Genesis account relates a basic brokenness in these three vital interactions. This is the reality of sin. Our parents set the pattern. We follow it.

Sin leads us to take the place of God at the center of all reality. We refuse to acknowledge the limits of being creatures. While the Bible is the story of salvation, the need for salvation flows from the stories of human rebellion revealed in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

Pope Francis has a name for this sin that locates ourselves at the center in today’s historical experience. He labels it a “practical relativism” ourselves at the center, giving absolute priority to our immediate convenience and comfort so that all else becomes relative. This relativism, a powerful and pervasive expression of sin in our day, leads to the exploitation and neglect of others in all manner of ways. People are reduced to objects. Abuse of others, especially economically, racially and sexually, is a natural consequence of this way of thinking. This approach features the invisible forces of the market, human trafficking, organized crime, drug trade, and rampant misuse of the land, air and sea, along with forests and all animal life. All these destructive forces flow from this false vision and denial of human dignity. Another expression of this sin is the “use and throw away” routine of a malignant consumerism. This daily corruption of our environment generates a vast waste that is destroying our ecosystem.

Reflection I

It was 1954, nine years before Vatican II. I was completely packed to leave for the Carmelite seminary. My dilemma was that I still had a gift of a large bible. Like most Catholics at the time, I had no interest in the bible. However, I had great love and respect for my parish priest who had given it to me. Love for my mentor won out. I reluctantly took the bible.

Over the years, I continued to drag the bible with me until in my final few years of studies, I began to use it. After about a decade of seminary training, I finally began to develop some appreciation and a little enthusiasm for the bible. Slowly, I was learning that my spirituality was completely devoid of the gift of God’s Word. It was only after the teachings of Vatican II began to seep into my consciousness in my first years as a priest that I began a journey leading to true love for the bible. Now, after sixty years as a priest not a day goes by that I do not appreciate the bible more. It is a source of wisdom and light and a guide to daily experience.

One of the keys for me on the journey from ignorance and indifference to love and commitment for God’s Word was this. I began to understand the bible as a story that is, indeed, our story.

Part Two
The third dwelling places make clear that deep personal prayer is the way to move beyond the restraining power of our personal brokenness. It is faithfulness to the discipline of daily prayer that opens the way to freedom and healing, service and love for others.

Settling for Less

We have arrived at the third dwelling places because we are faithful to a serious and responsible moral life. Our prayer grows in importance as it becomes deeper and more personal. Most often, we are committed to a community of support. For many, the participation in the liturgy and the life of the church is a prime part of their way of life.

However, self-deception plays a major role in the third dwelling places. We learn slowly that selfishness has not been conquered by our great progress in leaving the second dwelling places. We learn that humility is in short supply.

We tend to create an image of God under our management. We begin to act as if we have a better plan than God. The temptation to water down the Jesus of the Gospels to a more comfortable model seldom is resisted.

Settling for less is the heavy pull in the third dwelling places. God’s call for more is gentle but unyielding. We want to sink roots, to create a world where we set the direction. Desire for control dominates. The instinct to avoid further struggle dictates the program.

The great temptation of this crisis is that of compromise. We display a sincere exterior but within, there is a growing diminishment of the dynamism of discipleship and love. We tend to introduce into our lives derivatives of and substitutions for the Gospel. There is a great attraction to conform to worldly standards. A desire for a career and to transform Christian radicalism into more a cautious approach slowly surface. We seek positions, exterior prestige, with no consideration as to whether this corresponds to the demands that Jesus makes upon our lives.

Self-righteousness becomes a fact of life in the third dwelling places. It is quite difficult to deal with persons so wrapped in smugness. We convince ourselves that we are the victims but in fact our selfish patterns hurt others. Teresa has one recommendation for dealing with people caught in this bind: compassion. Most often we are not ready for correction, so we need to receive patience and kind acceptance.

The attitude of “my way or the highway” is a common temptation in the third dwelling places. We do it in a religiously sophisticated style, but the reality is the same. The tendency to rigidity towards new ideas, and often, new persons prevails.

The Rich Young Man

The story of the rich young man is quite helpful. “From the time I began to speak of these dwelling places I have had this young man in mind. For we are literally like him….” (IC.3.1.6)

Teresa says that the residents share some of the burden of the young man who walked away from Jesus’ invitation. “When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad because he had many possessions.” (Mt 18:16-23)

We all say that we want to follow Jesus. But since there is need of much more sacrifice to possess the Lord completely, words are insufficient. Action is the answer. The back and forth of the third dwelling places is the love of God and the love of the world pulling at the heart. Ultimately, we need to discover the depth of our personal brokenness. Only then, will we experience our deep need for God’s loving mercy.

When we reflect on the contrast between the young man who walked away and the disciples, we have a good insight into the choices of the third dwelling places. The twelve walked the road to Jerusalem in fear and confusion. Their dreams of power, privilege, and prestige were slipping away by the hour. Their reluctant faithfulness to Jesus slowly destroyed not only their dreams but their control. Nevertheless, in the end, they did not walk away. They eventually remained faithful. These options of life and death are the stuff of the third dwelling places.

When we decide to resist the call to move on to the demands of the fourth dwelling places we pay a price. It is self-righteousness, the plague of most religious individuals and institutions. This happens when there is not enough love and especially not enough humility. Then we capitulate to human prudence. Teresa says in this dwelling places reason still holds sway over love. Only a deep-seated love will carry us ahead to the new life of contemplation that beckons in the fourth dwelling places.

“With humility present, this stage is a most excellent one. If humility is lacking, we will remain here our whole life – and with a thousand afflictions and miseries. For since we will not have abandoned ourselves, this state will be very laborious and burdensome. We shall be walking while weighted down with the mud of our human misery, which is not so with those who ascend to the remaining rooms.” (Interior Castle. 3.2.9)

The fourth dwelling places await. They are the bridge. They are the beginning of contemplation which purifies and transforms on the way to union with God in the seventh dwelling places.

Part One
The third dwelling places is where the “good guys” become “bad guys”. Only when they recognize themselves as “bad guys” are they able to truly begin the journey to become authentically “good guys” through humility and the mercy of God. It is like the Gospel that repeats over and over again, you will win by losing!

Settling Down

St. Teresa of Avila wrote her classic, The Interior Castle, to explain how we experience God in life, and more specifically, on the spiritual journey leading to God. She lays out seven levels or dwelling places on this journey. The final goal is to be one with God in total surrender.

In the first two dwelling places, she points out how we have an initial encounter with the transcendent. This is the beginning of a more conscious engagement with the divine reality. This leads to an eventual moral conversion. It brings us to the third dwelling places. This is the setting for most who are serious about the Christian calling.

In the third dwelling places, we experience relief from the consuming moral struggle of the second dwelling places. There is a sense of having arrived at a very good place. We have a clear perception of progress against the forces of evil. Yet, the conflict of good and evil is never far from the surface and far from over.

Real growth happens in the third dwelling places. The challenge of the new situation is to avoid deceiving ourselves. The struggle will continue, but the inclination is to bask in the victory. The great temptation of the third dwelling places is a false sense of having arrived. God is not so easily satisfied. The anguish of the third dwelling places is the challenge to move on.

We want to settle down. God wants the journey to progress with all due haste. Teresa is clear. There are seven dwelling places not three. The tension is between God inviting us to move on and our sense of accomplishment which draws us to put down roots. The drama of the third dwelling places takes place in the struggle to resolve this conflict. A major issue to be addressed is becoming aware of the total inevitability of our personal brokenness.

Self-Knowledge: The Lifesaver

It is no surprise that self-knowledge, and its true source, humility, become critical for progress in this part of Teresa’s spiritual structure. The biggest difference between the third dwelling places and the two predecessors arises from the fact that our selfishness goes underground, often taking on the guise of virtue. It hides behind good works and a multitude of good intentions. A major task of the third dwelling places is to identify this self-deception with a new depth of self-knowledge. Growth in humility leads to freedom from the crippling confines of ego inflation and the unyielding distortion of self-grandiosity.

Teresa declares two critical issues for progress in the third dwelling places. We need to persevere in our determination to move forward. We need to contrast the selfishness of our sinfulness with God’s love revealed in Christ crucified. Prayer is the major source of clarifying these concerns in our search.

“Those who live in this third dwelling place have to recognize that they need not only to offer themselves generously to the Lord but to recover from their failings. They have to become engaged in a more difficult task: accepting that God has plans that go far beyond one’s present project, generous though it may be, and letting him take the initiative, especially when it is a surprise and upsets one’s own strategies.” (IC.3.1.4)

The Insight Foundational to All of Teresa’s Teachings

God, as Creator and Savior, is the destiny of all humanity and all creation. This divine destiny is the source of each person’s beauty and dignity. At the same time, our brokenness pulls us to center on ourselves. These two forces are the root of the human struggle between good and evil, grace and sin. Thus, as humans we are splendor and wonder beyond our grasp as the image of God. On the dark side, we are also in constant withdrawal from divine love. All share this deeply flawed human condition. This duality permeates all of Teresa’s teachings. Teresa stresses our fractured reality at all times. We are sinners but we are sinners both loved and forgiven. We are called to live in a sea of divine mercy.

For Teresa, humility is the truth that enlightens all human reality to help us center on God. Humility lets us accept God as the Creator who is loving and merciful. Humility lets us accept ourselves as the creature both sinful and loved and forgiven. Humility helps us embrace our condition and put all things in the proper order with a surrender to God’s will that engulfs us in unending acceptance and mercy. Humility is always the way forward to God but especially in the third dwelling places. Prayer is critical for the search of the hidden treasure that is humility.

Teresa says, “Believe me, the whole affair doesn’t lie in whether or not we wear the religious habit but in striving to practice virtues, in surrendering our will to God in everything, in bringing our life into accordance with what His Majesty ordains for it and in desiring that his will, not ours, be done. Since we may not have reached this stage – humility, as I have said! Humility is the ointment for our wounds.” (IC 3.2.6)

Part Two

(In the second dwelling places it becomes clear that Teresa is not primarily interested in offering a method of prayer. Her goal is to describe the individual’s growing awareness of the experience of God. She is describing the journey to the center where God awaits. Prayer is the way forward that demands letting go of our selfishness.)

At this time of progress in prayer, the devil becomes more active. He makes the good old times of worldly pleasures and indulgence seem better than ever. On the other hand, the experience of our sense of mortality exposes the vanity of so much of the heart’s yearning. In this conflict, so representative of the second dwelling places, the heart cries out, “Not yet Lord, a little later!” The battle is on. This is the clear expression of the heart’s ambiguity in the second dwelling places. A resounding “Yes!” is followed by a more resounding, “Perhaps a little later, Lord!”

Teresa observes, “But O my God, how the whole world’s habit of getting involved in vanities vitiates everything!” (IC 2.5)

In this great struggle of the second dwelling places, the basic human brokenness is exposed: sin and grace, weeds and wheat, light and darkness. Mark’s words in 7:21-22 describe the dark side: “Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, idolatry, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.” Paul’s words in Galatians 5:22 portray the way of light: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

In this grand battle of light and darkness that emerges in the second dwelling places, Teresa says there is no greater weapon than the cross. (IC.2.6) The Carmelite mystic means that we need to keep our eyes on the crucified Christ. We need to measure the passionate and boundless love of Calvary against our pettiness and resistance to this love. Our life, in constant pursuit of comfort, stands in harsh contrast to Jesus on the cross.

Here again, this leads Teresa to emphasize self-knowledge in relation to this great love revealed in our merciful Savior.

“Well now, it is foolish to think that we will enter into heaven without entering into ourselves, coming to know ourselves, reflecting on our misery and what we owe God and begging him often for mercy.” (IC 2.11)

Teresa stresses that our prayer at this early stage must avoid selfishness. We need not look for consolations. The focus must be doing God’s will. This is what authentic prayer demands.

“Don’t think in what concerns perfection there is some mystery of things unknown, or still to be understood, for in perfect conformity to God’s will lies all our good.” (IC 2.8)

God has a plan for us. It is God’s will for our happiness. It is better than any of the countless plans we create in seeking happiness. God’s plan, that is God’s will, is an invitation into love that opens to total freedom and joy forever. Teresa never tires of pointing out that all else is absolutely inconsequential outside of God’s will that calls us to love and life everlasting.

In response to the struggles that dominate the second dwelling places, Teresa’s continual refrain is perseverance. “Nor should you become disconsolate if you don’t respond at once to the Lord. His Majesty knows well how to wait many days and years, especially when he sees perseverance and good desires. This perseverance is most necessary here. One always gains much through perseverance.” (IC 2.3)

This perseverance leads to moral conversion. The attachments and addictions of an unrestrained lifestyle demand attention. The passage to freedom requires the choice of true values over personal satisfaction. Patterns of a lifetime need to give way in this personal upheaval that is conversion. Prayer and service open the way for God’s grace. Bad friends have to go and wise counselors need to be pursued. In the commitment to these changes, the person achieves a sense of moral stability that is the fruit of perseverance. Without this basic choice of goodness over evil, grace over sin, the only movement is backward to the chaos outside the castle. This choice of God over the creature is the way forward to the third dwelling places.

The story of the prodigal son offers a final insight into the experience of the second dwelling places. The son learned the hard way that a life of unrestrained pleasure ends in the desperation of “feeding the pigs.” He came up empty. He finally saw the total futility of his choice of the good life. This often is the experience of the second dwelling places.

The impoverished son develops a narrative for the long suffering father. He will accept his fault and become a servant. He is a gambling on the mercy or naiveté of the father. He miscalculated again, just as in his departure to the big city. He failed to see the magnitude of the father’s love and mercy. This awakening is also characteristic of the second dwelling places.

This message of divine mercy and love grows in clarity and beauty in each of the succeeding dwelling places in The Interior Castle.

A Call to Deep Personal Prayer

This is first in a series of reflections of learning to pray in the context of Carmelite Spirituality.

I
Teresa’s Fundamental Insight

I have read Teresa of Avila’s classic, The Interior Castle, many times. I have paid a bit more attention to the third, fourth and fifth dwelling places. They seemed more relevant to teaching people how to pray with the practical and pastoral approach that has been the context of most of my life.

The first dwelling places has always been a bit of puzzle to me. In retrospect, this section did not connect with my expectation of how to begin to pray. In my most recent reading, the light came on. I can see that I just missed the message almost completely.

Let me try to explain this. Recently, I wrote a book on Carmelite Spirituality, Continuing the Pilgrimage to God. I used two basic questions to help penetrate the clear purpose of the spiritual journey: where are we going and how do we get there?

In my latest reading of the first dwelling places, I saw there is a more fundamental question that Teresa addresses very astutely. That question is: “who am I?”

In Teresa’s classic, the symbol of the castle is really addressing the human person. She says all the dwelling places are stepping stones to the center where the King resides. In fact, she is saying our spiritual journey is to our own deepest center where God dwells in the most profound recesses of our heart. For Teresa, any answer to the “who am I?” question will have to deal with this basic reality. As human beings, we are divinely rooted and divinely destined. We are made to be one with God. This is the basis of our dignity and calling.

Teressa is saying that all human reality is wrapped up in a common destiny, union with God. Whether it be the Pope or a peasant a Muslim or Evangelical, doctor or patient, all humankind shares a common purpose and goal, to be one with God. If we understand this universal call, we can approach all of life and death with a singular clarity. This is where we are going and how we get there makes much more sense. This singular insight is foundational to the self-knowledge that Teresa highlights in the first dwelling places.

The basis of this deeper awareness of “who am I?” is a growing consciousness of our journey to God at the center. All else distracts and distorts our effort to seek our true vocation. Seeking to be one with God opens a way of light and truth. Any other path misdirects us to darkness and crippling enslavement. We are made in the image of God and, as temples of the Holy Spirit, our purpose is to live in a way that clarifies and encourages this extraordinary goal: to be one with God. This is the answer to the most fundamental question: “who am I?”

The Interior Castle is a description of the clear and beautiful calling of every human being. In contrast, everything about the world and the lure of the flesh and the power of the ego is pulling us away from God. Here the message is that we are the center. In this deception, the goal of life is seen as the enhancement of our importance and with the summons to indulge ourselves and to secure our control. People are spending billions of dollars to define us as consumers with endless needs. In this scheme, true happiness and security will be accomplished in proportion to the grandiosity of our possessions and indulgence. As one bumper sticker states, “Whoever has the most toys at the end wins.”

This process of enhancing ourselves with privilege, prestige, power and possessions creates a false self. We encounter seemingly endless dead-end roads where true happiness becomes ever more elusive. On the other hand, when the false self is in dominance, the relentless power of our mortality has the last word creating ever-expanding levels of frustration.

Teresa’s insight in the first dwelling places centers on the challenge and importance of self-knowledge. True self-knowledge will slowly lead us to grasp that we are made to be one with God. Likewise, we will learn that God is the divine lover, a gift beyond our wildest dreams. This wonderous message is grasped only slowly and painfully because the passage to self-knowledge is possible only as we cast off the useless baggage of a consumer society and the ego’s deceiving agenda. Teresa has this to say about the liberating potential of self-knowledge: Oh, but if it is in the room of self-knowledge! How necessary this room is – see that you understand me – even for those who the Lord has brought to the very dwelling places where he abides. For never, however exalted the soul may be, is anything else fitting for it...For humility, like the bee making honey in the beehive, is always at work. Without it everything goes wrong. (IC.1.8)

Terresa continues saying that the clearest and most direct avenue to learn the truth about ourselves is to ponder the grandeur and beauty of God. In the contrast, we can see our lowliness and the magnitude of our brokenness. The reality of being a creature in the presence of a Creator who knows no limit in love for us helps us to accept both our sinfulness and the boundless mercy of God.

This path of self-knowledge slowly takes the emphasis off of us and begins the process of recognizing God at the center. This is the work of a lifetime but the all-important initial steps are in the first dwelling places.

In this transition from the false self to the true self, rooted in ever maturing self-knowledge, we begin to accept the call to see ourselves awash in God’s mercy and love. The God of the Gospels is truly described as the Hound of Heaven, a God seeking us always in mercy and love.

Teresa draws us into this truly life-giving question, “Who am I?” The initial glimmer of the transcendent leaks into one’s heart. It may be a good book or movie, the witness of an authentic person but more likely it is a personal crisis or loss. Now we realize that in some way there is more to life. As simple as this observation seems, it holds the power to begin the destruction of the self-centered and enclosed world that attempted to exclude God. The true spiritual warfare has begun.

At this critical juncture, we discover the true context of prayer. Prayer is the key to move beyond the grasp of all that is directing us so forcefully away from God. The path of freedom and true life is guided by self-knowledge and prayer. God is calling us to the center of our heart, our deepest truth, where true love has always been our only destiny.

Section One

For john of the Cross the Dark Night, contemplation and the transforming action of God in our lives are all intimately connected realities. For John, “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)

The senses, the mind, the heart and the entire being need to be prepared for this new action of God. This is the task of the Dark Night. How we see God, and more so, how we experience God is now undergoing a complete makeover. Our self-understanding is profoundly challenged to enter unexplored depths. We are letting go and making space. Our long cherished attachments and deep-rooted addictions are falling by the wayside. The false-self is engaging all its resources in a final stand against the power of love. This gradual movement out of a lifetime of darkness leads to more light in the gift of contemplation.

The immediate result of this whirlwind of change is an onslaught of personal turmoil slowly giving way to an absorbing peace. In this new and deep encounter with God, surrender and acceptance are the ways forward. Letting go and letting God is taking on a totally different intensity. There is a novel degree of clarity of who God is for us and how we experience God. In spite of the great progress, many other levels of growth still await us on this pilgrimage to God.

This spiritual growth usually happens in the midst of a personal crisis. We are asking ourselves, is the entire struggle worthwhile? How can I keep faithful when I am facing apparent rejection and failure on so many levels? All the familiar efforts to manipulate God to protect our plans no longer work. We are standing naked in our creatureliness. Limitations are crushing us from all sides.

Underneath the personal confusion and anxiety is the Dark Nigh and contemplation, this extraordinary action of God. We are just not prepared. Our senses and our mind, and especially our heart, need to be purified for the overwhelming new reality of God’s new engagements within us. Now the divine language of silence is holding sway. Teresa explains it this way. Our thoughts are roaming on the outskirts raising all kinds of havoc while at our center the soul may be completely united with God. We do not see this because our whole being needs purification in order to function at this new level of divine activity.

The transformation we are undergoing is radically changing how we relate to others, the world and God. These deep changes in our being allow us to experience God in a way that frees us and creates a new openness to God’s will.

There is a call to love that urges us to work for justice and peace. Now we feel the pain of God’s creation that is so abused. The cry of the poor and the cry of creation are not a threat but a loving invitation to action.

The Carmelites have a beautiful description of this interplay of the Dark Night and 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.”

In the end, the Dark Night joins with contemplation to free us to a full and generous following of Jesus Christ.

In the second section of this reflection, we are going to look at the prophet Elijah as a model for the puzzling journey of the Dark Night leading to contemplation.

Section Two

Elijah the Contemplative

Elijah, along with the Blessed Mother, is the model for Carmelites. Part of Elijah’s story in the First Book of Kings is a revealing example of the passage to contemplation. Elijah had just experienced a magnificent triumph against the bogus prophets of the false god Baal on Mt Carmel. During this conflict Elijah had challenged the people to choose: “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God follow him; if Baal, follow him.” (I Kings 19:21)

After Elijah’s great conquest, there is an ironic change of events. All of a sudden, the Queen Jezebel explodes onto the scene. She promises to kill Elijah before the sun sets. In a wildly incongruous denial of all the power of his conquest and triumph on Mt. Carmel, Elijah flees in fear and desperation. On the journey, he drops from both physical and emotional exhaustion. God sends him an angel to give him enough nourishment and hope to move on to Mt. Horeb.

On the mountain, Elijah has a religious experience totally out of his well-defined religious consciousness and expectations. It shatters his intellectual and emotional stability. God did not arrive in the usual manner of the religious tradition. “Then the Lord said, ‘'Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.’ A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was fire but the Lord was not in the fire.” (I Kings 19:11-12)

In his confusion, Elijah had to deal with the collapse of his expectations. The previous familiar encounters of the Israelites with God had come up empty. All Elijah could do is waiting in patient desolation, a radical departure from the clarity and power of his recent victory over the false prophets on Mt. Carmel.

“After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, ‘‘Elijah, why are you here?’ He replied: ‘I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.’” (1Kings 19:12-14)

Earlier, while basking in self-pity, Elijah told God he was the only faithful prophet in all of Israel. Now God gently informs him that he had been off in the count. God said there are 7,000 others who have been faithful. God now had a task for Elijah. He is to pass on a double portion of his spirit to Elisha and step aside.

This is a story of self-knowledge and humility and surrender. With these gifts Elijah was able to see himself in the light of God. He was now free. Though he was not in control, he had new power, more than ever. This was his gift of contemplation.

Trouble will be there until the end. We see the mixture of good and evil in all levels of reality: the family, our community, our parish, our society and, most of all, within ourselves. In the parable of the weeds and the wheat (Mt: 13:24-30) Jesus captures one of the deepest aspects of our human experience.

I would like to share a personal story. I was in the fourth year of a six-year term as Director of Formation for our Carmelite seminarians in Washington, DC. In my head, it was very clear that this was a truly important work. Yet, I had a deep sense of ambivalence within me. There was a disconnect between my feelings and head. I began to define the problem as a desire to work with the poor as I had for the previous twenty-five years in my native Chicago. Finally, it got bad enough that I shared it with a trusted mentor. He gave me some very simple advice. Go to prayer and just be quiet. It was a time to simply listen in silence. After some time, I truly do not recall if it was a week or a month, an answer came. It was clear and surprising. I needed to mourn and let go of Chicago. I gradually freed my heart of this hidden clinging to the past and put my nickel down in my present commitment in DC. It took some time but I did it. I felt free and comfortable at last. Then the God of surprises came visiting some weeks later. My provincial asked me to go to a poor parish in South Central LA. Had I not let go of my hidden clinging to Chicago, I would have come up with numerous reasons why I could not possibly go to LA. In fact, I was now free and it was one of the great blessings in my life where I spent the next twenty years.

Light in the Darkness
The grace is in the struggle. Life is never complete. It is always messy. It is the nature of things that all relationships are incomplete. There is a built-in change factor. We cannot stop the clock. The kids grow up quickly, and even more rapidly, middle age passes on to the twilight years.

John of the Cross has good counsel for these inevitable crises of life. He says that God’s love is hidden in the turmoil and one is not able to see or experience this love at the beginning of a particular problem. My story of letting go of Chicago is a clear example of this. John’s response is simple: patience, trust and perseverance in the apparent darkness of the crisis that is truly light. Things are happening during the unrest. The idols are being exposed and released from the clinging heart. This is the work of the Dark Night.

The gods are dying in the night and the soul needs to let go. It needs to grieve the loss. The wrong path would be to artificially solve or heal the condition, or deny it altogether. John encourages us to face the turbulence. We need patience where the heart is struggling in the midst of the troubles. Our most real option is to be on the alert for the approach of love. This is exactly what my spiritual guide had me do in my little crisis. John calls for a “loving attentiveness” in the dark. It is time to watch in the night. Contemplation is this experience of God’s transforming love, especially when it comes in such a disguised manner. Only when we pass through the purification that is so necessary for us, are we gradually able to see the beauty. God is hidden in the darkness.

New Treasures in the Debris of Life
The Carmelite spiritual tradition helps us look beyond the surface of the many levels of brokenness and failure in our life. With eyes energized by the spirit, the gospel contradictions now become a source of liberation. There is gold in the wreckage of life’s troubles. The awe-inspiring symbol of the Crucified Christ opens the pathway to God in our suffering and loss. God’s love is always present even in life’s darkest moments, the time of our deepest trials.

We are creatures, and as such, we are limited. However, our ultimate destiny is the infinite. We are summoned beyond our little dreams to a God of unlimited and unconditional love. We have incredible energy and creativity to deny that we are sinners. The deeper and much more beautiful reality takes place when we accept ourselves as sinful. Then we can also relish the fact that we are loved and forgiven and saved in our sinful condition. This outlook is necessary to open our deeper journey in the Dark Night.

God’s mercy is always on the prowl, always seeking us. A mystic of the Middle Ages, Julian of Norwich, put it beautifully when she said, “First comes the fall and then the recovery from the fall. Both are the mercy of God.”

John of the cross was both a theologian and a mystic. As a theologian explaining the Dark Night, John seems to pursue endless definitions and clarifications. In the end however, John is more mystic than theologian.

In setting up the analysis of the Dark Night, John develops two sets of major categories. The first set is active and passive. It is more complex than a simple one or the other but the division helps us grasp a truly complex reality. Here the emphasis is on either the individual’s activity or God’s action. There is never one to the absolute exclusion of the other. In the second set, he elaborates the difference between the senses and the spirit. Here again complexity reigns. It is more than one or the other.

In the simplest of terms, the action begins in us with the grace of God and moves steadily into the action of God. Likewise, the initial efforts are in changing the actions of the senses and leading to deeper spiritual activity.

In all of these various developments the one common distinguishing trait is this. The action of God is engulfed in obscurity. A truly puzzling dimension of the Dark Night is why does it have to be hidden from us if it is so critical to our spiritual well-being?

The answer is really not that difficult. God hides the action because we have a lifetime of putting up road blocks to avoid doing what God really wants. Our ego is a master at self-deceit. Our defenses have vanquished any attempt to eliminate our control. Being free for God is a costly venture. We are the creative architect of the compromise that always concludes with our control safe from any threat. In the end, God takes over and operates beyond our control and our awareness. This divinely created obscurity is our road to freedom in the spirit.

John says God darkens our awareness to keep us safe. The darkness is for our protection. God is working beyond our recognition because we have had a lifetime of fighting God when we are conscious of the cost. Our attachments and addictions have a story to tell of our brilliance in this divine warfare.

It is truly difficult for us to admit that God has a better plan. In the Dark Night, God ends the discussion. Our movement to a free and generous love is only possible with the actions of God in the deep obscurity of the Dark Night. We can no longer resist because we do not know what to resist!

John and Teresa are teaching us that our life-long struggle to overcome desire has been misdirected. We do not need to overcome desire. The Dark Knight helps us to re-direct desire. That is what God is doing in the profound transformation. Only love, the true direction of all desire in the human heart, can genuinely set us free. This is what is happening in the silence, pain and hiddenness of God’s actions.

There are profoundly personal changes in the person gifted with the experience of the Dark Night.

First, the heart is now focused in an unprecedented way on the true purpose and goal of the human venture: love of God and love of neighbor. Most of the bogus goals and false gods that so consumed and energized the ego have fallen by the wayside. This new love penetrates the whole person in heart, mind and body.

Secondly, there is an active and growing mindfulness that we are one with God and all of creation. Now there is a brilliant light compelling deeper and expansive appreciation for the material world as a mirror of God’s power and beauty.

Thirdly, the heart explodes with a hunger to respond in love to a newly perceived presence of God in all human situations. This is the source of new longing for justice and reconciliation, for the growing desire for peace and healing in all expressions of human brokenness and division. This new love will not allow us to sit one sideline in the battle of good and evil, of love and hatred. Personal sacrifice will become the norm in our response to all of the issues that are contrary to the Kingdom of God.

Having set forth this attempt to describe the pattern of the Dark Night, there are some important factors to remember. First and foremost, the Dark Night is not a onetime event. Therefore, we have not arrived at the Kingdom with one experience no matter how profound. Secondly, the Dark Night can happen without us being aware of it even after its conclusion. Only our life experience will tell us about the action of God in the depth of our being. Thirdly, there is no perfect sequence in John's Dark Night of the Senses and of the Spirit. They share the messiness of life.

In our day, John of the Cross’ Dark Night really needs a creative press agent. His great teaching suffers from misinformation on all sides.

Here are some common misrepresentations of John’s teaching on the Dark Night. Many people believe:

It is just for truly holy people.
It is almost applied to any serious difficulty in life.
It is a punishment to be avoided.
It is a possible opportunity for anyone. No preparation is needed.
The good and faithful Christian should not be concerned about such a secret teaching.
Ordinary piety and devotions are the norm for all lay people.

For most people, the Dark Night is not a one-time event. It occurs at different times and different stages of the spiritual journey. It is, however, a central event on the passage to contemplation. This is the goal of the Gospel call for all!

In its most simple form, the Dark Night sets the heart free for love and directs the search for God with clarity and with compelling intensity. The human heart was made for God and will never find true satisfaction in anything else. However, sin drives the human quest in the wrong direction. We are constantly seeking our happiness in creatures rather than the Creator. Likewise, we go through much of life failing to realize that we are on a dead-end road. The Dark Night offers a road map to God that is direct, clean and simple.

Our misdirection and ignorance need to be addressed if the human heart will ever find fulfillment. Since only God will satisfy, the question for us is, where do we find God? John’s answer is the Dark Nigh opens the way.

The first phase of the Dark Night involves some spectacular growth in self-knowledge. Most of it is a new awareness of our own very specific brokenness. These new insights are the beginning of some intense personal turbulence. Some of the truly “sure” accomplishments and missions in our past life slowly become more ambivalent. Many of the good and solid things we chalked up as services for the Lord begin to be seen in good part as self-serving and less than truly righteous. Years of service for others are seen as a power grab and a prestige issue. “All in the name of Jesus” activities often had nothing to do with Jesus. This uncovering of our self-centeredness is prominent in the early stages of the Dark Night. The revelation of long hidden selfishness in our activities is just the start. It is the twilight preceding the increasing obscurity of the Dark Night.

This new awareness will continue to unveil the lack of true charity in so much of our activities that we thought were both good and virtuous. This unraveling of our distorted self-image is a slow and painful process. However, some have a less troublesome experience. This point is part of John’s constant teaching that God has a unique program for each individual. Seldom however, do we avoid deep personal confusion as this awareness of our deep-rooted brokenness continues to expand.

Often, the first change is that we can no longer pray as we once did. Meditation and reflection just do not make the connection. We come up blank and dry. Spiritual reading seems like a waste of time. Even the prayerful reading of the bible is quite burdensome.

We obviously are going to ask why is this happening to us. We will find no relief in our painful inquisitiveness. The experience is ultimately called the Dark Night not because it seeks to harm us and block our journey in some hurtful and nefarious way. The Dark Night is truly about a healing obscurity of God freeing the depths of our being in preparation for the gift of deeper and all-encompassing love. Behind the sense of loss, confusion and dryness the seeds of freedom, hope and love are being planted.

Hidden in the confusion and underneath the personal upheaval, the Dark Night is introducing a new experience. We are moving into a changed and more mature relationship with God. The adjustments are felt in both our prayer and in our personal life. At the heart of this shift is our personal experience. As is always the case in the spiritual life, the lived experience is gently beginning to catch up with our pious thoughts and words. Our new life is transforming our good intentions into concrete action as never before.

As we said in the beginning, the Dark Night is quite simple and truly complex. The following reflections will pursue this simplicity and complexity to help us find the hidden treasure that is the gift of the Dark Night.

Preamble to a Few Reflections on the Dark Night
In the Interior Castle, Teresa draws a rather attractive picture of a person in the Third Dwelling Places. On the surface the person is prayerful and virtuous. There is a feeling of real progress in the spiritual life. Then Teresa goes on to show that in light of our true goal of union with God, this seemingly admired state of virtue is not only superficial but often a true hindrance to genuine progress.

The next four dwelling places beckon. The initial experience of contemplation awaits. This new progress is a free gift of God usually offered after many years of effort at deep personal prayer and service to our neighbor.

John of the Cross describes what happens in the final four Dwelling Places, contemplation as a totally new experience of God’s presence. He then goes on to unveil a thorough description of this contemplative experience. He calls it the Dark Night. At the heart of this deep spiritual process is a prayerful encounter with the shocking depth of our own human brokenness. Teresa addresses the early stages of this new action of God in the Fourth Dwelling Places. The Dark Night is about letting go, surrendering control to God. God is now creating space for a new and more profound purification and transformation.

It is good to remember that the purification and transformation of the Dark Night are non-negotiable elements for all of us. If not in this life, purgatory is the only way forward after death with the same deep cleansing.

Introduction to the Dark Night

The Gospels are filled with statements of contradiction: the first shall be last and the last first; if you want to save your life, you need to lose it; to be the leader you must be the servant. These are just a sampling of the many powerful and challenging contradictions in Jesus’ message. They are all an invitation to appreciate what it means to be a creature in relation to the all-powerful and all-loving Creator. Jesus is the light come into the darkness to open up the true nature of our mortality, a marvelous mortality that opens up to eternal life. We are immersed in the darkness and we are blind to our blindness. We receive the light of Christ gradually, and often, with great reluctance. This is what our conversions along the way are all about. They let the light of Christ seep into our darkened consciousness.

A further contradiction on this Christian journey is this. When we are truly making progress, when we are more in tune with God’s will, when we are actually letting go of the many stumbling blocks keeping us from walking with Jesus, a strange thing happens. We feel that we are not making progress. In fact, we feel we are slipping backwards in our spiritual passage.

John of the Cross explains this strange experience this way. We have had a lifetime of living in a room that has been completely dark. This darkness has dominated our reality. We have known no better and have accepted the darkness as normal. As we become more open and freer in God’s grace, the divine light begins to trickle into our room. Gradually, we start to see the debris of our selfishness and sinfulness that has been hidden all along. Now patterns of self-absorption, our prejudices, blindness to the poor in our midst and many other gross distortions and neglect of basic Christian charity slowly emerge in our awareness. At the same time, we begin to become mindful of how much of our world has been driven by a consumer society proclaiming a message of self-indulgence.

All of this is the light of Christ gently revealing the depth our brokenness. Our pilgrimage to God slowly unveils the magnitude of our patterns of self-centeredness and sin. This is true progress. This is a gift of self-knowledge that draws us more intensely to God and away from our sense of independence and control. This is the seed falling into the ground and producing the bread that gives Life. This contradiction intensifies all through the process of deeper spiritual growth. It seems like failure but it is a marvelous gift of new life and new light. It is a process of moving the center of reality away from ourselves and toward God.

A critical component of this journey out of the darkness into the light is John of the Cross’ teaching on the Dark Night. John calls it a “blessed night”. It is blessed because we are drawing closer to God. We are giving God new space to work on our purification and transformation. We are on the way to where we belong, free in our true destiny to be one with God.

As we pursue a deeper undertraining of the Dark Night, a few fundamental observations will be helpful. First, John is not talking about a new presence of God. God is always totally present at the center of our being. This is a new activity of God facilitating our growth in awareness. This divine activity is always a gift, and ultimately, always at the initiative of God. In the Dark Night, we are realizing what has always been: an active and loving presence of God that has continually been indispensable to our being. This is a passage into the loving mercy of God that totally engulfs and penetrates our being. This new awareness is the goal of our spiritual life. It is something we long for and work to achieve.

In the end, the Dark Night is both quite simple and truly complex. Its goal is to draw us away from selfishness and into love for God and neighbor. The following reflections will be and effort to make the Dark Night a bit more understandable and truly an attractive goal calling us more deeply into love that satisfies the deepest hunger in our heart.

In the fourth dwelling places something different happens. There is a profound but subtle change. The experience of God in prayer at this new level is totally different. Up to this point, the mind and imagination have played the critical role to get us in touch with God. Now, God takes a new role. This means the new resident of the fourth dwelling places needs to let go. This new experience is often confusing and frightening.

The senses, the mind, the heart, and the entire being need to be prepared for this new reality. Our perception and, even more, our experience of God, must undergo a radical makeover. Our self-understanding begins a deep-seated renovation. The mysterious and pervasive changes flowing from contemplation lead us to begin to see as God sees and to love as God loves. This happens as we let go of our deepest attachments and addictions. The false self fights to maintain our illusions and deceptions. The false self sets loose an entire range of mind-games to undercut this passage into the darkness that produces the freedom and light of contemplation.

The immediate result of this whirlwind of change is a feeling of turmoil. Our sense of clarity and security in things spiritual is crumbling before our eyes. This is why 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.

Contemplation evokes deep personal changes leading to a dramatic makeover of the person. This radically new experience is beyond anything possible by mere human effort. In contemplation, God acts in the soul in ways that are totally new. This presence is silent loving communion without images. It is totally beyond our usual manner of reflecting and thinking in prayer. 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)

God is taking a specific initiative in our prayer through a silent inflow of loving knowledge. Since the mind is as yet unconditioned for God it reacts with confusion to a conversation that takes place in silence. While our thoughts may wander about in the fringes of the castle, Teresa reminds us, ‘the soul is perhaps completely joined with God in the dwelling places very close to the center.’” (Interior Castle IV.1.9)

This new action of God moves one away from the ego and the false self with its blinding control and persistent deception. The journey to the pure heart escalates with novel and unimagined discoveries. In this initial experience of contemplation, there is participation in the life of God never experienced before.

Contemplation is a new and different presence off God, that penetrates one’s whole spiritual life. It enhances every aspect of life: personal social, communal and pastoral.

The Carmelites of the Ancient Observance have this description of 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.”

One way of understanding contemplation is that it is a full and generous following of Jesus Christ. It comes from a deep generosity in hearing and responding to the gospel message.

Christian Meditation enriches but does not replace other prayers such as Lectio Divina, the liturgy, spiritual reading and devotions. Christian Meditation is the foundation of a rich and committed spiritual life. If practiced daily over a period of time, perceptible changes in one’s life will occur. More patience, more reconciliation, more enthusiasm for the liturgy, more openness to areas of blindness and prejudice, a new openness to the demands of justice – all of these and more are the fruit of this prayer. Faithfulness to Christian Meditation is an anchor for a spiritual life that opens one’s heart to surrender to God. Most often, God responds in time with the gift of acquired contemplation.

Christian Meditation is not magic. If you are looking for the easy fix, you will not find it. However, whatever leads you to purity of heart and surrender to God will be major factors along the road. Christian Meditation, if practiced faithfully and with generosity, can contribute significantly to walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

The most important thing to learn about meditation is to meditate. It is extraordinarily simple. That’s the problem. Very few, on first hearing about it, can believe that the simplicity can be so powerful.

This is how to meditate. Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. Silently, interiorly, begin to say a single word, maranatha. Recite it as four syllables of equal length. Listen to it as you say it, gently but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything – spiritual or otherwise. If thoughts or images come, these are distractions at the time of meditation, so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate each morning and evening for between twenty and thirty minutes.

We have three simple goals to guide us in our twice daily meditation.

We say the mantra for the complete time of the meditation. This is a skill and it will take time to create a steady habit.
We say the mantra throughout the meditation without interruption. The task here is to continually return as soon as possible from the relentless distractions which are the ego’s hunger for control.
In saying the mantra consistently, we let it draw us into the depths of our being beyond thought, imagination and all images. We rest in the presence of God dwelling in the depth of our heart. Merton calls this depth of the heart The Hidden Ground of Love.

People are often interested in what meditation can teach them about themselves. It is easy for us to see everything in terms of self-improvement, auto-therapy and self-understanding. There is value in this but self-fascination can be disastrous for the spiritual journey. There is a danger that after we take up meditation we see that we understand ourselves better and then get diverted from self-transcendence to self-fixation.

The Gospel is not about self-analysis but self-transcendence. Meditation happens only when we shift attention away from ourselves.

When we start, we are concerned with progress, and how perfectly we are following the practices. But we learn that we have to let go of the attempt to measure progress. This is the challenge. It simply means to keep saying the mantra from the beginning to the end.

To learn to meditate we need to meditate every day, morning and evening. This should be between twenty and thirty minutes for each session. It is necessary while you are meditating to say the mantra from the beginning to the end.

Whatever thoughts come into your mind, whether they are good thoughts, religious thoughts, holy thoughts or bad thoughts, let them all go and return to say the mantra.

Here is a scenario that evolves from our faithful practice of daily Christian Meditation. Over a period of time, we grow in self-transcendence along with a deep sense of personal unity. We develop a solid sense of personal integrity. We experience a new openness and maturity in our personal relations. We steadily move away from self-centeredness towards inner unity and harmony. An expanded consciousness draws us into a deeper sense of the presence of God.

When I introduce this spiritual practice, I make the following points:

It does not matter if you feel at peace even though this often is the case for beginners. How you feel is not the issue. The real issue is change in your heart that leads to a better life.
Often, the mind seems as if you have a barrel of monkeys roaming around. You need to peacefully return to the mantra and continue repeating it slowly and steadily.
It is important to reject all thoughts including good and inspiring ideas. There is another time for them but not during this sacred time seeking silence.
Always remember, prayer is fundamentally an act of love for God. As Teresa said we need not think much but we need to love much.
In the end, it comes down to discipline. One has to make time twice a day for twenty to thirty minutes. The practice can easily be put off and eventually will slip away.

Christian Meditation needs to be joined to a total effort to pursue a pure heart. This is the surest way to contemplation which is the “treasure hidden in the field.” {Mt 13:44) Though contemplation is ultimately a free gift from God, we are free to pursue it with all our heart and thereby be open and ready when God calls.

Fr. Ernest Larkin, O. Carm. was a highly respected spokesperson for the Carmelite tradition. He was a pioneer of modern Carmelite spirituality. Vatican II challenged him to the core but eventually freed him. This new wisdom helped him develop original insights of relevance in the Carmelite tradition. This evolution helped him contribute significantly to bringing contemplation to its rightful place in the renewal of the church’s spirituality.

In the preface of his final book, Contemplative Prayer For Today: Christian Meditation, he offers a summary of Carmelite teachings on contemplation. He shows the compatibility between John Main’s teachings on Christian Meditation and the Carmelite tradition. Fr. Ernest had a forceful statement: “My perspective is the Carmelite tradition of spirituality, which is the tradition I have tried to live and share over a lifetime. This book represents my studied conviction that this method of contemplative prayer (Christian Meditation) can renew the Christian life in the 21st Century.”

That statement also flows from the mature acceptance of contemplative prayer in today’s church. Today contemplative prayer is considered a goal for all

In the 1970s an Irish monk from England, John Main, a Benedictine, initiated a movement for a type of contemplative prayer, Christian Meditation. This prayer is rooted in the prayer of the early centuries of the Church.

The goal of Christian Meditation is a silence that leads to non-discursive prayer. It aims to quiet the mind and imagination. It hopes to create a silence in the individual so God can be active in prayer. The individual is asked simply to repeat the holy word, maranatha, which means the Lord will come. The choice of the word is arbitrary and it is important not to think of its meaning. The repetition connects to one’s breathing. John Main emphasizes that the slow repetition of the word is the individual’s prayer. The repeating of the word symbolizes and encourages the faithful surrender to God. This abandonment of control results in the quieting of the mind and imagination. The simple and slow repetition of the word aims at slowing down the “chattering monkeys” that characterize the unbridled mind and imagination which seem to fear any part of silence. The silence gained through the slow, rhythmic repetition of the word is the language of God.

In John Main’s structure. simplicity is the focus. There is no need to measure where one is on the path. The important thing is to grow in purity of heart and receptivity to divine grace. For John Main, the program is experiential and practical. He wants people to start the journey and let the experience teach the rest. Through the simple repetition of the mantra, maranatha, the mind is cleared enough to make space for the Spirit. This is the movement toward purity of heart and openness to God’s presence.

Fr. Ernest describes Christian Meditation as contemplative prayer working without the intellect or imagination. It is a challenge to the prayer practice for many adult Christians of this time. Many are used to formulas or else chatty conversation with God. Christian Meditation has one goal: the journey inward. The mantra clears the mind, goes beyond thinking, and takes one from the head to the heart. One repeats the mantra with intention but it is not an object of analysis. It is recited attentively, letting it remove the anxieties of the moment. The person stands at the gate, watching and waiting, at attention, listening but hearing nothing. This is the desired silence. This silence is not day-dreaming but focused and intentional. The pray-er is present to everything and to nothing before the mystery of God.

Here is a clear and simple statement from John Main on how to begin Christian Meditation:
Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. Silently, interiorly, begin to say a single word. We recommend the prayer phrase maranatha. Recite it as four syllables of equal length. Listen to it as you say it, gently but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything –spiritual or otherwise. If thoughts or images come, these are distractions at the time of meditation, so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate each morning and evening for between twenty and thirty minutes.

Homecoming for Contemplative Prayer

For several centuries contemplative prayer was all but forbidden. It was considered appropriate for a few exceptional individuals who were considered very advanced in the spiritual life. It was extremely restricted. Discursive meditation, a more complicated method of prayer than Lectio Divina, was the norm for other serious seekers of spiritual growth.

In discursive prayer, the emphasis is on the pursuit of newer and deeper insights along with the resolution to do something good or avoid some fault. Discursive meditation, heavily dependent on the intellect and imagination, gradually grew to be more complicated and more removed from lay experience. Lay people, for the most part, were left with devotions, the rosary, novenas, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and other expressions of popular religiosity as the accepted expressions of their prayer life. Because these forms of prayer most often had no clear goal for personal transformation, there was a disconnect between the prayer and life. Most often, they became only prayers of petition. However, it is important to remember that Teresa taught that even the simplest forms of prayer are open to contemplation when there is enough love present. In the new movements of prayer in the Church today, contemplative prayer is considered a desirable goal for all.

In contemplative prayer, the emphasis is on loving and silent presence to God with minimal use or concern for the intellect or imagination. Contemplative prayer begins with the person’s own activity..

God is seeking to bring light, the gift of divine wisdom, to every person. However, our sins, faults, attachments and all the expressions of our selfishness block the light. The soul is like a window pane where bad acts and faults are like smudges. These dirty and darkening marks need to be removed to let in the light of Christ

Contemplative prayer begins with the effort of the individual. It is seeking a silent presence before God. This is beyond thinking, imagining and making affections. The hope in contemplative prayer is that it will flow into contemplation which is a free and extraordinary gift of God that brings knowledge by way of love. This is a new and direct presence of God. There is a re-making of the individual through the progressive stages of healing, purifying and transforming.

Our efforts of the spiritual life work to purify us, to set us fee from all the keeps us from God. This is what happens when we are faithful to deep personal prayer. Along with the transformation of consciousness there develops gradually a purity of heart. This is the fertile ground for contemplative prayer.

Contemplative Prayer: The Hope for Contemplation

It is quite helpful to see contemplative prayer as leading to the state of contemplation. Contemplative prayer is the way, contemplation is the goal.

There is a delicate balance between contemplative prayer, in all its various forms, and contemplation. In contemplative prayer the person is active. In contemplation the person receives God’s action. As the individual continues to grow in purity of heart, contemplation, as a state of being and gift of God, becomes the more likely outcome.

The prayer journey can be described in three stages: the departure, the actual movement and the arrival. The starting point is the basic hunger in the heart. This hunger gradually evolves to identify in one way or another a need for God. This leads to a more focused search that gets direction from deep personal prayer. This prayer, in its normal maturation, moves from activity to rest, from many words and thoughts to silence, from strong personal effort to a simple openness to the Divine Presence. This is the journey to contemplative prayer. This is a movement guiding us to the elusive center where God dwells. Peace and order are the promise than beckons as the final goal of prayer. This is contemplation drawing us to be one with God. This is truly where we are going!

Teresa sets the stage for the journey with the image of the castle. In reality, she is talking about the human person. The path is to God at the center, the ultimate destiny of all.

The trip through the seven dwelling places is a description of the experience of God. It all begins when the individual realizes there is more to life. This can be triggered in many ways: a personal crisis, an enlightening sermon, a movie or book, or frustration with the continuing dead-ends in the mis-guided quest for happiness. In our day, surely the coronavirus fits well into this list. In the end, each is an expression of our mortality.

Prayer, in its most simple form, initiates the movement inward. This constitutes the entry into the Castle. This is the beginning of human interiority.

The seven dwelling places are all unique. They are like a set of spheres within a sphere. Each globe contains a variety of experiences. Teresa is emphatic that movement from one sphere to another is not a linear passage straight ahead. There is much backward and forward movement in and between each set of dwelling places. This includes apparent movement to the next dwelling places and then falling back when the effort and cooperation with God is not consistent.

The first three dwelling places, while considered similar, cover a great expanse. These dwelling places share one common component. They accentuate the effort of the individual. The first is marked by the almost hidden glimmer of the transcendent. The second involves the first conversion. In the third there is real growth. Prayer has become a regular practice in one’s life. There is order and discipline. But the risk is a dominant sense that one has arrived, accompanied by a dangerous urge to settle down. The flagrant selfishness of the first two levels may have gone underground but it eventually emerges often in the problematical guise of a distorted spirituality.

The movement to the fourth dwelling places is the “contemplative switch”. While self-knowledge has been growing from the beginning, here there is greater clarity of the depth of selfishness that lies within. In a grand irony, Teresa states that when we grasp the gravity of our personal brokenness and sin, it is then that we truly see the glory of God.

“We shall never completely know ourselves if we don’t strive to know God. By gazing at his grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness, by looking at his purity, we shall see our own filth; by pondering his humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.” (IC 1.9) In this exchange of the vision of human depravity for God’s majesty, Teresa sets forth a vision of Christian life. We are urged inward and onward in a growing intimate relationship with Christ. This relationship is based on a deep yearning for salvation flowing from greater self-knowledge leading to humility. Christ is seen as the way forward in the ultimate expression of mercy in his cross and resurrection. There is only one goal available in one’s faithfulness to Christ: union with God who is waiting in the final dwelling place.

The fifth and sixth dwelling places hold the experience of the final purification. These dwelling places receive the most extensive treatment from Teresa. They are, in many ways, her very special gift to the wisdom of Christian spirituality.

In the end, the pilgrimage to the center produces a switch in emphasis from us as the center, to God as the center. Teresa’s contemplative’s gift is her description in great detail how this refocusing from self to God takes place.

Teresa makes it clear that not only is God available to all, but that this is the passionate desire of God. She shows that seeking contemplation and mysticism are part of the normal Christian vocation. The fact that they are not understood to be normal is a distortion. She proclaims that it is time to refocus. It is time to regain God’s true desire for all to be one.

This is a brief description of Teresa of Avila’s classic, The Interior Castle. The first and obvious question when approaching this spiritual classic is, why concern ourselves with a book written for a small number of cloistered nuns over four hundred years ago? The reason is that the text is a spiritual classic. It was an important factor in Teresa along with St. Catherine of Sienna being named the first women Doctors of the Church. As such, it speaks to the human heart in a profound and meaningful way beyond the limits of culture and history. It has been translated into dozens of languages.

In the book, Teresa uses the image of a castle to address the relationship between God and the human person. The castle is a symbol of the human person. Teresa understands well that every human heart hungers for happiness. The journey is to the center where God dwells. This is where true happiness will be found. The heart will realize its true and lasting fulfillment only in God.

When we read Teresa’s text, we are invited to go beyond thought and intellectual insight and reflection. We are drawn into a unique experience of God. She clearly portrays her life as a story of God’s mercy. Teresa shows how the experience of God is rooted in a continual struggle that involves a series of conversions always moving away from self-interest and control. Teresa emerged from the deepening encounter with God recognizing her gifts and addressing her brokenness. In the end, growing self-knowledge drew her away from her independence. She saw the utter importance of God’s mercy and her need to embrace it.

The Interior Castle is an organized and insightful analysis on her experience. She describes the experience in the seven stages or dwelling places leading to the center. This description becomes a manual for our own pilgrimage to God. She says the soul is like a castle “made entirely of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places.” (IC 1.1) The spiritual life of the individual in the castle is complex. It involves the talents, commitment and individuality of the person as they are manifested at various spiritual depths.

Here are some of the highlights that we need to be aware of as we approach our engagement with The Interior Castle.

Prayer, at first hesitant and sporadic but steadily growing in maturity, is our point of entry into the Castle.

The first three dwelling places are about our beginnings. They stress our effort in prayer. The last four dwelling places are about God’s initiative and special activity in our prayer. This is contemplation.

Teresa always has her eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the model. He is our companion at all times.

Teresa seems in a hurry to pass through the first three dwelling places. She recognizes that her special gift is to explain the mystical experiences in the final four dwelling places. This is one of her greatest contributions to Christian spirituality.

The goal is union with God. This will take place in this life by purification and transformation in one’s journey to the center, where God dwells. Failing that, we will pass through purgatory after this life has ended. Either way, we end up united with God. However, the method and time are our choice.

The journey to the center, where God awaits, unfolds in our ever-deeper awareness and acceptance of God’s love and mercy.

The way forward in the experience of God is a process of letting go of our selfishness. In that process there is a relentless exposure of the depth and breadth of our self-absorption. Teresa is clear that only God can both expose and transform the deeper levels of self-love.

One enters the Castle by casting off the spiritual blindness and paralysis that characterizes life in isolation from God. Then one can begin the long passage to the center and union with God. Every step of the way is all about love.

She presents a vision for our journey to the Center but little is said about methods of prayer emphasizing the unique and constant call to be open to the Spirit on the journey.

In the end, it is all about love and service for our sisters and brothers which we embrace by participating in the coming of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and the integrity of creation.

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