Chapter 24

 

Contemplative Prayer

 

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (2709 – 2719)

 

It's easy for us to side with a malcontent Martha over the seem­ing idleness of her sister Mary. And yet Jesus insists: "One thing only is required. Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it" (cf. Lk 10:38-41). That one required thing, that better portion is contemplative prayer.

 

The Gaze of Faith

 

The Catechism describes contemplation as "a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus" (2715). Seated at the Lord's feet and utterly absorbed in the Lord's words, Mary is presented to us as the model of Christian con­templation. She fulfills what God commands through the voice of the Psalmist: "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46: 11; RSV).

 

This transfixed stillness focused wholly on Jesus bears all the earmarks of one deeply in love. People in love long to be with one another. In contemplation we experience and satisfy this same desire as it is directed toward God. Contemplative prayer is the deepest union of our heart with the Heart of Jesus. The author of the Cloud of Un­knowing calls it the "work of love," for in contemplative prayer we give ourselves completely and ardently to God.

 

As for those in love, in contemplation it is enough just to be with God and to be ourselves with God. "We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him" (2711). And in the process we come to appreciate how much we belong to him: "My lover belongs to me and I to him" (Sgs 6:3).

 

Contemplative prayer liberates us from the frantic and frenetic distractions of life. The modern world is quick to misjudge contem­plation as a futile and foolish waste of time. But, as St. John of the Cross wisely instructs us: "The spiritual person should learn to remain in God's presence with a loving attention and a tranquil intellect, even though he seems to himself to be idle. For little by little and very soon the divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God, enveloped in divine love, will be infused into his soul. He should not interfere with forms or discursive meditations and imaginings. Otherwise his soul will be disquieted and drawn out of its peaceful contentment to distaste and repugnance. And if, as we said, scruples about his inactivity arise, he should remember that pacification of soul (making it calm and peaceful, inactive and desireless) is no small ac­complishment."

 

The one in love eagerly listens to the beloved's every word, de­lighting in his voice, eager to respond. At the Annunciation, the Blessed Mother demonstrates this profound aspect of contemplative union. Mary's personal response to the message of the angel is the surrender of her entire will, her Fiat, offered as a sacrifice of love, in gratitude for the grace of receiving God's Word.

 

The Prayer of Quiet

 

But the lover also enjoys great ease and delight in sharing silence with the loved one. St. Teresa of Avila refers to contemplative prayer as the "prayer of quiet." Such silence serves to enhance our ability and eager­ness to listen to our beloved. Catherine de Hueck Doherty once wrote: "True, silence is sometimes the absence of speech - but it is always the act of listening. The mere absence of noise (which is empty of our listen­ing to the voice of God) is not silence. A day filled with noise and voices can be a day of silence, if the noises become for us the echo of the pres­ence of God. When we speak of ourselves and are filled with ourselves, we leave silence behind. When we repeat intimate words of God that he has left within us, our silence remains intact."

 

Authentic silence accommodates attentiveness, as the Eastern theologian Theophan the Recluse observes: Contemplative prayer, tak­ing deep root in the heart, may be without words or thought: it may consist only in a standing before God, in an opening of the heart to him in reverence and love. It is a state of being irresistibly drawn within to stand before God in prayer."

 

In this silence, the one in love remains perfectly content just to behold the beloved, gazing upon him in a state of holy and tranquil abiding. The more we direct our sight, our energy, and our attention to Jesus, the less preoccupied we become with ourselves and our own self-centered concerns. The essayist Pico Iyer contends: "We have to earn silence, then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a pres­ence; not emptiness but repletion. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below ourselves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think."

 

Contemplation and Love

 

As we lovingly hold our gaze on the Lord, Jesus returns the look of love to us in a way that transforms us: "Jesus looked at him with love" (cf. Mk 10:21). The Catechism tells us that our "focus on Jesus is a renunciation of self. His gaze purifies our heart; the light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion for all men" (2715).

The intimacy shared by those in love mutually strengthens their confidence in the bond of love. Holy contemplation accommodates this intimacy between ourselves and God. It transforms our self-per­ception, so that the love of God for us becomes the truest standard for our self-assessment. We see and know ourselves as deeply loved per­sons. And that conviction colors the way we regard everything else.

 

This dimension of contemplation particularly assists us in our recurring need for repentance. For, as the Catechism points out, "Con­templative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more" (2712). We succeed in loving even more when we share the very love of God with others in acts of charity.

 

The motto of the Dominican Friars is "contemplate, and then share with others the fruits of contemplation." Delight in divine love is contemplation's first and richest fruit. Once it is possessed in contem­plative prayer, it in turn informs and perfects our every action. As St. Therese of Lisieux notes: "It is no longer a question of loving one's neighbor as oneself but of loving him as he, Jesus, has loved him, and will love him to the consummation of the ages." For this reason, the Catechism also describes contemplation as "a communion of love bear­ing Life for the multitude" (2719).

 

The person in love remains vigilantly attentive to every move­ment, every gesture, every attitude of the beloved. In contemplative prayer we offer this same solicitude and self-donation to God. We yearn to return to contemplation as often as possible so as to imbibe more deeply of God's holy love. In that act we experience our own self perfection. A saint of the East, Dimitri of Rostov, once wrote: "As a flame increases when it is constantly fed, so prayer, made often, with the mind dwelling ever more deeply in God, arouses divine love in the heart. And the heart, set on fire, will warm all the inner man, will enlighten and teach him, revealing to him all its unknown and hidden wisdom, and making him like a flaming seraph, always standing be­fore God within his spirit, always looking at him within his mind, and drawing from this vision the sweetness of spiritual joy."

 

For the ultimate desire of one who has tasted the joy of authentic love is to deepen that union of love with the beloved. The more we do so, the more we are personally transformed. The spiritual director of St. Elizabeth of Hungary testified to her holiness when he wrote: "I declare before God that I have seldom seen a more contemplative woman. When she was coming from private prayer, some religious men and women often saw her face shining marvelously and light com­ing from her eyes like the rays of the sun."

 

We can expect the same from our own devotion to God in con­templation. The unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing under­stood well the sanctifying effects of contemplation on one who truly and utterly loves God: "As a person matures in the work of love, he will discover that this love governs his demeanor befittingly both within and without. When grace draws a man to contemplation it seems to transfigure him even physically so that though he may be ill-favored by nature, he now appears changed and lovely to behold. His whole personality becomes so attractive that good people are honored and delighted to be in his company, strengthened by the sense of God he radiates. "

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