Meg Funk

Sleeping Jesus, Therese

(Daniel Chowning) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:31:27 EST

before death

Sleeping Jesus, Sleeping Therese:
The Prayer of St. Therese

A few months ago, I submitted the title of my lecture as: “Dark Fire: The Prayer of St. Therese.” After further reflection, prayer and study, I have re-titled my lecture: “Sleeping Jesus, Sleeping Therese: St. Therese, a Contemplative Soul?”

In 1895, Therese confided to Mother Agnes the aridity of her retreat preceding her profession and her seven years of struggle with sleep during prayer. Therese’s honesty provides a precious insight into her contemplative experience as an enclosed Carmelite nun.
“I should have spoken to you about the retreat preceding my Profession, dear Mother; it was far from bringing me any consolations since the most absolute aridity and almost total abandonment were my lot. Jesus was sleeping as usual in my little boat; ah! I see very well how rarely souls allow Him to sleep peacefully within them. Jesus is so fatigued with always having to take the initiative and to attend to others that He hastens to take advantage of the repose I offer to Him. He will undoubtedly awaken before my great eternal retreat, but instead of being troubled about it this only gives me extreme pleasure.
Really, I am far from being a saint, and what I have just said is proof of this; instead of rejoicing, for example, at my aridity, I should attribute it to my little fervor and lack of fidelity; I should be desolate for having slept (for seven years) during my hours of prayer and thanksgivings after Holy Communion; well, I am not desolate. I remember little children are as pleasing to their parents when they are asleep as well as when they are wide awake; I remember, too, that whey they perform operations, doctors put their patients to sleep. Finally, I remember that: The Lord knows our weakness, that he is mindful that we are but dust and ashes.”

Therese’s confidence offer us fascinating insights into her contemplative experience. Our first observation is the absence of any extraordinary mystical phenomenon that we find in the life of St. Teresa or in states of union described in The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love: no visions, ecstasies, interior locutions, or delightful absorption during prayer. Rather, Therese speaks of “absolute aridity,” “total abandonment,” the silent sleep of Jesus, seven years sleeping during her hours of prayer and thanksgivings after Holy Communion. She acknowledges her weakness and poverty, her lack of fervor and fidelity. “Really, I am far from being a saint.”
On the other hand, in all her dry and slumbering prayer, we see the purity of her love and her profound confidence in God. She lets Jesus sleep; she is happy to let him rest. Falling asleep, lack of fervor and fidelity, do not trouble or make her disconsolate. “The Lord knows our weakness; his is mindful that we are dust and ashes.”
We will return later on to Therese’s retreat preceding her profession, but for now we might pose the following questions: if Therese’s prayer was empty of consolation, “absolute aridity,” and if she struggled to keep awake in prayer for seven years, what does her experience have to offer our contemplative lives? We might even be bold enough to ask: “Was Therese a contemplative soul? Was she a mystic”? Her prayer life seems to lack certain mystical graces one might expect from a contemplative?” What is the essence of prayer according to Therese of Lisieux?
To speak of Therese’s prayer poses certain difficulties. She never wrote any formal commentary on prayer, nor did she teach her novices a method of prayer. She composed a few beautiful prayers, for instance, the Act of Oblation and a prayer to the Holy Face. In several places in her manuscripts and letters she spontaneously reflects on what prayer means for her. Despite the lack of a formal treatise on prayer, she can help us in our own search for God because she shares her own experience.
In this lecture I will explore Therese’s prayer experience, primarily during her years in Carmel. Although her early childhood experience of prayer deserves attention, I will present only a brief overview of her early spiritual experience. From Therese’s contemplative experience during her years in Carmel we can derive inspiration and hope for our own contemplative journey.
No Neophyte
Therese entered Carmel on April 9, 1888. She was 15 years old. She had battled courageously to obtain her dream of going to the Mountain of Carmel. As early as the summer of 1882, she was certain God had called her to Carmel “for Jesus alone.” She was no neophyte to the spiritual life the morning she walked through the enclosure door. She was born into a deeply religious family whose piety was evident in their daily lives. Both at Alencon and then at Les Buissonnets, Louis and Zelie Martin created a religious atmosphere in their home: daily Mass, morning and night prayers together, Eucharistic processions, May devotions, and daily reading of Dom Gueranger’s, L’annee liturgique. In Manuscript “A” Therese recalls how at Mass she would often gaze at her father’s face instead of the preacher. His prayerful countenance alone taught her the ways of the Spirit. (A, 42)
Therese’s sisters profoundly influenced her spiritual development. After Mme. Martin’s death, Pauline became Therese’s second mother and gave her religious instruction. Even after Pauline’s entrance into Carmel, she guided her little sister in the ways of the Spirit. To prepare her little Benjamin for first communion, she compiled a little book that taught a method of preparing her heart to receive her Eucharistic Lord. This method proposed a certain amount of sacrifices and short prayers to be prayed and performed daily. By the time of her First Communion, Therese had accumulated 1949 practices and 2773 invocations!
Marie, on the other hand, taught Therese that the way of sanctity is to do little things for the love of God. Marie also counseled Therese during her martyrdom of scruples that began in May 1884.
Therese was spiritually precocious. At the age of seven or eight she asked one her classmates to teach her how to meditate. One day she asked Marie if she could have permission to make a half hour of meditation every day. Marie refused permission. When her little sister persisted and asked for at least 15 minutes, she met with another refusal. Therese’s pious nature frightened Marie.
Therese possessed a innate contemplative disposition. She sensed God’s presence in the world of nature. Her father took her with him fishing, to the sea shore, and frolicking through the flowering fields of Normandy. “I was very fond of the countryside, flowers, birds, etc. Sometimes I would try to fish with my little line, but I preferred to go alone and sit down on the grass bedecked with flowers, and then my thoughts became very profound indeed! Without knowing what it was to meditate, my soul was absorbed in real prayer. I listened to distant sounds, the murmuring of the wind, etc.” (A, p. 37)
One day, Mother St. Francois de Sales, one of her teachers at the Benedictine Abbey school, asked Therese how she spent her free days. Therese said that she would go behind her bed in an empty space and think. (“Je pense.”) “What do you think about,” asked her Mistress. “I think about God, about life�Eternity. I think,” replied Therese. Therese commented on this childhood memory. “I understand now that I was praying without knowing how and already God was instructing me in secret.” (Ms. A, p. 108)
As a child and early adolescent, Therese nourished her spirit on The Imitation of Christ and the conferences of Abb� Arminjon, The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life. The Imitation of Christ became her lectio divina text par excellence; she always carried it with her and had memorized many of the chapters. Reading Arminjon’s conferences was one of the greatest graces of her life. It inspired her to love Jesus, to give Him a thousand proofs of her love. She copied out several passages of perfect love. (A, 102)
Therese’s childhood was marked by the experience of loss and grief. She lost her mother at the age of four and a half. Mme. Martin’s death cast a shadow over Therese’s happy childhood. She became hypersensitive, timid, and socially maladjusted at school and with strangers. Pauline and Marie’s entrance into Carmel deepened the feelings of abandonment caused by her mother’s death. Pauline’s departure was most traumatic and became the catalyst for a severe psychosomatic breakdown. At times, scrupulosity tormented her delicate conscience.
On the other hand, Therese received many consolations and extraordinary graces. I will list just a few of these graces.
-On Pentecost Sunday, May 1883, Therese felt the Virgin Mary’s tenderness as she smiled at her and cured her of psychosomatic illness.
-She experienced her first Holy Communion as a fusion between Jesus and herself. The period following her first Communion was full of sensible consolations and pre-mystical graces. “Ah, how sweet was the first kiss of Jesus to my soul. It was a kiss of love. I felt loved and I also said, “I love you, and I give myself to you forever.” It was a fusion, like a drop of water lost in the ocean. (pp. 111-112)
-She was healed of her scruples through the intercession of her four heavenly brothers and sisters.
-The Christmas grace of 1886 gave her the strength to break from the vicious cycle of hypersensitivity and to set out on the path of selfless love.
-Special graces poured into her life in 1887. Pranzini, for whom she had prayed and offered sacrifices, embraced the crucifix before his execution. Our Lady of Victories liberated her from the tormenting scruple that she had lied about the grace of the smile of the Virgin.
Her sufferings taught her to look toward God for light, strength and courage. The consolations fortified her and moved her to keep her gaze fixed on God. She began to live the theological life of faith, hope, and love.
Furthermore, her early experiences began a purification process. Her sufferings severed her attachment to creatures and purified her self-love. For instance, her Uncle’s opposition to entering Carmel forced her to let go of her self-will and accept God’s will. The separations she suffered in life taught her to depend on God alone. The Christmas grace of 1886 impelled her to transcend self and to love more maturely and freely. She became more concerned about the welfare and salvation of others than her own need to be loved.
Carmel and the Sleep of Jesus
When Therese walked through the threshold of the Carmelite Monastery, she embarked upon a life of intense search for union with God through prayer and solitude within community. The daily horarium included six hours of prayer: two hours of silent personal prayer, the Divine Office, Mass, and spiritual reading. Therese’s sensible consolations dried up and she began a long trek through an arid and silent spiritual desert. She entered a night of faith. “Dryness was my daily bread,” she writes in Ms. A. (A., p. 165) Celine testified:
“Her entire life was spent in dark faith. There was not a soul less consoled in prayer; she confided to me that she had spent seven years in a most arid prayer. Her annual retreats, her monthly retreats, were a torture for her. And yet we believed that she was inundated with spiritual consolations so much did her words and works have unction; so much was she united to God.” (C et S. p. 76)

Clothing and Profession Retreats
Therese’s retreats before her clothing and profession give us insight into the aridity and darkness she experienced throughout her religious life. The retreat in preparation for entrance into the novitiate was her first long retreat. It took place from the evening of January 5 through the 9th of 1889. She received the habit on January 10.
“Nothing near Jesus. Aridity!...Sleep!...But at least there is silence�Silence does good for the soul�Since Jesus wants to sleep, why will I hinder Him? I am only too happy that He doesn’t bother with me, for He is showing me that I am not a stranger when treating me this way, for I assure you, He is not going to trouble about carrying on a conversation with me.” (LT 74)
“The poor little lamb can say nothing to Jesus, and above all, Jesus says absolutely nothing to it; pray for it so that its retreat be pleasing just the same to the Heart of Him who alone reads into the depths of its soul.” (LT 75)

The Gospel scene of Jesus sleeping in the boat in either Mark or Matthew’s Gospel offered Therese meaning in her arid and silent prayer. Despite the aridity experienced as the sleep and silence of Jesus, a deep desire to love Jesus burned in her heart. “I would like so much to love Him!...Love Him more than He has ever been loved!” (LT 74)
It is impressive that a young woman of sixteen had the insight to understand that dryness and silence was a way of purifying her faith and love. “Today more than yesterday, it that were possible, I was deprived of all consolation. I thank Jesus, who finds this good for my soul, and that, perhaps if He were to console me, I would stop at this sweetness; but He wants that all for be for Himself!...Well, then, all will be for Him, all, even when I feel I am able to offer nothing; so, just like this evening, I will give Him this nothing!” (LT 76)
Early in her formation as a postulant, aridity and emptiness, experienced as the silence and sleep of Jesus, becomes a predominant quality of her prayer. Dryness purified her love and became the very means to prove her love by accepting it and offering herself to God as she was, even to feel nothing! She offered her nothingness. Her prayer was a prayer of faith, hope and love.
An even deeper aridity and sense of helplessness marked her profession retreat of 1890. “I should have spoken to you about the retreat preceding my profession. It was far from bringing me any consolation since the most absolute aridity and almost total abandonment were my lot. He was sleeping as usual in my little boat.” (M A., p. 165)
In August of 1890, she wrote a letter to her sister Agnes of Jesus in which she shares her retreat experience. She begins by expressing her desire to be taken to the mountain of love, an image of Mount Carmel. There are many paths leading up to the mountain’s summit, but Jesus takes her hand and leads her down into a subterranean passage where it is neither cold nor hot, where the sun does not shine, and in which the rain or the wind does not visit, a subterranean passage where she sees nothing but a half-veiled light, the light which was diffused by the lowered eyes of her Fianc�’s Face! (LT 110)
“My Fianc� says nothing to me, and I say nothing to Him either except that I love Him more than myself, and I feel at the bottom of my heart that it is true, for I am more His than my own!...I don’t see that we are advancing toward the summit of the mountain since our journey is being made underground, but it seems to me that we are approaching it without knowing how. The route on which I am has not consolation for me, nevertheless it brings me all consolations since Jesus is the one who chose it, and I want to console Him alone, alone!...Ah, it’s true that if I’m giving Him the wine from my heart, it is between the B and the A, for I don’t understand it myself.” (Ibid.)

Her experience is one of “absolute aridity,” “almost total abandonment,” and the sleep of Jesus. Her prayer is one of dark faith and pure love for she “loves the Fianc� more than herself.” He is the one who chose this path, so she accepts it to console him. If she gives the wine of her heart, she’s not even sure what type of wine it is; she doesn’t even understand what’s going on. She is there for Jesus, not for herself. She embraces the mystery of Jesus and all that Jesus chooses for her; she is free of self-love. Her prayer is an act of surrender in dark faith and love.
The same theme appears in some of her letters.
“Your Therese is not in the heights at this moment�Jesus takes away his tangible presence from them in order to give them to sinners. If He does lead them Tabor, it is for a few moments, the valley is most frequently the place of his repose.” (LT 142)

“Jesus does not will that we find His adorable presence in repose; He hides Himself; He wraps Himself in darkness.” (LT 145)

“When I am before the Tabernacle, I can say only one thing to our Lord: “My God, you know that I love you.” And I feel that my prayer does not tire Jesus; knowing the helplessness of His poor little spouse, he is content with her good will.” (LT 152)

“Many serve Jesus when He is consoling them, but few consent to keep company with Jesus sleeping on the waves or suffering in the garden of agony.” (LT 165)

Although Therese speaks of “aridity,” “darkness,” “abandonment,” and “Jesus sleeping,” it would be a mistake to say that her prayer was one of total emptiness. God is Love. God is also Spirit and thus transcends our intellect, feelings and images. God’s inflow of loving knowledge takes place on the level of the spirit that lies beyond sensible nature, that is, what the senses can grasp. In stanza one of the Spiritual Canticle, John of the Cross emphasizes God’s transcendence. However sublime a person’s knowledge of God, feeling, or spiritual communication may be, these are not essentially God because God is a hidden God. Nor must a person think that the experience of dryness, darkness, and dereliction, are signs of God’s absence. “People cannot have certain knowledge from the one state that they are in God’s grace or from the other that they are not.” (SC 1:3-4) Since God is hidden, the soul must seek God in a hidden way, through faith and love.
By the time Therese made her clothing retreat, she had passed beyond the stage of beginners and entered into realm of contemplative dryness that becomes the habitual climate, the base from which God sometimes raises the person to a more elevated and sensible spiritual communication. Contemplation is not, first of all, a felt experience or a delightful consolation. Contemplation can be profoundly painful and disrupt our conditioned way of relating to ourselves, others, and reality. The fire of God’s love drives its flames into the recesses of our heart and mind and gradually reveals our deepest wounds and pathologies in order to heal and transform them. John of the Cross defines contemplation as “a secret, peaceful and loving inflow of God that inflames the soul in the spirit of love.” (1 N 10, 6) God’s loving inflow purges the soul of its ignorance and imperfections, both natural and supernatural, and instructs the soul in the perfection of love without the soul understanding how.” (2 N 5,1) Contemplation is “a science of love.” In other words, it is the experience of coming to know God’s love, receiving that love, and of loving at the deepest level of our psyche and spirit. In the darkness and dryness of her prayer, the Living Flame of God’s Love was hallowing out deep caverns of Therese’s being in order to fill them with God. God’s loving inflow was secretly teaching her God’s love and swelling her heart to love with the very Love of the Holy Spirit. At some profound level beyond her senses, Therese’s spirit was enflamed with a desire to love, to be there for Jesus, to surrender herself completely to whatever God asked of her. “My Fianc�e says nothing to me, and I say nothing to Him either except that I love Him more than myself.” (LT 110)
“Do not believe that I am swimming in consolations; oh, no, my consolation is to have none on earth. Without showing Himself, without making His voice heard, Jesus teaches me in secret; it is not by means of books, for I don’t understand what I am reading. Sometimes a word comes to console me, such as this one which I received at the end of prayer (after having remained in silence and aridity): “Here is the teacher whom I am giving you; he will teach you everything that you must do. I want to make you read in the book of life, wherein is contained the science of love.” The science of Love, ah, yes, this word resounds sweetly in the ear of my soul, and I desire only this science.” (B 1, p. 188)

St. John of the Cross teaches that the purifying hand of God touches us in many ways: through difficult relationships, trials, temptations, illnesses, financial reverses, and even the scorching heat of the day! Therese experienced the dryness, darkness, and sleep of Jesus not only in prayer but also in the events of daily life and in her relationships. An examination of Therese’s various trials would take us beyond the scope of this lecture, but I think I would be remiss if I didn’t allude to some of the concrete realities of her life that impacted her prayer. The contemplative dryness of her prayer seeped into other areas of her life. A process of becoming dispossessed and emptied out of some of the most cherished people, possessions, and memories of her life began early in her formation and this process became more interior and spiritual as her life developed.
On February 12, 1889, Monsieur Martin was committed to Bon Sauveur Psychiatric Hospital. This was the most painful and “bitter cup” Therese had to drink during her first years of religious life. “In our dear Father, Jesus has stricken us in the most sensitive exterior part of our heart,” she penned to Celine in 1892.
Sister St. Vincent de Paul’s sharp and bitter tongue didn’t miss an opportunity to openly criticize Therese for her slowness and impracticality. Therese referred to the suffering of community life as “pinpricks.” She felt repelled by some of the sisters.
During the early years, Therese suffered from the severity of Mother Marie de Gonzague’s treatment and her emotional distance. From the age of nine, Therese had received Mother Marie de Gonzague’s affection. Once in the enclosure, her behavior changed and Therese heroically struggled to overcome her childish need for the prioress’ maternal affection.
The monotony of daily life made virtue difficult to practice. Therese confessed to Celine that she was not always faithful in virtue. She began to see more and more the immense gulf separating her ideal of holiness from the reality of her poverty and littleness.
Struggles with scrupulosity resurfaced. Doubts about the existence of heaven began as early as 1890 and tried her spirit.
All of these concrete events and realities of life were instruments of God’s purification and exacerbated the sleep and silence of Jesus. Remarkably, Therese viewed all these events as God’s way of freeing her heart.
How did Therese Pray?
We might ask ourselves at this point, how did Therese pray? Even though her prayer was dark and dry, how did she proceed in prayer?
What we glean from her experience and spontaneous thoughts about prayer is that her prayer was a simple spontaneous heart to heart conversation with Jesus.
“Outside the Divine Office which I am very unworthy to recite, I do not have the courage to force myself to search out beautiful prayers in books. There are so many of them it really gives me a headache! And each prayer is more beautiful than the others. I cannot recite them all and now knowing which to choose, I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.” (Ms. C. p. 242)

This rich text from Manuscript “C” offers us more than a simple method of prayer; it expresses an experience of prayer. She simply came to God as she was and spoke from her heart. It also attests to the totality of her prayer. Prayer was a way of being. She entered into a living relationship with God with the totality of her life, i.e. her joys, her sufferings, a glance directed toward heaven, a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial and as well as joy. She experienced prayer as an expansion of her heart, enlarging her heart to love, uniting her to Jesus.
Therese’s prayer may have been simple, but as we have seen, it was far from delightful and easy. She struggled with fatigue and sleepiness; she patiently bore with dryness, helplessness, the feeling of being abandoned, distractions, and irritations from the annoying behavior of others. Recall the nun who had the mania of clicking her teeth during the hours of quiet prayer. (Ms. C) Retreats, especially preached retreats, were a torture for her. At the end of her life she confessed that the Divine Office had been both her happiness and her martyrdom because she could never recite it as well as she wanted. (see Fau, p. 63) She was least consoled in her thanksgivings after Holy Communion. Recitation of the rosary became a penitential practice.
What means did she employ to help her in dry prayer? First and foremost, Therese remained faithful to prayer. Sister Genevieve testified in Counsels and Remembrances: “Despite this state of dryness, she was even more assiduous in prayer, happy to give even more to God. She could not suffer that one instant be taken away from this holy exercise and she formed her novices in this sense. “It is God’s time and we must not take it from him.” (C et S. p. 76-77) Therese exercised that solid virtue of determinada determinacion (strong determination) Teresa stressed so often in her writings. Therese persevered in faith and love.
Secondly, and this is where Therese can help us because she traveled the “ordinary way” of prayer in the sense that she had recourse to simple aids to keep herself centered and awake in prayer. She often used a book to nourish her prayer. She speaks of a nun who must have had a lot of lights because she rarely used a book during prayer! (Ms C) She drew inspiration from The Spiritual Canticle of John of the Cross, the Imitation of Christ, and Scripture. Scripture especially helped her in times of dryness. “It is especially the Gospels which sustain me during my hours of prayer, for in them I find what is necessary for my poor little soul.” (C, p. 179)
“At times when I am reading certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires; I close the learned book that is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons.” (LT 226)

“A single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons.” This phrase gives us insight into how Therese prayed the Scriptures. She used Scripture freely. One word or phrase would open up new horizons and enkindle the fire of love within her heart. Sister Marie of the Trinity, her novice, said that Therese would “picoter” her Gospel as a way to keep herself awake and feed her prayer. “Picoter” means to pick tiny holes in something. She would open her Gospels at random to find a word or phrase to feed her spirit. This is how she discovered her vocation to be Love in the heart of the Church. During prayer she opened up to 1 Corinthians to find a word to assuage her infinite desires to love. Her eyes fell upon Chapter12 and 13 where Paul speaks about different parts of the body and the importance of love. In the last year of her life she prayed with the Gospel texts on charity from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and John’s great commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Therese often had recourse to short vocal prayers. When even Scripture left her dry she turned to the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary.” “Sometimes when my mind is in such a great aridity that is impossible to draw forth a single thought to unite me with God, I very slowly recite an “Our Father” and then the angelic salutation; then these prayers give me great delight; they nourish my soul much more than if I had recited them precipitately a hundred times.” (Ms. “C”, p. 243)
The words of the Canticle of Canticles, “Draw me, we shall run after you in the odor of your ointments,” became a prayer offered for her missionary brothers. For Therese, just the words “Draw me” were sufficient. They became a mantra that captivated her heart and mind. (Ms C, 254)
We see, therefore, that Therese sought the help of simple ways to nourish her prayer in moments of aridity. On the sensible, observable level, there seems to be nothing extraordinary about her prayer. She makes a quick reference in Manuscript “C” that she was not favored with the prayer of quiet. (I’m not sure if I believe it, because there are levels of the prayer of quiet and it can be experienced in many ways.)
Parable of the Little Bird
In my perception, the best description of Therese’s prayer is the parable of the little bird found in Manuscript “B.” Therese compares herself to a weak little bird who has the eyes and heart of an eagle. It spite of its extreme littleness it dares to gaze upon the Divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and it feels within it the aspirations of an Eagle. The little bird would like to fly toward the bright Sun, the Divine Furnace of the Holy Trinity, but it is not within its power.
What will become of it? Will the little bird die of sorrow at seeing itself so weak? No, the little bird will not even be troubled. With bold surrender, it wishes to remain gazing upon its Divine Sun. Nothing will frighten it, neither wind nor rain, and if dark clouds come and hide the Star of Love, the little bird will not change its place because it knows that beyond the clouds its bright Sun still shines on and its brightness is not eclipsed for a single instant.
At times the little bird’s heart is assailed by the storm, and it seems it should believe in the existence of no other thing except the clouds surrounding it; this the moment of perfect joy for the little bird. It remains there just the same gazing at the Invisible Light which remains hidden from its faith!
While remaining in its place (that is, under the Sun’s rays), it sometimes allows itself to become distracted from its sole occupation. It picks up a grain on the right or the left; it chases a little worm; then coming upon a little pool of water, it wets its feathers still hardly formed. It sees an attractive flower and its little mind is occupied with this flower. It is taken up with the trifles of earth.
And yet, after all its misdeeds, instead of going and hiding away in a corner, to weep over its misery and to die of sorrow, the little bird turns toward its beloved Sun, presents its wet wings to its beneficent rays. It recounts in detail all its infidelities, thinking in the boldness of its full trust that it will acquire in even greater fullness the love of Him who came to call not the just but sinners.
This little bird is happy to remain weak and little. What would become of it if it were big? Never would it have the boldness to appear in God’s presence, to fall asleep in front of God. This is still one of its weaknesses: when it wants to fix its gaze upon the Divine Sun, and when the clouds prevent it from seeing a single ray of that Sun, in spite of itself, its little eyes close, its little head is hidden beneath its wing, and the poor little bird falls asleep believing all the time that it is fixing its gaze upon its Dear Star. When it awakens, it doesn’t feel desolate; its little heart is at peace and it begins once again the work of love. (Ms. B)
From a superficial perspective, this allegory may seem infantile and saccarine, but profound theological content lies beneath the symbols. The context of this allegory is Therese’s trial of faith that fell upon her on Good Friday 1896. She had lived in darkness most of her religious life. Scruples tormented her during her first years in Carmel. Around the time of her liberating confession with P. Alexis Prou in 1891, she suffered many interior trials, even to the point of doubting the existence of heaven. The silence and sleep of Jesus became even more profound at Easter of 1896. Obsessive doubts concerning the existence of eternal life became a source of deep suffering and daily combat. (see Ms. A., p. 255 – P. Alexis Prou)
A key phrase in the allegory is “the little bird’s gaze fixed on the Divine Sun.” Prayer for Therese is to fix one’s gaze on Jesus in dark faith and selfless love in spite of aridity, emptiness, weakness, and infidelity. Throughout the parable, she demonstrates a tenacious, loving perseverance in prayer AND in daily life in the midst darkness, doubt, dryness, sleepiness, misery, and infidelity. She keeps getting up after a fall and remains firm in her loving occupation in spite of difficulties, trials and temptations. Prayer for Therese is to keep oneself open and rooted, exposed to the Rays of Divine Love, even when those rays seem overshadowed by dark clouds of doubt. Prayer is an act of faith, confident adherence to God in obscurity. It is an act of hope, keeping ones’ gaze fixed on God. It is love, the desire to keep loving, one’s sole occupation, even when the fire of love seems to have become extinguished.
The little bird keeps offering to God all that she is and experiences: aridity, distractions, temptations, failures, and imperfections. All is offered to God. The offering to God of all that one is brings us again to the totality and the “groundedness” of Therese’s contemplative experience. A few lines previous to her parable, Therese discovered her vocation to be Love in the heart of the Church. She is caught between the infinity of her desires to love and her total powerlessness. What is the solution? To offer herself to Merciful Love, to allow God’s Merciful Love pent up within his Heart to fill her heart so that she could love God and others with God’s very own love, so that she could become Fire, the Living Flame of God’s love.
However, Therese was a realist. In her “dark night, fired with love’s urgent longings,” she “went out,” that is, she desired to express her love. She knew that accepting God’s Merciful Love and offering herself to Love requires collaboration. She felt the ardent desire to give herself. Love always seeks to give itself. Jesus said, “It is not those who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the Kingdom, but those who do the will of my Father.” John of the Cross taught her that “love is only repaid by love alone.” Therefore, Therese wanted to prove her love as best she could with all her limitations and weakness. She would consume her life in this way: by strewing flowers.
She explains the meaning of strewing flowers: “Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love other than strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. I desire to suffer for love and even to rejoice through love; and in this way I will strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for You. While I am strewing my flowers, I shall sing, for could one cry while doing such a joyous action? Shall sing even when I must gather my flowers in the midst of thorns, and my song will be all the more melodious in proportion to the length and sharpness of the thorns.” (Ms. B.)
This is a profound program of love for someone whose body was being slowly ravaged by tuberculosis, who struggled daily with the silence and “sleep” of God, and whose obsessive thoughts about the existence of life after death waged such a battle that she literally wrote the Creed in her own blood. How do we explain the desire to love in the face of God’s apparent absence? It seems that there is no way to explain such a paradoxical spiritual experience other than the mysterious transcendence of God who is hidden in the depths of ones’ being and who is the Creator of desire and whose Spirit secretly enkindles the soul with love.
Therese’s program of love presupposes a heightened awareness of the present moment and a constant effort to do everything for the love of God and neighbor. She said, “An instant is a treasure.” Nothing is discarded or excluded: a look, a word, picking up a pin, washing a dish, listening to a lonely person, offering a helping hand in need, offering up a headache, bearing patiently with a difficult person, realistic acceptance of our emotions, no matter how discomforting or humiliating, and offering them to God. But this way of love extends beyond difficult circumstances of life. She wanted to rejoice through love as well. Even joys are offered to God: a sunny day, a delicious meal, the sense of well-being and feeling energetic; the joy of being loved and cared for. This is one of the most inspiring elements of Therese’s little way: nothing in life is wasted; everything becomes the fuel for the fire of love: every sorrow, joy, heartache, emotion, humiliating experience. “An instant is a treasure.” Therese’s mindful awareness of the present moment disposed her for the Spirit’s guidance.
I understand and I know from experience that “The kingdom of God is within you.” Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls; He teaches without the noise of words. Never have I heard Him speak, but I feel that He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do. I find just when I need them certain lights that I had not see until then, and it isn’t most frequently during my hours of prayer that these are most abundant but rather in the midst of my daily occupations.” (A, p. 179)

In a letter addressed to Celine in 1893, Therese draws upon a metaphor from St. Teresa that helped her in those moments when she felt nothing. She sought opportunities, “nothings” to enkindle love when the fire of love seemed to have gone out.
“I had a light. St. Teresa says we must maintain love. The wood is not within our reach when we are in darkness, in aridities, but at least are we not obliged to throw little pieces of straw on it? Jesus is really powerful enough to keep the fire going by Himself. However, He is satisfied when He sees us put a little fuel on it. This attentiveness pleases Jesus, and then He throws on the fire a lot of wood. We do not see it, but we do feel the strength of love’s warmth. I have experienced it; when I am feeling nothing, when I am INCAPABLE of praying, of practicing virtue, then is the moment for seeking opportunities, nothings, which please Jesus more than mastery of the world or even martyrdom suffered with generosity. For example, a smile, a friendly word when I would want to say nothing, or put on a look of annoyance etc., etc�When I do not have any opportunities, I want at least to tell Him frequently that I love Him; that is not difficult, and it keeps the fire going. Even though this fire of love would seem to me to have gone out, I would like to throw something on it, and Jesus could then relight it.” (LT 143)

Therese’s letter reveals her will to love. She made a choice to keep love alive and burning, even when she felt nothing. Love is not an energy that spontaneously springs from our heart. Gospel love is an act of the will. Just as the heart as a muscle needs exercise to keep it healthy and the arteries open for blood flow, so love needs to be exercised. In Book Three of the Ascent of Mount Carmel, John of the Cross writes that the will requires a solid education to be purified and to become evangelical. Therese was inspired by John of the Cross’ teaching in the Living Flame where he says that “it is vital for individuals to make acts of love in this life so that in being perfected in a short time they may not be detained long, either here on earth, or in the next life, before seeing God.” (LL 2:34)
It is here where we touch the depth of Therese’s contemplative life. According to Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross, as well as the entire tradition, contemplation is more than just a level of prayer beyond discursive meditation. Contemplation is a way of being; it is the radical search and thirst for God in all things. Contemplative life is living the theological virtues of faith, hope and love to an ever-deepening degree. If contemplation is “the science of love,” then Therese was a profoundly contemplative soul. Her prayer may have been dark and arid, but her heart was on fire with the love of God and neighbor. She confidently abandoned herself to the Merciful Love of God and she made an option to live as lovingly as she could in daily life with all her weaknesses and failures relying solely on God’s Merciful Love.
Jesus may have slept for most of her religious life, but her heart was awake and receptive because she received some remarkable graces. Out of the dry ashes of her prayer flared some illuminating flames of God’s love that enlightened her mind and enlarged her capacity to love. In June of 1895, she received the grace to understand how much Jesus desires to be love. Sometime around the end of February 1894 she received the charismatic grace to understand God’s nature as Merciful Love, a God who empties God’s self and pours out love on the little ones: sinners, the weak, poor and struggling. If they come to God with all that suffering and poverty, God fills their emptiness with Merciful Love. With this insight came the peak grace to embrace herself as she was, not as she would have liked to have been. She was able to embrace the reality of her human condition confident in God’s love. At the end of her life she received new insights into Jesus’s commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
We see the proof and fruit of her mystical life especially in her love and concern for others and her persevering faith during her last illness and trial of faith. Therese was known in her community for her self-effacing disposition, her kindness and generosity, but she confesses that it was only in the last year of her life that she truly understood the meaning of Jesus’ commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you.” In March of 1896 she offered to work with Sister Marie de St. Joseph in the linen room. This emotionally disturbed woman alienated everyone by her outbursts of anger and mood-swings. Therese found a way into this woman’s heart. Therese patiently bore her with difficult temperament until May of 1897. One day Therese said to Marie of the Sacred Heart, “If only you knew how important it is to forgive her. It is not her fault that she is not gifted. She is like an old clock that has to be wound up every quarter of an hour.” Was Sister Marie de St. Joseph God’s instrument to teach Therese the meaning of true charity?
Therese worked relentless to overcome her natural antipathy toward Sister Therese of St. Augustine. Everything about this woman displeased Therese, sometimes to the point that she had to flee in order to refrain from expressing her dislike. She was so successful in making this woman feel loved, that Sister Therese of St. Augustine wondered what it was about her that so attracted Therese.
Thick darkness invaded Therese’s soul the last eighteen months of her life. Tuberculosis ravaged her body and doubts about eternal life tormented her. This trial threatened to undermine her complete confidence in a loving God for whom she had given her entire life. Her response to her physical, mental, and spiritual sufferings was the test and proof of the depth of her contemplative life.
“Your child, O Lord, has understood Your divine light, and she begs pardon for her brothers. She is resigned to eat the bread of sorrow as long as You desire it; she does not wish to rise up from this table filled with bitterness at which poor sinners are eating until the day set by You. Can she not say in her name and in the name of her brothers, “Have pity on us, O Lord, for we are poor sinners.” (C, p. 212)

She suffered in solidarity with all those whose lives were plunged into the darkness of doubt and disbelief. She became the sister of atheists, agnostics, and those who doubted God’s love and found life meaningless. She was willing to sit at that table and eat that bitter bread as long as God desired. Placing herself along side poor sinners, she offered her sufferings for them. With great compassion and empathy she begged for mercy: “Have pity on US, O Lord, for WE are poor sinners.”
Three situations from Therese’s last days illustrate the simplicity and depth of her prayer and the fruit of her mystical life.
One night during the Therese’s final illness, Celine got up several times to check on her sister. One of those times she found Therese awake, hands clasped, and her eyes raised to heaven. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You must sleep.”
“I can’t because I’m suffering too much, so I pray.”
“What are you saying to Jesus?”
“I don’t say anything to him. I love him.”
On another day Therese had received Holy Communion and they placed her convertible bed in the choir where she could gaze at the tabernacle. After a long period of prayer, Sister Genevieve (Celine) asked her how her prayer was. She replied, “It was as if one placed two little children together and the children don’t say anything to each other. I said a lot of little things to him but he didn’t say anything to me; undoubtedly, he was sleeping.” (p. 617)
On another occasion Celine was reading to Therese a book about the blessedness of heaven. Therese said, “That is not what attracts me to heaven. It is love, to love and be loved and to return to earth. That is all.”
We find Jesus sleeping in the beginning of her religious life and in her last days as well. He didn’t say anything to her and her sole prayer was “I love you.” Very few words, but a desire to love that pierced the heavens. She reduced prayer to the bare bones: love. “I love Him.”
In 1895 she had written to Mother Agnes: “He will undoubtedly awaken before my great eternal retreat.” Did Jesus awaken before death? We don’t know except that in her last moments she gazed upon the crucifix and pronounced very distinctly, “Oh! I love Him. My God I love you.” Suddenly her eyes lighted up and she fixed her gaze on a spot above the statue of our Lady of the Smile. Her face took on an appearance of good health. She was ecstasy. She then fell back on her pillow and expired.
Even in her dying Therese was still concerned about others. Her desire for heaven is to love and be loved, and to share that love by returning to earth to help others. She reminds me of a great Bodhisattva who is ready to forgo enlightenment so that others will obtain it. Her desire was to spend her heaven doing good on earth. What greater enkindling of love than to spend one’s heaven helping others.
In the beginning of my lecture I posed the question: what does Therese have to offer our contemplative lives? It seems to me that her experience teaches us that true mysticism is not about extraordinary phenomenon or graces but about unrestricted love, a staunch commitment to Christ, and faith in God’s love even in the midst of darkness, emptiness and aridity. The intensity of Therese’s desire to love Jesus even when he seemed to be sleeping and silent, her tenacious and faith-filled perseverance in obscure moments of weakness, failure and doubt purified her of selfishness and hallowed out an empty space for the inflow of God’s love that swelled her heart to love others and the world with the Merciful Love of God.
John of the Cross summarizes best what Therese teaches us in his letter to Juana de Pedraza who was suffering interior darknesses: “What is it you desire? What kind of life or method of procedure do you paint for yourself in this life? What need is there in order to be right other than to walk along the level road of the law of God and of the Church, and live only in dark and true faith and certain hope and complete charity, expecting all our blessings in heaven, living here below like pilgrims, the poor, the exiled, orphans, the thirsty, without a road, without anything, hoping for everything in heaven?” (L 19)

Awakening

(Meg Funk) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:00:54 EST

photo Mercedes Camelo

The Plough Publishing House ISBN 0-87486-982-X
This is a shorter rendition of a longer biography about Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880) who was from Stuttgart Germany and was pastor in Mottlingen.

This book, Awakening
by the nephew Blumhardt,delightfully challenged me to return to confidence in the Holy Spirit. From reading this little paperback book I see Pentecost at work in a real town. I catch the connection of prayer, fasting, evil, repentance, conversion and faith, strong faith that Christ Jesus revealed to us. The Spirit is the reign of God...even in times like ours! The Holy Spirit came to a sleepy congregation that seemed to be in a thrall of apathy.

The Lutheran pastor, Blumhardt was called to a house where a young woman was possessed by demons (Gottlien Dittus) after 20 or so months starting 1843 was serious bouts of demonic phenomenon Blumhardt succeeded to cast the evil into Christ Jesus and restore the woman to health. This “fight” was a slow dawning of the pastor...not wanting involvement to taking on the encounter with stout faith and persistence. This struggle and fight was not the story
the awakening of repentance swept through his parish after the evil was cast out. One person after another came to the pastor and sought repentance each found relief from physical and emotional afflictions
it was seen as a natural outcome of the awakening .

Blumhardt said anyone could pray, “Jesus help!” and anyone who believed in Jesus could do that. He insisted that credit belonged to no one but God. Blumhardt believed that every human being has demons of his or her own to fight, that all are affected in some way by the power of evil.

“If we are not aware of human wretchedness, we cannot appreciate the savior’s role I the kingdom of God, which means the end for Satan...And it will come to that! If we already have the power to overcome evil, is that not enough reason to believe that God is beginning to take up his reign?
scientific and psychological literature is of little help, it does not take evil seriously and is therefore unable to inspire action against it.

Blumhardt found that after the fight was over suddenly people came to repentance quite on their own, and in their new faith they found that prayer could relieve their mental and physical sufferings
Christendom: we’ve no longer the spirit of Pentecost” no second coming would happen to peoples who have lost sense of expectancy and are indifferent.

I cannot believe that the Savior will come as a great destroyer. He is coming to reveal salvation, not doom; to reveal joy and peace, no horror and destruction...The sign of mourning that hags over humankind shall be removed at last.
About the “fight” or the exorcism: It took many months and time after time of prayers and faith: “He recognized more clearly the role of faith in the struggle between light and darkness. The depth to which divine redemption penetrates into human lives in this struggle, he saw, ultimately depends on the faith and expectation of its fighters.

Blumhardt acted boldly, staking everything on his assurance that Jesus Christ is the same today as he was two thousand years ago, when for the sake of suffering humankind he had stopped the powers of darkness in their tracks.

“When I write the name of Jesus I am overcome by a holy awe and by a joyous, fervent sense of gratitude that he is mine. Only now have I truly come to know what we have in him.
About prayer and fasting :(Matt 17:21)
Insofar as fasting enhances the intensity of prayer and shows God the urgency of the person praying (in fact, it represents a continuous prayer without words), I believed it could prove effective, particularly since this was specific divine advice for the case at hand. I tried it without telling anybody ad found it a tremendous help during the fight. It enabled me to be much calmer, firmer, and clearer in my speech. I no longer needed to be present for long stretches; I sensed that I could make my influence felt without even being there. And when I did come, I often noticed results within a few moments.

The real awakening was post the exorcism people began listening to the sermons. They woke up. One by one came to the pastor in a profound state of compunction asking for confession which the pastor heard.
He found that true peace was bestowed when he gave absolution.
Some came back several times till all was shared in the light.
Youth and adults spontaneously began to pray and share Scriptures in their home.

Many came from surrounding villages. This angered authorities.
Blumhardt was told not to give absolution as that was too Catholic. He eventually left the parish and had a healing spa where he continued his work.

some teachings:
� I long for another outpouring of the Holy Spirit, another Pentecost. That must come if things are to change in Christianity, for it simply cannot continue in such wretched state. The gifts and powers of the early Christian time—oh, how I long for their return! And I believe the Savior is just waiting for us to ask for them.

� Hope and pray for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit: Is it really true that we have God’s spirit? The Holy Spirit is supposed to be one, yet how many thousands of spirits, all priding themselves on being the spirit of truth, rule in Christendom!

� Who then has the Holy Spirit? The churches? But which of the innumerable shades among them all at loggerheads with each other? I cannot understand how one can say that the Holy Spirit is present without being able to say where it is.

� The Holy Spirit must be tangible, even visible, as coming personally from God. It must drive out the forces of darkness from humans, raise the disfigured human race to something better, and restrain all evil, even in the most corrupt people. That is how the Holy Spirit once showed itself, even if it does not seem to show itself now. If people want to close their eyes and think that the Holy Spirit is not here, we have to let them talk.

� But they should kindly allow me to think differently.

� about confession: if you do not find a receptive ear in your pastor---open you years to a sincere and devoted friend, with prayer and in the presence of God, according to the words of the apostle James, Confess your sins to one another. If you repent deeply and long for complete inner renewal you can be assured of forgiveness.

� The power of sin is enhanced in secrecy. Most burdens are not lifted from conscience until they are brought to light.

� During the awakening it seemed his preaching itself uncovered the wrongs burdening his listeners, by casting a searching light into the innermost recesses of their hearts. Only when something is confessed in the presence of somebody who does not yet know it is the secret truly dragged out of the dark and into the light of day.

� Everything in the gospel works toward repentance. Whatever flows from your own repentance works more repentance, but whatever does not spring from your own repentance is as effective as soap bubbles against fortress walls.

� My task is never to judge, only to forgive. Christ came to save the world, not to judge it.

� Blumhardt carefully guarded the freedom of every individual. Privately, within his study, he would request the whole truth, but he was never pushy.

� When asked how much one out to confess, he would advise, “Tell that which you would rather not tell. He was sometimes reluctant to offer absolution, not because a sin was too great or guilt too heavy, but because he wanted to be sure the person was not holding anything back.

� This forgiveness was such a source of redemption and liberation that people did not find it difficult to avoid their former sins, even if they had to remain watchful. Former alcoholics declared that their thirst had vanished.

� factions in the town embraced and the scope of the awakening was that “everyone” was affected for the good. It lasted, the movement from repentance and humility continued.

� Why this lack of faith? Blumhardt reached that something new must and will be given us when there is a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. We should ray for that. Then it will come, and we shall see great things, here among ourselves and in laces far away.

� There were reports of miracles....nothing sensational, but healing and changes of heart.

A few more fragments:

P. 91 a sermon on Zacchaeus: First, there is the awakening. Zaccheaus wants to reach Jesus at any cost and will not let anything turn him aside. He climbs a tree, disregarding all ridicule. There he discovers that Jesus is in fact looking for him. Zacchaeus is overwhelmed by the kindness and love shown when Jesus, opening himself to the grumbling of his own followers, forgives and accepts Zacchaeus. ...Many people get that far, but there is a second stage: the conversion and not to stop at the attention received from Jesus but to acknowledge the validity of the reproaches to change and to make restitution.

� Having even pardoned we can become puffed up instead of humble. Zacchaeus admits that the grumblers are justified, and promises to pay back everyone he has cheated, thus proving that Jesus was right to pardon him. Only then does Jesus say of him, “Today salvation has come to this house.

� about chronic illnesses...what they need most is God’s direct intervention. Blumhardt was confident that God would send help if he were only asked.
p130 ...He was convinced that what can be done is to recover the gifts of apostolic times “I have authority to forgive sins....What the Lord did ought to continue, for everything he did as a man shall be done by other human beings until the end of days. The Father authorized him, and he authorized others. He said to the disciples, “As my Father has sent me, so I send you.” Thus his disciples could say to repentant sinners as decisively as Jesus himself did,

� Take heart, your sins are forgiven. And what is to shake our conviction that this power remains in force for those proclaiming the good news today –tat they, too, should have the authority to forgive sins?
we should ask for the original powers of the gospel to be fully restored. We are dehydrated people, (p.132)

Jesus Prayer

(Meg Funk) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:04:18 EST

Jesus

Jesus Prayer and Prayer of the Heart

This is the traditional practice of ceaseless prayer in the Christian tradition. The Jesus Prayer:
“ Jesus, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Some versions are different: long form:
“Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Shorter forms: “Jesus, have mercy on me.”
“Jesus, mercy” or Kyria Eliason
Shortest form: “Jesus”
When it is practiced over time it drops to the heart and becomes the Prayer of the Heart. The teachings are rich: The invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus, which continues our Baptismal immersion, brings our attention to Christ and Christ, in turn, dwells in us. The prayer warms the heart and becomes an experience of Presence. In the Christian East staretz would caution the pilgrim that it takes assiduous practice.
But the Jesus Prayer can become ceaseless and self-acting with training.

The Training for the Method of the Jesus Prayer has three stages:
� Habit or physically committing the prayer to memory
� Virtual or mental spontaneous prayer
� Actual or self-acting continuous prayer

To make it a habit we are to say the words/invocation of the prayer slowly, mindfully and with respect for the meaning of the words. This is practiced at specific times with a certain number, like using one’s rosary do fifty times in five sets. Rest and do another fifty times in five sets. Do this morning and evening for two weeks. Then increase it to 100 times in two sets morning and night. After a couple of months add another set mid-day of 100 repetitions in three sets. Notice I didn’t use the word, ‘sit’.

The Jesus Prayer is a ‘working’ prayer done as we do other things. It’s not a meditation practice like Centering Prayer. Keep increasing gradually until you start to feel the prayer rising automatically in-between times. If for some reason the practice is stopped. Start again and make it easy to start with the three sets of fifty repetitions. After about two months ( sometimes I’ve known people who have passed the first stage in two weeks) the ceaseless prayer, The Jesus Prayer will be self-acting and going on all the time.

The next stage is virtual. The prayer continues for several months even years but in adversity or lack of mindfulness drops from consciousness. This is because this habit was only virtual, not actual. We simply start again and do the strenuous effort to make it a habit again. Usually the second or third time it is easier. Often when we are in a period of an affliction, when we need the prayer most of all, it goes away. It simply must be brought to the afflictive thought of food, sex, anger etc. So, in practice the Jesus Prayer goes on continually, but more especially so when we are challenged with a temptation or an inclination away from our resolve.

The final stage is ‘actual’. The Jesus Prayer actually is praying itself! I don’t know of any one in this stage because while we are in this life we must always be vigilant that our prayer be constant. We can fall away anytime, but God’s grace is stronger. And this prayer has no anxiety attached to it. When or if it stops, we simply and gently start again and it returns to it’s place in our consciousness.
Eventually the words have a cadence that is automatic and starts to follow our breath.

Sometimes the Jesus Prayer is called The Breath Prayer since it is in sync with one’s breath: We inhale saying “Lord, Jesus Christ” then, pause saying mentally, “son of the Living God” and then exhale saying, “have mercy on me, a sinner”.
With practice the breath itself becomes the is the prayer without words. The breath carries our intention. In English the formula is long so some find it easier to shorten the formula to “Jesus Mercy” or Kyria Elision. The repetition should be slowly, softly, and quietly. Gentle, like a feather since this is anointing the soul and celebrating the Presence.

The Jesus Prayer evolves from the lips to through the mind through the breath to the heart and becomes “The Prayer of the Heart”. This third phase is more of a gift than an intentional effort. It usually happens on retreat or times of protracted quiet.

The Prayer of the Heart is to find that place in the heart that ‘rest’ happens. Contemplative prayer beyond thought.

Even though it’s usually a by-product of the Jesus Prayer, once we’ve experienced the Prayer of the Heart we can descend to that place at will. This traditional practice is to descend the mind in the heart and give attention to the heartbeat that carries the intent of the Jesus Prayer. In Eastern Christianity this is practiced while gazing at an icon.
Our gaze descends to our heart while we practice faith that God is gazing at us. Our mind’s eye is in the physical/spiritual heart.

It is important to know that if we accompany the Jesus Prayer with breath or heartbeat in prolonged periods in an intensive sitting method, we need a spiritual director or an ‘elder’ that has this practice. This practice is so powerful that our life takes on a more demanding spiritual sensitivity. We rededicated ourselves to guard of the heart and watchfulness of thoughts with the memory of Whom we are experiencing in our very being.
So the companion practice in ordinary waking consciousness is the Guard of the Heart.

The teachings continue to say that the Prayer of the Heart is practiced ceaselessly as was the Jesus Prayer but instead of the mental saying of the invocation of the name there is the practice of warming the heart with love. (footnote Macarius)
The Jesus Prayer/Prayer of the Heart is assisted by using a rosary (or prayer-rope) so that the person can physically use the whole body, when walking, waiting or designated prayer periods.

The Jesus Prayer is portable and is meant to be done in all one’s waking time. It is most helpful to do upon awakening and before sleep. Even when we are in our first training we need not ‘sit’ and meditate on it. One can do it while driving, walking, waiting or doing dishes. It’s an active prayer. Some teach that in initial stages, it is helpful to concentrate and dedicate a few minutes, like 10 here and there to say the Jesus Prayer with full attention. But I find that if folks wait for re-ordering their life to get those ten minutes of attention together they never get started. So, just start where you are with whatever you are doing. It is especially friendly to do during manual labor that is repetitive and doesn’t need your whole attention.

Some worry that if they do the Jesus Prayer what is going to be their ‘left-over’ mind for attentive work, like computer, teaching or social work? When the mind needs to be attentive to ‘other work’ the Jesus prayer will drop down in consciousness and the brain will activate a clear mental process for the business at hand.

The benefit of the Jesus Prayer is that while one is doing manual or mental work one is more attentive since the ‘mantric’ prayer is ‘at work’ reducing unwanted distractions and aiding one’s concentration. The effects of the 8 thoughts are reduced. The mind is at peace. This actually frees the conscious mind to be more receptive to whom ever you are listening to.

The fruit of the Jesus Prayer is that it becomes the Prayer of the Heart and an abiding presence of God. This Presence is usually apophatic�no image, no concept, just is! Yet there is an experience of ‘The Presence’ that you feel with your ‘spiritual senses’. The Jesus Prayer does not replace other forms of prayer such as Divine Office, Liturgy of Eucharist or Centering Prayer. However, it is the unifying prayer that brings to life the other prayer forms that are part of our specific vocation. (e.g. prayers with our child before bedtime).

Even in dryness this prayer, the Jesus Prayer has no heaviness, no languishing, no struggling. It has a life of its own that is an experience of emptiness. Instead of aridity the feeling of compunction rises. This is the feeling of longing for God but the experience of separation and longing. The words of the Jesus prayer and it’s disposition prevents dejection, vainglory and pride. We Keep our heart listing like a boat coming into safe harbor toward humility.

Can everyone do it? While everyone can do this prayer, not everyone is called to it. We know we are called to it if these four conditions are present: 1)We feel drawn towards the invocation of the Name; 2)We see that the practice produces in us an increase of charity, purity, obedience, and peace; 3)We find the use of other prayer practices become somewhat difficult; and finally, 4) We find that the Jesus prayer simplifies our life and provides a unity to our spiritual life.

The practice of the Jesus Prayer will thrive unless one sins. If that happens then return immediately without hesitation. Resume the practice and it will be an aid to resist temptation in the future. The request for mercy is real. Penthos is an abiding state of remaining ‘in the need of God’s mercy’. With spiritual practices comes a clear, focused mind that can leap to vainglory without the sense of being ‘in need of God’ radically to the core one feels the need “of help”! this is a sense of penthos or compunction because of being a sinner.

For a fuller explanation and teachings about this tradition of the Jesus prayer is stored in Christian East, especially the writings of the Philokalia. The Jesus Prayer is rooted in Scripture. We can accompany our practice with lectio on the Scripture passages that recommend it.

The dominant fruit of this practice of the Jesus Prayer that becomes Prayer of the heart is that moment/place/space of contemplation expierenced by each of us. A profound silence brings together our fragmented mind and we become stable and attentive. After years of practice one can descend the mind into the heart ‘at will’ and find that place of stillness (hysechia).

For further study and prayer:
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jesus Prayer and Prayer of the Heart

The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Comp. Igumen Chariton of Valamo. Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and E.M. Palmer. Ed. Timothy Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1966.
A collection of texts on prayer compiled by a Russian monk in the course of his quest for prayer in the monastic life.

Goettmann, Alphonse and Rachel. Prayer of Jesus – Prayer of the Heart. Trans. Theodore and Rebecca Nottingham, Greenwood, IN: Inner Life Publications, 1996.
This guide to the Jesus Prayer written by and Orthodox priest and his wife includes some biblical and historical details, as well as counsel on the practice of the Jesus Prayer as a way of life.

Hausherr, Irenee, S.J. The Name of Jesus. Trans. Charles Commings, O.C.S.O. Cistercian Studies Series; no. 44. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1978.
A scholarly view of the names of Jesus used by early Christians and the historical development of the Jesus Prayer.

*Matus, Thomas. Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition: An Experiment in Faith. Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984.
A comparison of the spiritual disciplines of the Jesus Prayer and tantric yoga.

A Monk of the Eastern Church (Lev Gillet). The Jesus Prayer. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987.
An introduction to the history and classic teaching of the Jesus Prayer; with some advice on its practical use.

__________. On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus. 1949. Springfield IL: Templegate, 1985.
This is a fuller treatment of the practice of the Jesus Prayer than what is found in the Jesus Prayer (see above).

Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 1-4. Comp. St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Trans. And ed. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrad, and Kallistos Ware. 1979-1995.
An anthology of the spiritual writings of the early Fathers. This is the primary source for all teaching on the Jesus Prayer.

Philokalia, Writings from the Phuilokalia: On the Prayer of the Heart. Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer. London: Faber and Faber, 1951.
Selected portions of the Philokalia compiled from the Russian version.

The Pilgrim’s Tale. Ed. Aleksei Pentkovsky. Trans. T. Allan Smith. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1999.
A translation of the Way of the Pilgrim from the earliest known version. The introduction details the intricate history of the text.

Sophrony, Archimandrite. On Prayer. Trans. Rosemary Edmonds. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996.
Part I is a collection of writings on prayer and the spiritual life. Pat II deals with the theory and practice of the Jesus Prayer.

Stinissen, Wilfred. Praying the Name of Jesus: The Ancient Wisdom of the Jesus Prayer. Trans. Joseph B. Board. Liguori, MO: Ligouri Publications, 1999.
Part I is a reprint of On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus, by Lev Gillet, a Monk of the Eastern Church. Part II follows the development of the Jesus Prayer and gives guidance for practice of the prayer.

Theophan the Recluse. The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It. Trans. Alexandra Dockham. Forestville CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1995.
This volume is compiled from letters on the spiritual life written by St. Theophan, who also translated the Philokalia into Russian.

Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. Rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995.
A popular account of the Orthodox Church’s doctrine and life, which includes teaching on theology and prayer.

__________. The Power of the Name. Oxford: SLG Press, 1974.
The Power of the Name by Kallistos Ware
Author: Kallistos Ware Bishop
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: June 1986
Publisher: Cistercian Pubns
Dimensions:8.5"H x 5.5"W x 0.25"D; 0.15 lbs.
ISBN: 072830113X

A concise introduction to the Jesus Prayer and its practice by the Orthodox Bishop of Diokleia (Great Britain).

The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way. 1965. Trans. R.M. French. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991.
The story of a 19th century Russian pilgrim who seeks to “pray without ceasing.”

The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way. Trans. Helen Bacovcin. New York: Doubleday, 1978.
Another translation of the Pilgrim’s Chronicle.

Zaleski, Irma. Living the Jesus Prayer. New York: Continuum, 1997.
This 56-page book contains brief meditations on the Jesus Prayer by a modern practitioner.
The Practice of the Jesus Prayer and Prayer of the Heart
There are many, many texts that promote this practice.

1) 1 Thess. 5.17 Pray without ceasing.

"Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with your
every breath" (John Climacus).

2) Phil. 2.10 At the name of Jesus every knee should
bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

"To pronounce thoughtfully the Name of Jesus is to
know the allness of Our Lord and our own nothingness.
In this knowledge we shall adore and worship" (Lev
Gillet).

3) 1 Cor. 12.3b No one can say "Jesus is Lord except
by the Holy Spirit.

"It is the Spirit who mystically confirms Christ's
presence in us" (St. Hesychios the Priest). The
Spirit confirms Christ's presence in us and prompts us
to pray in His Name.

4) Acts 4.12 There is salvation in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given among
mortals by which we must be saved.

"The Name Jesus first and foremost indicates to us the
purpose of God's coming in flesh for our salvation"
(Sophrony).

5) John 16.23b, 24 Very truly I tell you, if you ask
anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to
you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my
name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may
be complete.

"The Name of Jesus not only helps us to obtain the
fulfillment of our needs, but the Name of Jesus
already supplies our needs. Jesus Himself is the
supreme satisfaction of all men's needs" (Lev Gillet).

6) Luke 18.13 The tax collector, standing far off,
would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his
breast and saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

"The Jesus Prayer contains not only a call to
repentance, but an assurance of forgiveness and
restoration" (Kallistos Ware).

7) John 14.6 Jesus said, No one comes to the Father
except through me.

" ... the Jesus Prayer unites the soul with the Lord
Jesus: and He is the only door to communion with God,
which is the aim of all prayer" (Theophan the
Recluse).

8) Matt. 18.20 Where two or three are gathered in my
name, I am there among them.

"In pronouncing the Name of Jesus we inwardly meet all
them that are united with Our Lord" (Lev Gillet).

9) Matt. 25.40 Truly I tell you, just as you did it
to one of the least of these who are members of my
family, you did it to me.

"The Jesus Prayer helps us to see Christ in each one,
and each one in Christ" (Kallistos Ware).

10) Col. 3.11 Christ is all and in all.

"Shining through the heart, the light of the Name of
Jesus illuminates all the universe" (Sergius
Bulgakov).

11) Gal. 2.20 I live, but no longer I, but Christ
lives in me.

"[In] the practice of the Jesus Prayer ... we allow
Jesus himself to be our prayer" (Mother Maria of
Normanby).

12) Rom. 13.14 Put on the Lord Jesus.

"The living content of the Name enters physically into
ourselves" (Lev Gillet).

13) John 3.30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

"The one who prays the Jesus Prayer must die to self
as the Holy Name grows in the soul" (Lev Gillet).

14) Heb. 12.29 Our God is a consuming fire.

"When the mind is closely concentrated upon this name,
then we grow fully conscious that the name is burning
up all the filth which covers the surface of the soul"
(Diadochus of Photiki).

Emptiness Practice

(Meg Funk) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:49:25 EST

known by love

Practice of the Cloud: Emptiness by the

Unknown Author of the Cloud of Unknowing

As befits the title of his work remains anonymous despite much speculation about his identity. Most theories suggest that he was a Cistercian hermit or a Carthusian priest. Regardless of his status, his writing reveals a keen theological mind and a perceptive director of souls. His teaching reflects the apophatic or negative spiritual tradition which emphasizes that God is beyond our thoughts, concepts and images.
The author is believed to have lived in the East Midlands, a region of central England, during the latter half of the 14th century. He contributed to exceptional wave of spiritual literature which emerged from England at that time, including the works of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Julian of Norwich. In addition to his spiritual teaching, the unknown author is highly regarded for his literary gifts. His work displays remarkable strength and vigor in the original Middle English. Six other anonymous works are attributed to this author; probably the most well known of these is “A Letter of Private Direction” (often entitled The Book of Privy Counseling.) Even though he wrote in Middle English there seems to be an affinity with English speaking readers and this work who report that The Cloud reads like an inspired book of Scripture.

We are all called to Contemplation, resting in God. There are many paths in this journey. This path very specifically taught by the Unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing is for those attracted to the mystery and not inclined to go through images of Jesus, or Mary or through the life of Jesus Christ as devotion. The attraction is Christ centered, but beyond the images and stories. The Unknown author speaks for those who want the apophatic path (imageless) of us when He says, “ God is a jealous lover we must fix our love on him. Close the doors and windows on imagination because God is beyond our thoughts, concepts and images.” The teaching of the method is helpful and easy to understand, but hard to do: Practice: lift up your heart to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love, desire Him for his own sake, not for gifts. We must Center all our attention and desire on Him. Let Him be the sole concern of mind and heart. (Jeanne�.I don’t know what to do about the sexist language////) We need to forget all else. Feel nothing else but a kind of darkness about your mind. This is the Cloud of Unknowing.
We can’t will ourselves to feel a naked before God, but we can practice naked intent toward God. Just stay with the teaching as present here and the meaning will emerge. This is delicate and subtle but intelligible.
The teaching goes on to say, “In spirit cry out to him whom you love.” Place your hope in feeling and seeing God as He is in Himself.” This is a negative path: we unthink what we think about God so that God emerges in our thoughts as God is and no whom we wish or fabricate God to be.
When we cry out to him whom we love we do it often and always in this Cloud, this darkness. We forget all else. (This isn’t just a pious recommendation, this is a recommendation to literally forget all thoughts racing in our minds. In exchange we receive God who brings us to deeper levels than ordinary surface consciousness. We come to a deep experience of God himself.
The unknown author gives us a method that was taught 1000 years before this writing in the 14th Century but he places it before those he has in spiritual direction in England. He tells his seekers to choose a single word, one syllable, but it should be meaningful to you. The word might be “God “or “love.” Fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may. Use this word to ‘beat’ upon the cloud of darkness above you (the beat is more like the baton of an orchestra leader�steady beat, soft, measured�not like a baseball bat�.) This is how you enter the cloud. Now all of us have thoughts rising from ordinary time, from below, what do we do with them? He recommends that to subdue all distractions�move them (consign) them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you.
Answer with this word alone to anything thought that enters consciousness�Think not about the thought�.the value lies in its simplicity (oneness).
Contemplation is a way of knowing wherein one turns to God with a burning heart, desiring for God alone and rests in blind awareness of his naked being.

We are called to a way of being. This is how I understand this from my study of the Desert Tradition:
We feel inclined to move into the third renunciation, that is renounce even our thought of God because just as we are not our thoughts nor is God our thoughts of Him. So we take or love for God, in secret, as this is interior and whatever level of purity of heart we might have and walk between this Cloud of Unknowing (can’t know God by thoughts) and the Cloud of Forgetting (we bring all our distractions to that little word of love that carries our intent of love) and repeat over and over the word instead of thinking any particular thoughts.
Love God for His own sake. Another way of saying it using the image of a cloud (which mean, non-thought) Enter the Cloud of Unknowing by practicing in the cloud of forgetting all else but naked intent of love using the sacred word.
Like most practices this will make more sense when it is part of your experience. Descriptions fail to capture the simplicity and profundity of this Way of Unknowing. We would also attend to Scripture. We’d do lectio, but sit easily, Use the words of Scripture like a mirror. It reflects God, God’s ways and draws us into mystery. In this path we are particularly attracted to the unitive sense of Scripture in the Gospel of St. John or John’s Epistles. We pray intuitively not analytically, we let what comes arise and stand before it. This is not the study of a scholar. “Let prayer rise short prayer pierces the heavens.”
During prayer we forget the self. By letting go (or letting be without accompanying them with another thought) we empty our minds and hearts of everything except God during the time of this ‘work’. We refrain from other kinds of knowledge and processing other experience. We want no less than God, treading it all down beneath the cloud of forgetting we forget creatures.
In this kind of prayer brute force has no place. We come more like a child. Our heart waits for the gracious initiative of the Lord. And God comes in prayer like our naked intent as naked, too. There’s usually no experience of consolation or desolation. We find consolation in doing God’s will. If I can name one word that describes the experience of doing this kind of prayer is ‘subtle’. There’s just hints. We must be alert to receive them but without any expectation. We are letting God be God and letting our faith be faith.
Sometimes when we talk about prayer we use words like lift up our hearts or put our thoughts down in the Cloud of Forgetting, or move into contemplation or out in gratefulness. All these words must be erased from an interpetation that limits God. The human side often describes God and conscribes Him too small, narrow, absent or out there. We refrain from thinking this way in the pracitce of the Cloud. Even the Cloud can’t be taken as a literal image. Another way of describint this particular prayer method is Emptiness Practice. It’s unthinking but warming our hearts and sending the word as darts of love. The stress on warming the heart is a later tradition and serves as a corrective to being un-relating to others and impersonal since the prayer practice is so impersonal. Formlessness doesn’t mean bereft of a spiritual and full-bodied warmth toward God and others. All words limp before this awesome way of prayer. In all prayers but particularly the practice of Emptiness stresses desire, not results. We never get there, it’s just a way of being before God. To be there (before God) we discipline the imagination so that we are not mentally someplace else! Our ordinry senses are not up to this level of receptivity so we distrust our senses whenever we fix our minds on an image that represents God.
As we walk from here to there our thoughts can safely pray this prayer: That which I am I offer to you, O Lord, without looking to any quality of your Being, but only to the fact that you
are as you are; this, and nothing more. That which I am, I offer to you. Our Lord, for You are it entirely�“That I am�that you are”..(from Privy Counsel). I know of nuns who do this emptiness practice using the mantra, “That I am, That You are.”
The author of the Cloud says, “Go no further, but rest in this naked, stark, elemental awareness that you are as you are.”
You must stand at the door of contemplation and practice devotion of heart. Using your word send your naked intent to Our Lord in the Cloud of Unknowing.
We said that there are many paths and not everyone is called to walk the same Path. Here are signs of this calling to contemplative prayer. And then there’s further signs that you are called to Emptiness as a practice of Contemplative Prayer.
l. You will notice a growing desire for contemplation constantly intruding in your daily devotions. A blind longing of the spirit. This longing lingers after your time of prayer, a kind of spiritual sight awakens which both renews the desire and increases it. This desire is blind (comes from underneath and not direct itself) If you are still processing your sins or working out the consequences of our Lord’s passion in your own life you are still just needing the ordinary way of prayer and not a more intense life of grace.

2. Second sign is exterior. You manifests a certain joyful enthusiasm welling up within you, whenever you hear or read about contemplation. Nothing else satisfies. Your inclination to more of a way of prayer rather than prayers persists. If it diminishes after lectio, then it’s not a sign, but if your contemplative longings capture and intrude in all you do and it’s there when you wake up and go to sleep, then it is a call to contemplative prayer.

That’s from the text in the Cloud. I’d add that from listening to
Those called to an emptiness practice there’s the contemplative bent described above, but also a detachment from any prayer practice that has images or much thinking about anything. The opposite inclination is to be invited to colloquy in which there is a continual conversation with Our Lord. Emptiness practice is wordless. But like all contemplative practices there’s the phase where there is right effort and then Our Lord takes over and it becomes rest!
*********************************************************
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Practice of the Cloud-Emptiness

The Cloud of Unknowing. Trans. James A. Walsh, S.G. Classics of Western Spirtuality. New York: Paulist Press, 1981.
A modern version with an extensive introduction and many notes.

The Cloud of Unknowing. Ed. Evelyn Underhill. 1912. Rockport, MA: Element, 1997. A literal rendering of the text which keeps close to the original Middle English.

The Cloud of Unknowing and other Works. Trans. Clifton Wolters. London: Penguin Books, 1961, 1978.
A very readable version,. Three other works of the author of The Cloud are included in this single volume.

The Cloud of Unknowing the Book of Privy Counseling. Ed. William Johnston. New York, Image, 1973.
The introduction to these two works includes a clear explanation of the theology behind the practice.

Cooper, Austin, O.M.I. The Cloud: Reflections of Selected Texts. New York: Alba House, 1989.
These meditations place the Cloud of Unknowing in the wider context of biblical and Christian sprirtual tradition.

Gregory of Nyssa. The Life of Moses. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.
An account of the soul’s ascent to meet God in the darkness of unknowing.

Johnston, William, The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing. New York: Desclee, 1967.
(I could not find a copy of this book: it is still in print.)

*Llewelyn, Robert. All Shall Be Well. New York: Paulist Press, 1982.
Includes a clear and practical discussion of the Cloud of Unknowing as a spiritual path.

Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works. Trans. Colm Luibheid. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.
This scholarly volume contains a primary source of apophatic of “negative theology.”

The Pursuit of Wisdom and other works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing. Trans. James A. Walsh, S.J. Classics of Western Spirtuality. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
The remaining known works of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, translated by James A. Walsh, S.J. (see above).

Emptiness Practice. Would use the Cloud of Unknowing. And the Book of Privy Counseling. Edit. William Johnston. Doubleday: New York. 1973.
1) Ex. 34.14. Because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. “God is a jealous lover” (p. 47)
2) Song of Solomon 5.1 I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking.
“I am thinking of those who feel the mysterious action of the Spirit in their inmost being stirring them to love. I do not say that they continually feel this stirring, as experienced contemplatives do, but now and again they taste something of contemplative love in the very core of their being” (p. 44). “I discern his call to you in the desire for him that burns in your heart” (p.45)

3) Matt. 6.6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Close the doors and windows of your spirit against the onslaught of pests and foes and prayerfully seek his strength; for if you do so, he will keep you safe from them.” (p. 47)

4) Jn. 1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
“No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge, but each one , in a different way, can grasp him fully through love.” (p. 50) “”Though we cannot know him we can love him, By love he may be touched and embraced, never by thought.” P.54
5)Luke 8.46,48. “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me�..”Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
“A naked intent toward God, the desire for him alone, is enough.” P. 56)
”The most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.” (139)
“When you go apart to be alone for prayer, put from your mind everything�.see that nothing remains in your conscious mind save a naked intent stretching out toward God. Leave it stripped of every particular idea about God and keep only the simple awareness that he is as he is.” (150)
6) Luke 10.41 “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her”.
“But only one thing is necessary.” And what do you suppose this one thing is? Surely he was referring to the work of loving and praising God for his own sake.” (p.75)
7) Mark 9.2 “And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them�.Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” listen to him.”
“For beyond them (thoughts)—over their shoulder, as it were-as if you were looking for something else, which of course you are. For beyond them, God is hidden in the dark cloud of unknowing�..in reality it amounts to a yearning for God, a longing to see and taste him as much as is possible in this life. And desire like this is actually love, which always brings peace. “ (p.88)
“Contemplatives rarely pray in words but if they do, their words are few. The fewer the better, as a matter of fact: yes, and a word of one syllable is more suited to the spiritual nature of this work than longer ones. “ P. 95
8) John 15.9 “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
“He alone feels authentic sorrow who realizes not only what he is, but that he is.” P. 103
“And so, go down to the deepest point of your mind and think of yourself in this simple, elemental way. In any case, do not think what you are but that you are.” (p152)
“And so you may confidently rely on this gentle stirring of love in your heart and follow wherever it leads you, for it is your sure guide in this life and will bring you to the glory of the next. This little love is the essence of a good life and without no good work is possible. Basically, love means a radical personal commitment to God. This implies that your will is harmoniously attuned to his in an abiding contentedness and enthusiasm for all he does.” ( p.111)
“For with your attention centered on the blind awareness of your naked being united to God’s you will go about your daily rounds, eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, going and coming, speaking and listening, lying down and rising up, standing and kneeling, running and riding, working and resting. In the midst of it all, you will be offering to God continually each day the most precious gift you can make. This work will be at the heart of everything you do, whether active or contemplative. “ ( p.163)
9) John 15.9 “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has he world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
Jeremiah 23.12. “Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall;”
“I warn you that a person who fails in vigilance and control of his thoughts, even though they are not sinful in their first movements, will eventually grow careless about small sins. “ (63).
10) Philippians 3.7 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
“The Cloud of unknowing, the secret love planted deep in an undivided heart, The Ark of the Covenant. It is Denis’ mystical theology, what he calls his wisdom and his treasure, his luminous darkness, and his unknown knowing. It is what leads you to a silence beyond thought and words and what makes your prayer simple and brief. (p. 170)
“I told you to forget everything save the blind awareness of your naked being, I intended all along to lead you eventually to the point where you would forget even this, so as to experience only the being of God�God is your being. (p.171)
11) Rev. 3.20 “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”
“He goes well to go on standing at the door, for up to now he has lived a crude sort of existence according to the flesh, and his spirit is corroded with a great rust. It is fitting that he waits at the door until his conscience and his spiritual father agree that this rust has been largely rubbed away. But most of all, he must learn to be sensitive to the Spirit guiding him secretly in the depths of his heart and with until the Spirit himself stirs and bacons him within. (p. 177)

Recollection

(Meg Funk) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:58:14 EST

in the midst

The Practice of Recollection
as taught by St. Theresa of Avila

God is Within so bring all thoughts toward God

Teresa of Jesus was born Teresa de Cepeda y Humada in 1515 to a wealthy family in Avila, Spain. Beautiful, charming and outgoing, she entered the local Carmelite convent in 1536. For some twenty years she struggled with serious illness and the somewhat lax religious life of her convent. Her spiritual fervor faded and for a year she even abandoned prayer altogether. In 1554 she experienced a “reconversion” after seeing a statue of the wounded Christ.

With renewed ardor Teresa eventually regained her spiritual equilibrium and emerged to conduct the reform of her Carmelite order. In 1562 she founded St. Joseph’s Convent in Avila, the first convent of the Carmelite reform. A tireless worker, she founded twenty more convents before her death in 1582 at the age of sixty-seven. Teresa'’ extraordinary insight into the process of spiritual growth has been transmitted through her writing. The Life is an autobiographical work which tells of her own spiritual development up to the point when she founded her first convent. Works which present her spiritual teachings are The Way of Perfection, written for the sisters of St. Joseph’s Convent and The Interior Castle, her most thorough and orderly description of the spiritual life.

Recollection is a practice recommended by St. Teresa of Avila. She speaks of active and passive recollection. The right effort for active recollection is to gather in our senses and lift up our mind to God. She says, (footnote P. 140 vol. 2 ) Think of God when praying. “I tell you that for wandering minds it is very important not only to believe these truths but to strive to understand them by experience.” And she goes on to say p.p. 142 “What I’m trying to point out is that we should see and be present to the One with whom we speak without turning our backs on Him, for I don’t think speaking with God while thinking of a thousand other vanities would amount to anything else but turning our backs on Him. She understood that harm comes from not truly understanding that He is near, but instead we imagine Him as far away. Since indeed how far away are you? if we go to the heaven to seek Him! Now, is Your face such, Lord, that we would not look at it when You are so close to us? If people aren’t looking at us when we speak, it doesn’t seem to us that they are listening to what we say. And do we close our eyes to avoid seeing that You, Lord, are looking at us?
So, the first step of the practice of recollection is to think God as near rather than far away. This is our faith.
This alone is what I want to explain: that in order to acquire the habit of easily recollecting our minds and understanding what we are saying, and with whom we are speaking, it is necessary that the exterior senses be recollected and that we give them (our senses)something with which to be occupied. For indeed we have heaven within ourselves since the Lord of heaven is there.
So, we slow down our thoughts, think of God and focus our attention toward God rather than review our thoughts or bring any concepts. One way of slowing down the mind is recollection. (p. 140 ) God is within. All one need to is go into solitude and look within oneself, and not turn away from so good a Guest but with great humility speak to Him as to a father. Beseech Him as you would a father; tell Him about your trials; ask Him for a remedy against them, realizing that you are not worthy to be His daughter. That the Lord is within us and that there we must be with Him. I understand the practice here is to turn our mind’s eye toward Our Lord. It’s not exactly an image, but more tuning into a Presence.
We leave aside any faintheartedness that some persons have that refuse Our Lord’s invitations. St.Teresa tells us to take God at his word. Since He is your Spouse, He will treat you accordingly. Recollection is the moment wherein the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God. (Way of Perfection)And its divine Master comes more quickly to teach it and give it the prayer of quiet than He would through any other method it might use. (footnote>>>) Even though passive recollection might happen later in our practice we will always need to return to active recollection from time to time. There’s no one who is not a beginner.
Recollection keeps the eyes closed almost as often as she prays. We must strive so as not to look at things here below. This striving comes at the beginning; afterward, there’s no need to strive; a greater effort is needed to open the eyes while praying. It seems the soul is aware of being strengthened and fortified at the expense of the body, that it leaves the body alone and weakened, and that it receives in this recollection a supply of provisions to strengthen it against the Body the mind’s tendency to be scattered. Recollection is a withdrawing of the senses from exterior things and a renunciation of them in such a way that our thoughts are not attracted to exterior inclinations. The eyes close so as to avoid seeing them and so that the sight might be more awake to the things of the soul. There’s no need to think holy thoughts. God doesn’t need them and often it takes us into vainglory. So, recollection in and of itself is the prayer.
There are, however, greater and lesser degrees of recollection: In the beginning the body causes difficulties because it claims its rights without realizing that it is cuffing off its own head by not surrendering. If we make the effort, practice this recollection for some days and get used to it, the gain will be clearly seen; we will understand, when beginning to pray, that the bees are approaching and entering the beehive to make honey. And this recollection will be effected without our effort because the Lord has desired that, during the time the faculties are drawn inward, the soul and its will may merit to have this dominion. Eventually when the soul does no more than give a sign that it wishes to be recollected, the senses obey and become recollected.
Even though they go out again afterward, their having already surrendered is a great thing; for they go out as captives and subjects that do not cause harm they did previously. And when the will calls them back again, they come more quickly, until after many of these entries the Lord wills that they rest entirely in perfect contemplation. (footnote)

When we get used to the practice of recollection and because there is no impediment from outside, the soul enjoys being alone with God. Since the soul is close to the fire, a little spark will ignite and set everything ablaze.
We must disengage ourselves from everything so as to approach God interiorly and even in the midst of occupations withdraw within ourselves. “Although it may be for only a moment that I remember I have that Company within myself, doing so is very beneficial. In sum, we must get used to delighting in the fact that it isn’t necessary to shout in order to speak to Him, for His Majesty will give the experience that He is present.” footnote

Recollection is not something supernatural; but that it is something we can desire and achieve ourselves with the help of God—for without this help we can do nothing, not even have good thoughts. To expect it to just happen is not realistic. We have our work to do on behalf of our relationship with God. Recollection is not a silence of the faculties: it is an enclosure of the faculties within the soul. This recollection practice is a manner of praying that the soul gets so quickly used to that it doesn’t go astray, nor do the faculties become restless, as time will tell. She goes on to say, “I only ask that you try this method, even though it may mean some struggle; everything involves struggle before the habit is acquired. But I assure you that before long it will be a great consolation for you to know that you can find this Holy Father, whom you are beseeching, within you without tiring yourself in seeking where He is.” (need to read chapters 24-30 Way of Perfection).

Recollection lies within our power. It involves a gradual increase of self-control and an end to vain wandering from the right path; it means conquering, which is making use of one’s senses for the sake of the inner life. If you speak, strive to remember that the One with whom you are speaking is present within. If you listen, remember that you are going to hear One who is very close to you when He speaks. In sum, bear in mind that you can, if you want, avoid ever withdrawing from such good company; and be sorry that for a long time you left your Father alone, of whom you are so much in need.
She goes on to recommend that if you can, practice this recollection often during the day; if not, do so a few times. As you become accustomed to it you will experience the benefit, either sooner or later. Once this recollection is given by the Lord, you will not exchange it for any treasure. Since nothing is learned without a little effort, consider, Sister, for the love of God, as well employed the attention you give to this method of prayer. I know if you try that within a year, or perhaps half a year, you will acquire it, by the favor of God. See how little time it takes for a gain as great as is that of laying a good foundation.
These teachings are from the Way of Perfection. In her systematic work, The Interior Castle, she moves from Active Recollection to Passive Recollection depending which mansion the soul is dwelling. Here’s a short summary of the teachings in the Interior Castle pertaining to Recollection. In the Interior Castle, St. Teresa sets forth a gradual immersion into God and God into us. The Castle is entered into by prayer. Prayer is the doorway that opens up into the mystery of God (pp. 270). In the first dwellings effort starts slowly as desire for God begins to supplant all previous desires.
The first dwelling has the soul saying prayers but the soul is still distracted and involved in worldly things such as possessions, honor, or business affairs. They pray on occasion.
In the second dwelling you begin to practice prayer and notice the prompting and invitation of Christ’s grace that comes from external sources like books, sermons, friendships and trails. The goal of one’s strivings is conformity with God’s will.
The third dwelling place recognizes one’s desire to have your own experience of God. They begin ascetical practices to remove obstacles and start to practice periods of recollection. They use their time well and reach out toward their neighbors and fit their external life of dress and possessions with interior desires. They fear consequences to their health and have difficulty parting with wealth. They are shocked by the faults of others and quickly distraught by a little dryness. They need someone who is free of the world’s illusions with whom they might speak.
Between the third and fourth dwellings is a shift in the practice of recollection: The fourth dwelling is the beginning of the supernatural. Infused prayer happens. It’s important not to think much but to love much. The right effort is to please God in everything, in striving, insofar as possible, not to offend Him, and in asking Him for advancement of the honor and glory of his Son. This contemplative prayer begins with a passive experience of recollection, a gentle drawing of the faculties inward; it is different from recollection achieved at the cost of human effort. This prayer of infused recollection is a less intense form of initial contemplation or, as called by Teresa, the prayer of quiet. While the will finds rest in the prayer of quiet, in the peace of God’s presence, the intellect (in Teresa’s terminology) continues to move about. One should let the intellect go and surrender oneself into the arms of love, for distractions, the wandering mind, are a part of the human condition and can no more be avoided than can eating and sleeping.
The fifth dwelling has prayer of union wherein the faculties become completely silent. The soul has a certitude that it was in God and God was in it. For suspended times the soul is dead to itself and completely free. The marriage symbolism is used: the soul and Our Lord become engaged�getting to know one another. The soul’s effort is to attend to humility and service to others.
The sixth dwelling place moves the marriage symbolism toward betrothal. Courage to endure trials both exterior and interior (opposition from others; praise; severe illnesses, inner sufferings, fears, and misunderstanding on the part of the confessor and consequent anxiety that God will allow one to be deceived; and a feeling of unbearable inner oppression and even of being rejected by God. The 6 dwelling is characterized by spiritual awakenings and deep impulses. Woundings of love cause both pain and delight. The betrothal takes place when His Majesty “gives the soul raptures that draw it out of its senses. For if it were to see itself so near this great majesty while in its senses, it would perhaps die. Though the soul in ecstasy is without consciousness in its outward life, it was never before so awake to the things of God not did it ever before have so deep an enlightenment and knowledge of God. Illuminations teach the soul.
The distinction between discursive meditation about Christ and contemplative presence to Him. The inability of contemplative souls to engage in discursive thought about the mysteries of the Passion and life of Christ in their payer is very common. But contemplating these mysteries, dwelling them with a simple gaze will not impede the most sublime prayer. She insists on staying in contact with Christ’s humanity and divinity. It’s important the contemplative enters into the unity of her body/mind/soul and not transcend the body. Failure to do this stops progress into the last two dwelling places.
The seventh dwelling has no closed doors between 6th and 7th. The unity of the soul is felt as natural (connatural) This place is in the extreme interior, in some place very deep within itself. The grace of spiritual marriage, of perfect union, is bestowed. The goal of the spiritual journey is union with Christ, now no longer living as the divine Logos but as the Word incarnate risen and connatated by the attributes of His earthly adventure, especially the resurrection. The fruit of this marriage must be good works. The interior calm fortifies these persons so that they may endure much less calm in the exterior events of their lives, that they might have the strength to serve.
The works of service may be outstanding ones, but they need not be. One must concentrate on serving those who are in one’s company. The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done. His Majesty will join our sacrifice with that which He offered for us. “Thus even though our works are small they will have the value our love for Him would have merited had they been great.”
The practice of recollection accompanies the practitioner but a good sign is to reduce words, mental work, and involvement of the imagination. A spiritual director can assist with discernment. At first it is important to have some one who has experience of recollection and discretion in judgment. Later when there’s experience of the mansions it would be good to have a learned person who can detect truth and deliver us from foolish devotions that keep us at a superficial level. Being able to read is a great advantage both in assisting us with recollection, centering our thoughts but also raising up truth to match our experience.

Bibliography:

Culligan, Kevin, O.C.D., Mary Jo Meadow, O.C.D.S. and Daniel Chowning, O.C.D. Purifying the Heart: Buddhist Insight Meditation for Christians. New York: Crossroad, l994.
A guide to Christian insight meditation which incorporates Buddhist meditation practice into the Carmelite tradition of contemplative prayer, especially as taught by John of the Cross.

Judy, Dwight H. Embracing God: Praying with Teresa of Avila. Nashville: Abingdon Press, l996.
A presentation of meditative prayer practice derived from St. Teresa’s writings.

Morello, Sam Anthony, O.C.D. Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, l995.
This pamphlet explains St. Teresa of Avila’s principles of meditation and applies them to the practice of Lectio divina.

The Soul’s Passion for God: Selected Writings of Teresa of Avila. D. Keith Beasley-Toplife. Nashville: Upper Room books, l997.
A small anthology of St. Teresa’s writing on prayer.

Teresa of Avila. The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. 1-3. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. Washinngton, D.C. : ICS Publications, l9976-1987.

Vol. 1: The Book of Her Life
Spiritual Testimonies
Soliloquies

Vol. 2: The Way of Perfection
Meditation on the Song of Songs
The Interior Castle

Vol. 3: The Book of Her Foundations
Constitutions
On Making the Visitation
A Satirical Critique
Response to a Spiritual Calling
Poetry.
Modern translations of St. Teresa’s works, these critical editions contain helpful background and introductory information.

____. The Interior Castle. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, l979.
Written at the end of her life, this is St. Teresa’s most thorough and orderly account of the spiritual life.

____. The Letters of St. Teresa of Jesus, vol. 1-2. Trans. And Ed. E. Allison Peers. London: Sheed and ward, l980.
A collection of over four hunderd letters written by St. Teresa of Avila. This edition is no longer in pring, ICS Publications plans to publish a new translation of her letters.

_____. The Way of Perfection: A Study Edition. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. Ed. Kieran Kavanaugh. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 2000.
Written for her nuns as a guide to prayer, this study edition of St. Teresa’s The Way of Perfection includes an introduction, commentary, note, discussion questions and glossary.

Dedicated to St. Teresa of Avila, l582-1982 Word and Spirit: volume 4, l983. Still River, Mass. : St. Bede’s Publications.

St. Teresa of Jesus and mental prayer Otilio Rodriques

Selected reflections on the Christocentrism of St. Teresa of Avila Harvey Egan

The Christ-wound /Brian McDermott

St. Teresa of Avila: teacher of prayer /Jordan Aumann

The teaching of St. Teresa of Avila on the prayer of quiet/ Magaret Dorgan

At the center of the soul/ Ermanno Ancilli

I will arise and seek Him whom my heart loves/ Mary Ann Follmar

Continual prayer and the contemporary monk/ Wulstan Mork

The asceticism of prayer /Jean LeClercq

Praying/ Hans Urs von Balthasar