From the Editor Emeritus / John F. Fink

Prayer: Contemplative prayer is a gift

(Fourth in a series)

The Church teaches that there are three expressions of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation and contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer has always been considered the summit of the Christian life of private prayer.

However, it is not for everyone. As Thomas Merton made clear in his book Contemplative Prayer, true contemplation “can come to us only as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees, saying, “It is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and poverty. Contemplative prayer is a covenant relationship established by God within our hearts.”

Contemplative prayer is the wordless and total surrender of the heart in silence. It’s the type of prayer that the great mystics prayed, but it’s not confined to mystics. “Centering prayer” is now being taught in many places, and those who are interested in it can find books on the subject.

Contemplation differs from meditation, which I wrote about last week. The mind is active in meditation, but passive in contemplation. Contemplation is listening in silence, the poor and humble surrender to God and a desire for union with him. It can be either acquired (ascetical contemplation) or infused (mystical contemplation) depending on whether we try to practice it on our own or if it’s super-natural in origin.

Thomas Merton warned against a false contemplation, a quietistic view of contemplative prayer. He wrote that a person cannot become a contemplative merely by “blacking out” sensible realities and remaining alone with himself in darkness. “He is not alone with God, but alone with himself,” he wrote.

Merton continued, “The trouble with quietism is that it makes a cult out of ‘sitting still,’ as if this in itself had a magic power to solve all problems and bring man into contact with God.”

St. John of the Cross, in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, said that we shouldn’t try to practice contemplative prayer until these three signs indicate that we are ready to move on from meditation: 1) One is unable to make discursive meditation as before because of aridity; 2) one has no inclination or desire to fix the mind on anything else; and 3) one desires only to remain alone in loving awareness of God, without any particular knowledge or understanding.

I have tried centering prayer—sitting in silence and trying to empty my mind in order to unite myself with God. It just doesn’t work for me. I guess I haven’t been given the gift. However, I can sit back, stop active meditation and think, “Your servant is listening, Lord. I’ve been talking to you, so now it’s time for me to listen to you.”

Then I keep an active mind so it can “hear” what God wants to say since a conversation should be two-way. There seems to be a difference, though, between listening to what God wants to say and seeking union with him by keeping your mind blank.

Not all of us are contemplatives. †