Contemplative Prayer; The Kingdom Of Grace

Editor’s note: This is part 38  of a series, “The Kingdom of Grace.” Part 37 can be found here.

Once upon a time, when God created the first human beings, the eyes of their hearts were originally illuminated by the light of grace. As a result, our first parents enjoyed a sense of the Presence of God living in the depths of their hearts and shining out in the world all around them. As a result of the fall, however, the original grace in which they walked has been lost to humanity. In our fallen condition, the eyes of our hearts and our ability to gaze upon God is compromised by a myriad of dark thoughts, disordered passions, and distractions. In his great goodness and love for us, however, God has sent his Son Jesus Christ to heal the eyes of our hearts from the calamity of the fall and to elevate our gaze so that we might come to behold his sacred Face.

For us to learn how to look once again upon the Most-High, our fallen minds require transformation – metanoia. The transformation of our minds begins in our baptism when the eyes of our hearts receive anew The Light of Grace – the grace of faith in Jesus Christ and the Spirit’s gifts of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. Yet, baptism is just a beginning. The full recovery of our Godward gaze from the calamity of the fall is a daily process that goes on until death, and it takes place as you and I walk the pathways of metanoia.

The pathways of metanoia are the practices and steps you and I take to grow in grace and develop the habit of living in the presence of the thrice holy God. As we walk the pathways of metanoia, God is always at work in our lives by his grace. By his actual graces and inspirations, God inclines our hearts to make efforts to carry out works of love, frequent the sacraments, and turn to him in prayer. We have recently discussed petitionary prayer, lectio divina, meditation, remembrance of the cross, the invocation of the Name, and the Rosary. God inclines us by his grace to undertake such things, and by his grace he works secretly in and through our efforts to make us humble of heart. His goal is to renew our Godward gaze so that He might captivate us and delight us with his Beauty. As we travel the pathways of metanoia, a thousand dark thoughts, disordered passions, and distractions seek to draw our hearts away from the One who first loved us (see 1 Jn 4:19). Yet, his call remains. “Abide in my Love” (Jn. 15:9).

In short, God calls all the baptized faithful to the heights and depths of intimate union with himself – mystical union (CCC 2013-4). Like the people of Israel who journeyed from slavery in Egypt to the promised land, so you and I are called to journey from the land of our sin and bondages to the promised land – to the full development of our union with God by grace. In this life, our union with God is lived most personally and deeply in contemplative prayer. Works of love, sacraments, and various practices of prayer all work to prepare us for such a grace – the grace of contemplative prayer.

What is contemplative prayer? Obviously, it is a form of contemplation. Saint Thomas Aquinas understood contemplation to be the act of gazing upon truth with delight. Contemplation is distinct from trying to figure something out, solve a puzzle, or reason things through. Contemplation is an act of the intellect simply looking, gazing, beholding.

Someone sitting on a hillside on a cool summer’s evening, for example, might simply gaze upon a spectacular sunset. The person is not trying to figure out how the atmospheric chemicals, rays of light, and angles of reflection produce such a spectacular sight. Rather, the person simply takes it in, delights in the beauty of it all, and marvels in wonder and joy. The person is contemplating in a natural sort of way.

In a similar way, lovers contemplate each other. Lovers can sit for hours together just looking at each other – drinking in the sight of the beloved. They need no instructions on how to do it. Love and instinct suffice to instruct them.

Philosophers, too, contemplate. Anyone who ever really notices the wonder of the world – the order and the beauty of it all – spontaneously goes on to ask where it all comes from. The inquiry begins with contemplation – just looking at the world and noticing it. The inquiry also tends towards contemplation. Upon noticing it all, and meditating on the world, someone might conclude: “there must be something behind it all.” But that something now becomes a whole new cause for wonder – a whole new topic of contemplation. What is it? Or who is it? Philosophical inquiry, though it might journey through wildernesses of the wildest reasonings, naturally tends towards contemplation of the Mystery.

Now, just as sunset watchers, lovers, and philosophers gaze upon things by the natural light of reason, so the baptized faithful can learn to gaze upon things by the supernatural light of grace. From the moment of our baptism, when the light of grace floods the soul, the mind begins to recover its capacity to behold his Face. As we walk the pathways of metanoia, practicing works of love, having recourse to the sacraments, and making efforts at prayer, the healing and illumination of the eyes of our hearts continues.

Like someone slowly turning up a dimmer switch in a once dimly lit room, God gradually increases the light of grace in our minds. Slowly, do the eyes of our hearts adjust to brighter lights from God. Gradually, the eyes of faith become increasingly more capable of contemplating God, the Trinity, Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, indeed, all the divinely revealed mysteries. We become increasingly more capable of just looking at revealed mysteries, taking them in, and delighting in them without trying to figure them all out. One might even begin to sense the influx of divine Love in the depths of one’s heart. Our sense of the Presence might well reach to heights and depths once unfathomable to us when we first began to walk the pathways of metanoia. In ways known only to God, we arrive at the shores of contemplative prayer.

“Contemplative prayer is a simple gaze upon God in silence and love. It is a gift of God…” (Compendium of the Catechism, q. 517). The Church explains contemplative prayer in terms of gazing upon God – a gaze of faith – full of silence and love. The gaze might be upon any one or all the mysteries revealed by God. Yet, contemplative prayer is always a gift – a grace. Different graces of contemplative prayer come to us at different times and in different ways from the beginning, through the middle, to the end of the journey. But it is always a grace.

In the Carmelite tradition, it is common to speak of infused contemplation. To say something is infused is to say it is poured into us. Infused contemplation, according to Saint John of the Cross, is “a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God” (Dark Night, 1.10.6). The proper response to such an inflow of God is a simple, loving, accepting awareness of Him. Some theologians in the school of Saint Thomas Aquinas say that what Carmelites call infused contemplation is the Holy Spirit working through the gifts of understanding and wisdom in a particular way. Whether one prefers to speak of infused contemplation or the Spirit of understanding and wisdom at work in the heart, such contemplation is an intimate experiential knowledge of God. No one could ever sit down and try to practice infused contemplation. It comes upon us. It comes upon us when it pleases God to give it. For the Spirit blows where he wills (see Jn. 3:8).

Yet, we can dispose ourselves for the grace of contemplative prayer. How?

In one sense, all the steps and practices on the pathways of metanoia, all of God’s lessons and graces in our lives, serve to prepare us for it. Indeed, the whole point of the journey is to come to know God increasingly more on the most familiar terms of Love. Yet, it is also important to ask for the grace of contemplative prayer as well as for the dispositions one needs to receive such a grace fruitfully. One of the most illustrious of mentors in this matter is Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity. Her Prayer to the Holy Trinity is one of the best preparations for the grace of contemplative prayer anywhere to be found.