Carl McColman's Blog, page 31

Living in the Spirit of Contemplative Prayer

What does it mean to live a contemplative life?

Especially for those of us who are not called to live in a monastery or some other form of intentional religious community, discerning how contemplative and mystical spirituality can shape, inform and bless our lives may be a challenge.

It’s one thing to be interested in mysticism, or contemplation, or the teachings and wisdom of the great mystics. Reading about the mystics and learning all you can about them is all fine, well and good. So, for tha...

Contemplation When Things Seem Out of Control

A reader named Allen writes:

With what is going on in the world, how do we as contemplatives take care of our spiritual health? I find it more challenging to sit now as there are a lot more distracting thoughts than normal. I’m not anxious about the virus — more about how we are managing it. I get frustrated and really hate the scare mongering by the media.  I feel a lot of things are out of my control.  I think contemplative practice can help immensely here. What are your thoughts?

My first tho...

Five Key Words for Understanding Christian Mysticism

So often people will say to me, “I just don’t know what Christian mysticism is!” Which is perfectly understandable, since not only is mysticism related to mystery, but also the added confusion that the word gets used in so many different ways by different people.

Evelyn Underhill alluded to this, over a century ago, in her book Practical Mysticism:

The genuine inquirer will find before long a number of self-appointed apostles who are eager to answer his question in many strange and inconsistent ...

Writing, Quoting, Creating: On the Use of Other People’s Words in the Midst of Your Own

Speaking to the Shalem Institute a few years back, Richard Rohr told an amusing story about a retreat he gave to the monks of Gethsemani Abbey (where Thomas Merton lived) early in his ministry. Feeling a bit intimidated by leading a retreat where his audience was mostly older than him and represented a lifetime of monastic observance, Rohr peppered his talk with quotes from Merton — but he found that every time he invoked the famous author, the retreatants looked away uncomfortably. Finally he p...

In Defense of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a central tenet of Christian faith and practice. But what exactly is it? Is it an emotional process by which people are supposed to overcome hurt feelings — or is it something much deeper, much more radical and revolutionary? At least one person online thinks it’s all about the emotions; I’d like to make the case for something much more powerful and spiritually healing.

But first: today’s blog post has a back story.

Since I write about Christian mysticism, I’ve set up Google alert...

What Happens During Silent Prayer

Brother Elias Marechal, OCSO is a Trappist monk of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. He is the author of a luminous book on contemplative spirituality, Tears of An Innocent God: Conversations on Silence, Kindness and Prayer. If you don’t have it, do yourself a favor and get a copy.

The book is filled with many gems of wisdom and insight. Here is one example:

At times it may feel as though nothing is happening in that vast silence. And yet so much is happening!

In the endless ...

Do Christian Mystics Believe in Redemption?

An email came to me today, with this question:

Dear Carl, I read your Big Book of Christian Mysticism a few years back, and it was very helpful for me in my understanding of the interrelation between the different “types and sorts” of mysticism. And you yourself have a pretty big inroad into different mystical communities, I know. How have you seen the gospel of redemption go forth into these communities?

An interesting question, so let me try to take it apart.

I’m not quite sure what the questi...

A Theology of Love: Why Julian of Norwich Matters

Nota bene: I’ve been asked to write a short reflection on why Julian of Norwich matters to me. Here it is.

I first “met” Julian of Norwich through reading Evelyn Underhill’s magisterial book Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness. Underhill’s book changed my life, for a number of reasons: it gave me a language and a context for making sense of my spiritual experience, it helped me to see that there is a place for an intellectually honest, interfaith-friendly ...

Questions After a Retreat: What Books to Read, What Steps to Take Next

Shortly after concluding my Praying with the Spanish Mystics Retreat, one of the persons who participated sent me this follow-up email:

Hello. I have your book Answering the Contemplative Call, which I will be reading shortly. Which other books do you recommend for someone who attends silent retreats?

I started reading Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain — what commentary book would you recommend on Merton? Likewise St Theresa or maybe I should pick a different mystic for starters after Mer...

Praying with the Spanish Mystics

This week I facilitated my second Zoom retreat hosted by the monks of Holy Cross Monastery. Our theme was “Praying with the Spanish Mystics” — this was a follow up to a retreat earlier this year called “Praying with the English Mystics” (click here for that retreat).

This retreat consisted of three conferences, each one exploring the prayer teachings of one of the great mystics of Spain. On the first day, we focused on imaginative prayer and the daily examen as commended by St. Ignatius of Loyol...