Connie Rossini's Blog, page 10

The prayer of quiet

Madonna in Prayer by Sassoferrato. In the prayer of quiet, the will is a captive to God.

 

The prayer of quiet is the second type of contemplative prayer God gives in St. Teresa’s fourth mansions. Here is Teresa’s description of the prayer of quiet from Way of Perfection:

This is a supernatural state, and, however hard we try, we cannot reach it ourselves… In this state the faculties are all stilled. The soul, in a way which has nothing to do with the outward senses, realizes that it is now very close to its God, and that, if it were but a little closer, it would become one with Him through union.

The faculties that Teresa refers to are the powers of the soul, namely, the powers of thought, will, and memory. Teresa states that the will is occupied during the prayer of quiet, captivated by God, and enjoying a love communion with him.

Sometimes thought and imagination try to participate in and aid contemplative prayer. Often they just get in the way. They are restless, and they can be restless even while the will is completely at peace.

As the prayer of quiet grows deeper over time, the intellect will begin to “sleep,” being captivated along with the will.

In later stages of contemplation, the imagination and memory will share in the quiet of contemplation, but in these early stages they seldom do.

Here is her description from the fourth mansions:

The soul is so satisfied with God that as long as the recollection lasts the quiet and calm are not lost since the will is united with God even though the two faculties are distracted; in fact little by little the will brings the intellect and memory back to recollection. Even though the will may not be totally absorbed, it is so well occupied without knowing how, that no matter what efforts the other two faculties make they cannot take away its contentment and joy.

This prayer is effortless. It is the work of God, not the soul. The soul has done its work by persevering in mental prayer in the past and striving to do God’s will out of love throughout the day. I want to emphasis again that no  technique or method can create this prayer. You cannot become a contemplative by trying to force your mind, memory, or will to be quiet.

You are powerless to produce the prayer of quiet. You can only prepare for it.

Connie Rossini

 

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Infused recollection, the first stage of contemplation

 

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St. James the Greater Praying by Rembrandt (Wikimedia Commons). Infused recollection comes without the soul doing anything immediate to produce it.

 

After a few weeks’ break, we return to the Interior Castle today to study what St. Teresa of Avila says about the prayer of infused recollection.

There are two types of infused (meaning God-given) contemplation souls experience in the fourth mansions. The first is what Teresa calls “supernatural recollection.” The second is the prayer of quiet. We’ll focus on recollection today and look at the prayer of quiet next time.

You’ll recall that in the third mansions, souls who have practiced mental prayer for a long time find their prayer simplifying to a quiet gaze upon God. We call this acquired recollection. Souls who practice it faithfully, while becoming ever more careful in doing God’s will out of love, prepare themselves for infused recollection.

Is it acquired or infused?

The beginnings of infused recollection are so subtle, that spiritual writers say souls often do not recognize it. It is very brief at the beginning and may intermingle with acquired recollection. When the contemplation becomes more obvious and lasting, it has become the prayer of quiet.

How is infused recollection different from acquired recollection?

The key difference is that in the third mansions, we recollect ourselves. Although our prayer is very simple, the recollection is produced as the result of a brief thought about God. This thought moves the heart, which then gazes silently for a time on God.

Acquired recollection can occur when a person sings a hymn at Mass, prays the Rosary, glimpses an icon, reads a passage of Scripture, or makes the Sign of the Cross. The mind turns to God, however briefly, and recollection results.

In the fourth mansions, a person may be doing the dishes, for example, and not thinking about God at all. Suddenly, without knowing how, he is recollected. He can’t make the recollection last by being silent, thinking about God, or making acts of love. The recollection comes and goes by God’s will alone. The soul cannot produce it. The soul cannot prolong it.

But otherwise, the experience of this recollection may be so similar to acquired recollection that the soul does not know it has just experienced something supernatural.

How can we tell the difference?

If it’s so subtle, how can we know if we are experiencing it?

First, if you have reached this stage without a spiritual director, do your best to find one. A knowledgeable and experienced director can help you discern whether your prayer is supernatural. But you can also tell true contemplation by its fruit.

Meditation and its more simplified forms, including acquired recollection, move the soul to love God. As the soul loves God more, she draws away from everything else in order to be with him. She is more careful than ever about sin and attachments. She begins making loving sacrifices. She longs for God.

Infused recollection produces similar results, but without the soul’s effort. She feels the call to prayer, virtue, and detachment even more strongly than before. She longs for more of God. Everything other than God begins to fade in importance. Suddenly, her priorities have changed. She sees the vanity of all things.

If the soul is experiencing this, she must yield to it. She must pray more, if she can, live more carefully, love more fervently, and try to recollect herself throughout the day. In fact, she must continue as she was doing in the third mansions, but with even more care. Being lax will prevent her from moving on to the prayer of quiet.

And, God willing, we will discuss that amazing prayer next time.

Connie Rossini

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Trusting God with St. Therese now in audiobook format

Were you there at the crucifixion?

The Communion of the Apostles by Tissot (Wikimedia Commons). In receiving the Eucharist, we are with Christ during His Passion.

 

At Mass on Sunday we sang the spiritual “Were you There?” It got me thinking.

How we long to have been with Jesus during His passion, death, and resurrection. How we would have loved to stand and support His mother at the foot of the Cross, to wipe His face with Veronica, to pray with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Yes, I know that was in reverse order.)

Serendipitously, we sang this song at Communion time. And I suddenly realized that I was there!

I was there when people received Him casually. I was there when they mocked and despised Him. I was there when they closed their ears to the Gospel. I was there when they yelled, “Crucify Him!” And some of the time, I was the culprit.

When I received the Eucharist, I was with Him on Calvary. I kissed His beaten back. I helped Him carry His Cross. I pricked my finger on His crown of thorns. I heard Him say, “Behold, your mother.”

I was there when they crucified my Lord. This Holy Week, I was there.

Were you?

Connie Rossini

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Free temperament test and pre-sales for choleric child book

I am happy to announce that I have published a 44-question quiz to determine your children’s primary temperaments. You can also use it for yourself. You can download it free through Smashwords for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or as a PDF. I also uploaded it to Amazon, but Amazon only allows free distribution during special offers or as a price match. I have notified Amazon that the quiz is free elsewhere. I hope they drop the price to free soon. That is beyond my control. (It currently sells there for $.99.)

4th mansions: consolations versus delights

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini. (Wikipedia) Sensible consolations are not the same thing as infused contemplation with its heavenly delights.

 

Now we begin to look at contemplative prayer as Teresa of Avila sees it. The fourth mansions are the transition from prayer that is produced by the soul to prayer that God gives the soul. In this post, I want to look at what Teresa says about consolations versus delights. This is from the first chapter of the fourth mansions.

Consolations are produced naturally by the soul. We can’t say that God has no part in them, for everything that brings us closer to him is in some way his gift. But they are completely different from delights, which he gives without our doing anything to receive.

It’s so important not to mistake consolations for infused delights!

How can we tell the difference? I am going to use an analogy here, and I don’t want you to get side-tracked by it. In 1 Corinthians 14, St. Paul writes about speaking in tongues in this way (my paraphrase): the speaker may be praising God in a tongue of men or angels, but if I can’t understand him, it’s gibberish to me. That doesn’t make his prayer gibberish in itself, but until I learn the language he is using, or someone interprets it for me, I get nothing out of it.

Now, this is just an analogy I want to use. Don’t get hung up on speaking in tongues right now–that’s not my point. My point is that infused contemplation is like speaking in tongues in this aspect: until a person has experienced it, he won’t understand it. It is beyond concepts and words. But if he has experienced it, he will understand.

So, how can we know if we are experiencing infused delights of contemplation, or merely consolations? We can study what consolations are. We can say what infused contemplation is not.

Infused contemplation is not:

Peaceful feelings. Peaceful feelings can be produced in many ways. We can feel peaceful looking at a sunset, practicing Buddhist meditation or Centering Prayer, gazing at a baby’s face, or enjoying a glass of wine. We don’t need a special gift of God for this. These feelings are not infused. They are natural. Sometimes when we pray, we might feel really at peace, and this can help us desire God more and inspire us to follow him more closely. Well and good. That doesn’t mean we are experiencing contemplation.

Strong desires for God. Now, I have to be careful here, because there is a dark, dry yearning for God that is infused. But on a purely natural level, we can desire God just as we can desire anything else. I’m going to make this personal. Due to my temperament, I sometimes in prayer experience what Hannah said, “My heart leaps up with joy to the Lord.” I feel like my desire for God is so strong that my heart is going to leap right out of my chest and I can hardly stand it. I used to think this was a contemplative desire. Now I realize this is a purely natural desire. I felt something similar when I was dating my husband-to-be.

Tears and other emotions. Other people might cry during prayer, feeling that their tears come from nowhere and they cannot stop them. But Teresa says that these tears are not contemplation either. They are the response of our passions to a desire for God. Again, they might inspire us to strive to follow him more closely, but they don’t necessarily have a lasting effect on us. We could cry in a similar manner over completely worldly things–or good things that fall short of God.

Locutions, revelations, etc. We shouldn’t confuse the contemplative life with supernatural phenomena like private revelations. The Devil can counterfeit revelations, but he can’t produce the effects of contemplation. We can also easily deceive ourselves, thinking our own pious reflections are revelations from God.

Fr. Thomas Dubay writes:

When a newcomer to the life of prayer begins to receive sense pleasure in it, he ought not to allow himself to be carried away. It comes and it goes, and in any event it is neither perfection nor sanctity. Second, all should realize that, at any time, progress in pursuing God does not consist in enjoying Him more but in doing His will more completely.” (Fire Within, 234).

Doing his will more completely. That is the first true sign of contemplation, We’ll end here for this time, and next time look at the signs that we are truly experiencing infused contemplation more fully.

Connie Rossini

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How many good works must we do?

Crypt Church of the Basilica of St. Therese in Lisieux. (Wikipedia)

In the thinking of St. Therese, what does it take to be a saint?

Therese grew up in a culture influenced by Jansenism. Jansenism was a heresy from the seventeenth century that over-emphasized the role of grace in man’s salvation. It had a long-lasting effect on  the Church in France. In the late nineteenth century, during Therese’s life, the French clergy often preached “fire and brimstone” sermons. They focused on man’s sinfulness and the horrors of Hell.

During the school retreat before the first anniversary of her reception of first Communion, Therese was greatly frightened by the priest’s warnings against mortal sin. She was suddenly overcome by scruples. How could she be sure she was on the road to salvation? How could she be sure she was in God’s graces? Maybe she was guilty of mortal sin without acknowledging it. How could she ever be good enough to please God?

From counting good works to scruples

Therese’s childhood practices furthered such doubts. Her parents were saintly, but they were not immune to the negative influences in French Catholic culture. One day when Therese was only four her sister Marie brought a string of sacrifice beads home from school. She was supposed to count all her good works of the day on the beads. Their mother Zelie liked this idea and made a string for daughter Celine. Then Therese wanted one too, and her wish was granted.

Now, trying to offer little sacrifices to God throughout the day is a good practice. But for Therese, as for many of the people she knew, performing good works became the focus of her spirituality. That was fine when she was four and confident of her ability to do good works. But as she grew older, she saw more of her weaknesses. She began to fear that she could never be good enough to please God. She also worried that her sins were so many and so grievous that no amount of good works could make up for them. This led her to the brink of despair.

Therese’s first battle with scruples lasted eighteen months. But her scruples returned a few times over the years.  In her autobiography she calls this struggle “a martyrdom.”

All her life, Therese had a strong desire to be a saint. But she knew that she could not expect herself to perform great deeds. How then could she be holy? She writes:

I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection. I searched, then, in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: ‘Whoever is a LITTLE ONE, let him come to me. [Prv 9:4]‘ And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for.… The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus!” (Story of a Soul, 207-8)

In place of doing the great works of someone who was strong, she put total trust in God. She counted on Him to lift her to the heights.

Contentment with what God set before her

This doesn’t mean she no longer did good works or made sacrifices. But she contented herself with doing small things:

repaying criticism with a smilefollowing the Carmelite Rule as carefully as she couldmaking love for God her motivation in all thingsvolunteering for tasks that other nuns sought to avoidtelling jokes to keep her sisters from being sad as they watched her succumb to tuberculosis

All these things required her to mortify her will. Because Therese was weak like us, they sometimes required heroic effort. But they were not extraordinary things. She did not have to seek them out. Every day, every hour of her life presented opportunities to abandon herself completely to Christ.

God did not allow her to become a foreign missionary as she desired. But she could still write letters to encourage missionary priests.

He did not grant her ecstasies in prayer. Instead, she fell asleep at mental prayer and offered Him that sleep in perfect contentment.

She could not become a choir nun since two of her sisters were already choir nuns. Instead of being envious, she asked to remain in the novitiate her whole life, taking her place with the beginners.

Whatever God set before her to do, she did with all her heart. And lest she be tempted to think about how many merits she was gaining, she gave them all away for others, rejoicing that she would stand before God with “empty hands.”

As we try to walk along the Little Way, we should take care not to make works–even little works–the center of our spirituality. For Therese, these works grew out of her recognition of her littleness. They were expressions of her love. They were signs that she was content to be weak.  She gained nothing from them. She placed no confidence in them.

All her confidence was in God. And so should ours be.

***

Congratulation to Chissy and Joan Dilger, who won the two copies of Jean Heimann’s new book. Contemplative Homeschool.

The foundation of St. Teresa’s teaching

Saint Teresa of Avila or of the Incarnation. Photo by Pierre Poschadel, Wikimedia Creative Commons.

 

On Wednesday the Church celebrated the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, founder of the Order of Discalced Carmelites and Doctor of the Church. The Carmelites are celebrating the 500th anniversary of her birth with an entire year of events beginning this month. Over that time period I hope to have many vibrant discussions here about Teresa, her life, and her teachings.

Sometimes we become interested in a saint when we hear one story about him or her. We don’t always view that story from the total context of a saint’s life and teaching. With my melancholic temperament, I like to look for the unifying principles behind things. This gives me a greater grasp of the meaning of individual facts. For St. Therese, that unifying principle was a childlike trust in God.

So what is the unifying principle behind true Teresian spirituality? Intimacy with Jesus.

Now, you may be asking yourself,”Does Connie really have to point this out? Isn’t this obviously true of every saint?”

But think for a moment about some of the misunderstandings about Teresa’s teachings. The primary one we see today is equating her teaching on contemplation with New Age mysticism. When we recognize that Jesus was absolutely essential to Teresa’s spirituality, we see how far from Buddhist-influenced spiritualities it is.

Remember, although we call her Teresa of Avila, her name in religion was Teresa of Jesus. In some ways, that says everything we need to know about her.

Let’s look at a few choice quotes.

Mental prayer, in my view is nothing but friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse, with Him Who we know loves us.”  (Life viii)

“Then, daughter [after examining your conscience] as you are alone, you must look for a companion–and who could be a better Companion than the very Master who taught you the prayer you are about to say? Imagine that the Lord Himself is at your side, and, believe me, you should stay with so good a Friend for as long as you can before you leave Him” (Way of Perfection xvi).

“If you are happy, look upon your risen Lord. If you are suffering trials, or are sad, look upon Him on His way to the Garden. Love to speak to Him, not using forms or prayer, but words issuing from the compassion of your heart.” (Ibid. xxvi)

“This method of bringing Christ into our lives is helpful at all stages; it is a most certain means of making progress in the earliest stage, of quickly reaching the second degrees of prayer, and, in the final stages, of keeping ourselves safe from the dangers into which the devil may lead us.” (Life xii)

If we can remember to stay by the side of Jesus as much as possible, whether in our prayer or work or recreation, we will quickly progress along the Way of Perfection. This is the essential teaching of Teresa of Avila.

Connie Rossini

Other posts you may likeContemplative Homeschool.

Making friends with the saints

Seven Saints for Seven Virtues

I have written before about Contemplative Homeschool.

From Fear to Faith by Gary Zimak

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I just returned from a three-day trip with my family to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where we lived for six years. It was a break my husband and I both needed. We visited with friends and former co-workers, attended Mass at the Contemplative Homeschool.