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tradition enriched and changed

“Tradition is more than the repetition of the past. A wisdom quest or a spiritual practice is something alive; it is enriched and changed by those who receive it, just as a family’s gene pool is enriched and changed through succeeding generations. The very fact that the life we live at Camaldoli today differs from the life lived there by earlier generations is itself a sign that a certain tradition lives on at Camaldoli.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 2. (quoting don Anselmo Giabbani the superior at San Gregorio Camaldolese monastery in Rome)

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what is contemplative silence?

“Contemplative silence is silence with God. This silence is clinging to God, appearing before God, and placing oneself in his presence, offering oneself to him, mortifying oneself in him, adoring, loving, and hearing him, listening to him and resting in him. This is the silence of eternity, the union of the soul with God.” Thought 72.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 55.

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what is the contemplative life?

Here’s one more-or-less traditional view: "“Contemplative life, a life characterized by solitude and prayer, which dispose one toward contemplation. Ancient and especially medieval monasticism perceived its way of life as contemplative; nuns and monks were called contemplatives. Medieval interest in the mystical life perceived the contemplative life as mystical in orientation. For some men and usually women the enclosure was seen as a necessary safeguard of the contemplative life. Post-Vatican II developments have shown an interest in a broader conception of the contemplative life for laity and religious yet one that retains the solitude necessary for living in the presence of God.”

McBrien, Richard P., ed. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995, page 364.

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freedom in prayer and contemplation

“The great obstacle to contemplation is rigidity and prejudice. He who thinks he know what it is beforehand prevents himself from finding out the true nature of contemplation, since he is not able to ‘change his mind’ and accept something completely new. … And since most of us are rigid, attached to our own ideas, convinced of our own wisdom, proud of our own capacities, and committed to personal ambition, contemplation is a dangerous desire for any one of us. But if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us all by itself, unobserved. And it is likely to be satisfied almost before we know we have it. That is the way a genuine contemplative vocation is realized.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 117.

Comment: These lines are worth repeating: “…if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us all by itself, unobserved. And it is likely to be satisfied almost before we know we have it. That is the way a genuine contemplative vocation is realized.”

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authentic motivation

“To be authentically human and Christian, the hermit’s life must aim at deepening communion with God and neighbor, even when the choice of the hermitage is initially motivated by the need to free oneself from an impossible situation in a monastic community.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 30.

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results of humility

(of the humble person) “He is able to see quite clearly that what is useful to him may be useless for somebody else, and what helps others to be saints might ruin him. That is why humility brings with it a deep refinement of spirit, a peacefulness, a tact and a common sense without which there is no sane morality.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 100.

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misunderstandings

“It is not surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 170.

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the path to Christian doctrine

"The church’s official ‘doctrine of the Trinity’ was not fully formulated until three or four centuries after the time of Paul. Yet when the later theologians eventually worked it all through, it turned out to consist, in effect, of detailed footnotes to Paul, John, Hebrews and the other New Testament books, with explanations designed to help later generations grasp what was already there in principle in the earliest writings.

“But it would be a mistake to give the impression that the Christian doctrine of God is a matter of clever intellectual word-games or mind-games. For Christians it’s always a love-game.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 118.

Comment: It’s clear, according to N.T. Wright, that Christian doctrine is more than simply a slow development of simple statements recorded in the Bible. He says here that doctrine is basically footnotes to the Scriptural text. At least when it (the Bible) is expounded properly.

It would seem, then, that Tradition must in this light be measured against Scripture. If the teachings of Tradition are not apparent in Scripture, then they aren’t footnoting anything. Which makes no sense. Pay attention to Wright’s idea of the “love-game” in tension with the “word-game”. If a doctrinal exposition and explanation is not growing out of the love-game, there’s reason to suspect it.

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the non-walking world

“In a world so full of not-walking, it feels almost subversive to set out on foot. But the mind seems most keen and able to think its realest thoughts while walking, as though the two acts were tied up in some ancient, well-worn, unspoken routine. And even then it is possible to notice a difference in the texture of one’s thoughts depending on whether you are walking with our against the flow of nearby water, a phenomenon that can likely be replicated in crowded streets of people.”

Sanders, Ella Frances. “Vázzit” in her column ‘Root Catalog’ in Orion, vol 42, no. 1 (Spring 2023), p. 96.

Comment: some people think best while walking. Some people pray best while walking. And in our world, few people walk voluntarily, it seems.

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humble contemplation

“The contemplative’s only safeguard is humility and self-forgetfulness and the renunciation of all desire to exploit the experience for any purpose whatever. What happens, happens. One accepts it, in humility, and sees it, without inferring anything or instituting any comparison with other experiences. And one walks on in the presence of God.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 60.

Comment: this is probably part of the reason it seems that contemplative Christians are few and far between … most don’t talk about it, don’t write books about, don’t mount podcasts or fund-raising campaigns around it.