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contemplative knowing

“I would like to call contemplation ‘full-access knowing’–not irrational, but prerational, nonrational, rational, and transrational all at once. Contemplation refuses to be reductionistic. Contemplation is an exercise in keeping your heart and mind spaces open long enough for the mind to see other hidden material. It is content with the naked now and waits for futures given by God and grace.”

Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009, p. 34.

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unity in contemplation

“The very first step to a correct understanding of the Christian theology of contemplation is to grasp clearly the unity of God and man in Christ, which of course presupposes the equally crucial unity of man in himself. For the soul and body are not divided against one another as good and evil principles; and our salvation by no means consists of a rejection of the body in order to liberate the soul from the dominance of an evil material principle.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, pp. 39-40.

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centering prayer origins

“The monks who developed Centering Prayer … note that this is not ultimately a technique of contemplative prayer, but rather a way of praying that helps to prepare us for the grace of contemplation, which is always a gift from God. This is a subtle but meaningful distinction.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 293.

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the flight

“Paradoxical as it may seem, for Christians the flight of the alone to the Alone must also be understood as a flight of the community to the Trinity.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 139

Comment: I think what this means is that he considers the ancient description of the contemplative life (‘flight of the alone to the Alone’) still to be true. Plus, it is also true that the same contemplative life can be described as a flight of the community of believers to the community of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

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receiving, not achieving, contemplation

“Contemplation is a gift of God beyond our perception. We don’t go to it, it comes to us. It is pure union of being in Being. As God is simply I AM, so we simply ARE in him when experiencing contemplation. Contemplation happens when we stop thinking of God, and God’s idea takes over!”

Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010, page 45.

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the contemplative life

“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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“Contemplation is not a kind of magic and easy shortcut to happiness and perfection. And yet since it does bring one in touch with God in an I-Thou relationship of mysteriously experienced friendship, it necessarily brings that peace which Christ promised and which ‘the world cannot give.’ There may be much desolation and suffering in the spirit of the contemplative, but there is always more joy than sorrow, more security than doubt, more peace than desolation. The contemplative is one who has found what every man seeks in one way or another.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, pages 116-117 (NOTE: the text belongs to 1959!)

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contemplation and virtue

“Contemplation should not be exaggerated, distorted, and made to seem great. It is essentially simple and humble. No one can enter into it except by the path of obscurity and self-forgetfulness. It implies also much discipline, but above all the normal discipline of everyday virtue. It implies justice to other people, truthfulness, hard work, unselfishness, devotion to the duties of one’s state in life, obedience, charity, self-sacrifice. No one should delude himself with contemplative aspirations if he is not willing to undertake, first of all, the ordinary labors and obligations of the moral life.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, page 116. (NOTE: the text belongs to 1959!)

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let contemplation bloom

“We are built for contemplation. This book is about cultivating the skills necessary for this subtlest, simplest, and most searching of the spiritual arts. Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron’s capacity to flower…”

Laird, Martin. Into the Silent Land : a Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 1.

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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.