Posted on by Kurt Bodling

inner and outer silence

“Interior silence is the end of judgments, passions, and desires. Once we have acquired interior silence, we can transport it within us into the world and pray everywhere. But just as interior asceticism cannot be obtained without concrete mortifications, it is absurd to speak about interior silence without exterior silence.

“Within silence there is a demand made on each one of us. Man controls his hours of activity if he knows how to enter into silence. The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.”

Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 32

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

being before doing

“In his Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, John Paul II writes: ‘It is important however that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time for continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist the temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”.’ This is the innermost, unchangeable desire of a monk. But it happens also to be the deepest aspiration of every person who seeks the Eternal One. For man can encounter God in truth only in silence and solitude, both interior and exterior.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 28

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

center of action and contemplation

“In reality, Jesus seems to sketch out the outlines of a personal spiritual pedagogy: we should always make sure to be Mary before becoming Martha. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming literally bogged down in activism and agitation, the unpleasant consequences of which emerge in the Gospel account: panic, fear of working without help, an inattentive interior attitude, annoyance like Martha’s toward her sister, the feeling that God is leaving us alone without intervening effectively.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 28

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 55.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the Holy Spirit, mystics, and Church

“It can be said at once that the inspirations of the Holy Ghost are seldom completely at variance with the sanely traditional norms of religious societies. However the history of the saints is full of examples when those led directly by God fell under the furious censures of professionally holy men. The trial of St. Joan of Arc is a case in point.

“The life of a contemplative is apt to be one constant tension and conflict between what he feels to be the interior movements of grace and the objective, exterior claims made upon him by the society to whose laws he is subject. The tension is heightened by the realization that false mystics are always ready to claim exemption from social norms on the basis of private inspiration. And the society itself, speaking through its most articulate members, will not be slow to remind him of the fact.”  (pp. 76-77)

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003. [Merton wrote this in 1959]

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

deep presence

“Just as all sane men instinctively seek, in some way or other, the awakening of their true inner self, so all valid social forms of religion attempt, in some manner, to provide a situation in which each member of the worshiping group can rise above the group and above himself, to find himself and all the rest on a higher level. This implies that all truly serious and spiritual forms of religion aspire at least implicitly to a contemplative awakening both of the individual and of the group. But those forms of religious and liturgical worship which have lost their initial impulse of fervor tend more and more to forget their contemplative purpose, and to attach exclusive importance to rites and forms for their own sake, or for the sake of the effect which they are believed to exercise on the One Who is worshiped.” (Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, pp 25-26)

Both the hermit and the Church should be seeking and allowing the inner true self. But, as Merton says, some ways of being/doing church have forgotten this central purpose. Those congregations, denominations, and individuals tend more towards legalistic re-creation of stale, static forms, towards the parroting of formulae. That is, they tend away from contemplation.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

study as a spiritual discipline

“Before all else, our study should aim principally and ardently at this that we might be able to be useful to the souls of our neighbors. By study the brethren consider in their heart the manifold wisdom of God and prepare themselves for the doctrinal service of the Church and of all mankind. It is all the more fitting that they should devote themselves to study, because from the tradition of the Order they are called to cultivate mankind’s inclination toward truth.

“The brethren should contemplate and study divine revelation of which Sacred Scripture and Tradition constitute a single sacred deposit, and from the perennial instructional value of its overall plan, they should learn to discover the many paths of gospel truth, even in created things, in human works and institutions, as well as in different religions.

“The brethren should study attentively the writings of the Fathers of the Church and distinguished witnesses of Christian thought who, with the help of different cultures and the wisdom of the philosophers, labored to understand the word of God more fully. Following their thinking, the brethren should respectfully listen to the living tradition of the Church, seek dialogue with the learned, and open their mind to contemporary discoveries and problems.

“Continuous study nourishes contemplation, encourages fulfillment of the counsels with shining fidelity, constitutes a form of asceticism by its own perseverance and difficulty, and, as an essential element of our whole life, it is an excellent religious observance.”

extracted from: “Study as an Essential Part of Religious Life for Friars” from a web page published by the Dominicans of the Province of Saint Joseph, one of four provinces in the United States. Viewed online at https://opeast.org/about/our-way-of-life/study/ on 6 December 2022.

Note: The Dominicans in many ways seem to embody the spiritual discipline of study. They dig into the sources. They serve the fruit of their study to the Church and the world. These days I’m especially resonating to the thought that “Continuous study nourishes contemplation, [and] constitutes a form of asceticism by its own perseverance and difficulty….”

What are you studying these days? Is it for the good of those around you as well as for your own good?

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

meditating on Jesus’s suffering

Note:
Luther here uses ‘contemplation’ and ‘meditation’ as synonyms. But the main point here is that meditation, by whatever name, is of more benefit to us than any amount of external works can be. Meditation changes our hearts. Even just 15 minutes of real meditation on Christ’s betrayal, arrest, trials, torture, crucifixion is way more beneficial than any spiritual disciplines, says Luther.

Quote:
“We say without hesitation that he who contemplates God’s sufferings for a day, an hour, yes, only a quarter of an hour, does better than to fast a whole year, pray a psalm a day, yes, better than to hear a hundred masses. This meditation changes a man’s being and, almost like baptism, gives him a new birth.”  (page 11)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

writing, thinking, and contemplation

Note:
This author is a professor at Northeastern university. And he is definitely not writing here in a Christian or spiritual context. But I’m struck, as you probably are, how when he writes about the conditions he sets himself to improve his writing it sounds as if he is writing about conditions conducive to contemplation.

Quote:
“To avoid the easiest, most comfortable narrative of the moment, I have learned that writing … demands a special discipline.

“It requires clearing away competing noise, reserving time for deep reading and critical reflection, seeking solitude away from the constant churn of today’s argument-fueled culture.

“It requires a writer to quiet the mind, and to stop thinking about possible criticism or praise for what they write. ….

“The price of zipping around on the Web and social media is a loss in our depth of thinking, the essential trait of the intellectual and writer. …

“I choose to spend my days surrounded by the stillness of my office or within the sacred sanctuary of a library, no digital screen in sight, filling Moleskin notebooks with observations, engaged in the type of deep reading and immersion necessary to tie together insights and arguments into a fresh web of analysis.”

Source: ‘The Mindful Climate Change Writer’ by Matthew Nisbet, PhD viewed online at
https://medium.com/wealth-of-ideas/the-mindful-climate-change-writer-102ad432b283

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

turn to the contemplative

Note:
John Burroughs, certainly no Christian, notices that as we grow older, we naturally pull back from the noise of society and turn more toward things of lasting value. That is, we become more contemplative the more we mature. This reminded me of something I read recently in Falling Upwards a book by Richard Rohr where he talks about ways in which the spirituality of attentive Christians changes as we age.

Quote:
“The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world. I hardly know which feeling leads, wonderment or admiration. After a man has passed the psalmist’s dead line of seventy years, as Dr. Holmes called it, if he is of a certain temperament, he becomes more and more detached from the noise and turmoil of the times in which he lives. The passing hubbub in the street attract him less and less; more and more he turns to the permanent, the fundamental, the everlasting. More and more he is impressed with life and nature themselves, and the beauty and grandeur of the voyage we are making on this planet. The burning questions and issues of the hour are for the new generations, in whom life also burns intensely.” (vol. 15, p. 1)

Source: Burroughs, John. “The Summit of Years” in Volume 15 of The Writings of John Burroughs. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913.