Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

good lines for slow reading

“Do not be too anxious about your advancement in the ways of prayer, because you have left the beaten track and are traveling by paths that cannot be charted and measured. Therefore leave God to take care of your degree of sanctity and of contemplation. If you yourself try to measure your own progress, you will waste your time in futile introspection. Seek one thing alone: to purify your love of God more and more, to abandon yourself more and more perfectly to His will and to love Him more exclusively and more completely, but also more simply and more peacefully and with more total and uncompromising trust.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. (NY: HarperOne, 2003), page 97. (NOTE: the text belongs to 1959!)

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

mysticism of life in Christ

“These Christian themes of ‘life in Christ’ and ‘unity in Christ’ are familiar enough, but one feels that today they are not understood in all their spiritual depth Their mystical implications are seldom explored. We dwell rather, with much greater interest, on their social, economic, and ethical implications.” (p. 54)

Merton, Thomas. “The Recovery of Paradise.” (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

what is mysticism?

“Hence, the Christian mystical experience is not only an awareness of the inner self, but also, by a supernatural intensification of faith, it is an experiential grasp of God as present within our inner self.”  (Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 12)

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

practical results of the mystical experience

Note: Christian mysticism isn’t woo-woo airy nothingness. (Well, possibly some fringe segments are, but not real contemplative mysticism.) There’s actually something practical or useful resulting from mysticism: the knowledge of the connectedness of all creation, both with the rest of creation and with the Creator. That’s – among other things – a motivator toward works of mercy.

Quote:
“Mystical wisdom sees the unity of divine wisdom beyond creation’s polarity. It gazes at the ‘background’ that comprehends all–that ‘primordial communion,’ the realm of the Trinity where, in loving freedom, Father gives himself to Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

“Mystical wisdom is the joy of a global cosmic vision. It is an ‘ordered’ gaze that perceives, by intuition, all things–bringing them to light. It contemplates the true loving power of God, the strength of reconciliation and love’s order.” (p. 52)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, pg. 52.