Did Teresa of Avila teach Centering Payer?

By Connie Rossini

St. Teresa's Transverberation by Joefa de Obidos (Wikimedia Commons)

Last winter on social media, I came across another Catholic author who was promoting yoga. Not as an exercise program, but for spiritual growth. I was shocked. I asked her why she wasn’t promoting prayer instead. She answered, “Meditation is prayer!”

Nope.

Two months ago, my brother forwarded an email from a colleague, asking about Centering Prayer. A friend was pushing it relentlessly. I looked at the website of the Catholic group that promotes Centering Prayer and found this in the FAQs:

This form of prayer was first practiced and taught by the Desert Fathers of Egypt … the Carmelites St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux…

Nonsense.

The other day a new reader asked in the comments about meditating on Sacred Scripture. “Is this the same as the method of Fr. John Main, who has adapted an Eastern mantra method for Christian meditation?”

Uh-uh.

I have written a little on this topic before, but I think it’s time to revisit it. Let’s start with Teresa of Avila.


Continue reading at Connie's blog Contemplative Homeschool.

Finding our supernatural home

 By David Torkington

The Triumph of Religion by Overbeck (Wikimedia Commons)

As a  person tries to observe the  new commandments by making acts of love through all they say and do, they are  gradually able to rise step by step towards journey’s end. Their progress is made possible, because it is made in, with, and through Christ who claimed to be the vital living embodiment of Jacob’s mystical ladder (John1:51). He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life (Jn 14:6). He is  the way to our destination, the Truth who both reveals and  embodies that destination, and the eternal life that constitutes that destination.

The journey stretches from here to eternity where the traveler finally enters into  a profound and ongoing Holy Communion with the One who dwells in the eternal ecstatic joy, that flows from the  mystical  vortex of loving that constitutes God’s very being. Faith in what is to come, is fortified by hope that is derived from the tangible experience of the  love enjoyed  in the profound intimate Holy Communion, that has already begun here and now. These gifts are given as  the new commandments are put into practice day by day:-

No More Homeless, No More  Orphans!

 That is why Jesus promised that we would not be left orphans, because through the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son would make their home within us here and now:-

I will not leave you orphans I will come back to you. (Jn 14 :18)  

“If anyone loves me he will keep my commandments and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home within him.”(John 14:23-24)

Read the rest at David's blog David Torkington.

3 Conversions of the purgative way

By Connie Rossini

Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Going through old files today, I came across a Secular Carmelite newsletter from 1997. In it our community’s spiritual director wrote about the three stages of conversion in the purgative way. His source was Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development. I am using Fr. Groeschel’s book as a source for the book I am currently writing on St. Therese. The co-incidence made me feel God wanted me to share this with you.

It’s good to know where you are in the spiritual life–not so you can compare yourself with others, but so you my know you’re not alone. It helps me to realize that what I am experiencing is typical of a certain stage. Sometimes it encourages me. Other times it confirms what I have been doing. Still other times it shows me the next step I should take.

3 stages of the interior life

The spiritual life is traditionally divided into three major stages. The first, known as the purgative way, is a time of purification from sin. The second stage is the illuminative way. God enlightens the mind to know His will more clearly and gives the soul the gift of supernatural contemplation. Finally, there is the unitive way, in which the soul is almost constantly aware of God’s presence. Finally she has the power to closely conform herself to His will.


Continue reading at Connie's blog Contemplative Homeschool.

Practical mysticism

by Connie Rossini

St. Francis de Sales (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

CSBN has been running a series on spiritual idiolects, a phrase I coined to mean the unique way each person relates to God. I hope that you will find "kindred spirits" in these posts, and be drawn to follow bloggers who have a similar spirituality to yours--or those whose are surprisingly different.

My spiritual idiolect is practical mysticism. I've always hated the saying, "He's so heavenly minded that he's no earthly good." The truly heavenly minded do the most earthly good. Think of St. Therese, who even wanted to do earthly good while in Heaven. She reached the heights of the prayer life, and actively loved her neighbors. That's what I aspire to. I want to be a contemplative wife and mother. I want to love God and my neighbor.

I loved St. Therese from the first time I read about her as a child. Her personality appealed to the romantic idealist in me.

Later, my older sister urged me to read Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. Now, there's a great book! St. Francis taught lay people how they could be saints, giving them tips on every area of life. How do you know when temptation becomes sin? How can you practice Christian meditation? How can a lay person live in the world and be properly detached from it? St. Francis answers all these questions. I need concrete direction. That's why I love St. Francis.

The next saintly influence on my spiritual idiolect came from Teresa of Avila. Although I didn't really understand The Interior Castle the first time I read it, it drew me to a life of prayer. Eventually, I joined the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites. They explained St. Teresa's teaching to me. They also introduced me to St. John of the Cross.

Today I am no longer OCDS, but I am thoroughly Carmelite in my spirituality. St. John in particular taught that mysticism is not a matter of visions, locutions, and altered states. Rather, it is a matter of a deep communion with God in prayer. Aspiring to be mystics as the world sees mysticism can be dangerous. Aspiring to grow in prayer is the call of every Christian.

Now I try to give practical spiritual help to others through my blog and ebooks. (I'm working on a full-length one right now to add to my short ebook published in June.) I like to teach people, including children, about the differences between true and false mysticism, Christian and eastern meditation, and Christian and pagan asceticism and detachment. I am striving to be holy in the little things of every day life. I am working to be heavenly minded and earthly good.


Connie Rossini is the administrator of Catholic Spirituality Blogs Network. Her personal blog is  Contemplative Homeschool.

What is contemplation? Part 2: Supernatural contemplation

by Connie Rossini

St. Dominic in Prayer by El Greco (Photo:Wikimedia Commons).

There are three major categories of contemplation. The first, which I wrote about last week, is natural contemplation. The second is the contemplation practiced in non-Christian religions. The third is supernatural contemplation. It is this third type of contemplation that St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, and other Carmelites refer to when they use the word “contemplation.”

Christian contemplation versus eastern meditation

 Non-Christian contemplation consists of an impersonal awareness. Zen Buddhists practice a meditation or contemplation that is agnostic. God does not come into play. Transcendental meditation, which comes from Hinduism, consists in losing one’s personality in an impersonal, all-encompassing deity. Both these varieties of contemplation are achieved by practitioners’ own actions, which lead to an altered state of consciousness.

Christian contemplation is completely different. It is a loving gaze at God who is Love. Supernatural in origin, it can’t be produced through techniques. Modern writers often use the modifier “infused” to indicate that God pours contemplation into the soul.

Meditating on Sacred Scripture (the Bible) can produce theological contemplation, also called acquired contemplation. Christian meditation teaches us to know and love Jesus, thus preparing us to open our hearts fully to God’s love. It helps us form the habit of quieting our souls before God, focusing on Him instead of ourselves. See an example of Christian meditation.


Continue reading about supernatural contemplation at Connie's blog  Contemplative Homeschool. 

Christian prayer is much more than Eastern meditation

by Connie Rossini

The Prayer by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

A few years ago at Mass in another diocese, the priest began a homily on the importance of daily prayer. I was elated. We hear this far too seldom from the pulpit. My elation soon turned to disappointment, however. He talked about being aware of the world around you, and your own thoughts and feelings. Shockingly, he didn’t mention God at all! I realized the priest (apparently without knowing it) was not really advocating prayer, but a Buddhist-inspired form of meditation.

Both Christians and Buddhists use the term “meditation,” so it’s no wonder sincere people confuse the practices of the separate religions. But they are quite different.

Christian meditation centers on Christ

 

In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II noted that Buddhists seek to free themselves from the world, while Christians seek freedom from sin, through God’s grace, in order to be united with Him. Eastern meditation might relieve stress, but it cannot save souls.
Doctor of Prayer St. Teresa of Avila gives us further insight, when she writes in the 1st chapter of Interior Castle :

“If a person neither considers to Whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although his lips may utter many words, I do not call it prayer.”

In other words, true prayer recognizes how small and sinful we are and how great God is, and addresses itself towards Him. Eastern forms of meditation are not addressed to anyone.  The question of God’s existence and character doesn’t come into play.

Prayer’s purpose is union with God

 

Christian prayer is communication with God. The conversation we have in prayer goes both ways. In fact, God’s action during prayer is more important than our words, thoughts, or feelings.  Prayer is a search for God, who promises, “You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you” (Jeremiah 29:13-14). As the Song of Songs envisions it, prayer is the Beloved seeking the One who loves her. This seeking (and finding!) is the purpose of our lives. You and I were made for intimate union with God. God is love, and He invites us to share in the very love that unites the Holy Trinity. The means to this union is prayer.

Union with God unfolds in stages. When we first start praying, we have to work hard to focus on God, to meditate on (that is, ponder) His goodness, and to worship Him. Faithfulness to prayer and to God’s will opens the door to the gift of contemplation, when God secretly transforms us and draws us closer to Himself. The early stages of prayer are concerned with seeking, the later stages with finding.

Non-Christian meditation aims too low. It cannot fulfill our longing for eternal love. Do not be afraid to lift your sights higher. Do not be afraid to seek the face of God in prayer!


Share with us: How have you or others around you misunderstood the purpose of Christian prayer? What insights from your own growth in prayer can you share?

This was originally posted at Contemplative Homeschool.

What is Carmelite spirituality?

by Connie Rossini

What is Carmelite spirituality? A couple of readers have asked me this question, and I assume several more have wondered and not asked. So I'm going to write this as a post (for maximum visibility and readership), then make it a permanent page soon.

Carmelite spirituality stems from the teaching and lifestyle of one of the oldest surviving religious orders in the Catholic Church. Like the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and others, the Carmelites have a particular way of living out the faith, which has been approved by the Church. St. Therese of Lisieux, one of the best-beloved saints of our age, was a Carmelite nun.

From ancient Mt. Carmel to medieval Europe

 

In the 12th century, a group of Christian hermits settled on Mt. Carmel,  where the prophet Elijah had once lived in a cave. St. Albert of Jerusalem wrote a rule of life for them to follow. They built a monastery and came together for prayer, but each lived in his own cell. They dedicated their oratory to Mary, becoming known as the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel.

As always, tensions were high in the Middle East at this time. Soon the Carmelite brothers left the Holy Land for Europe. There they assumed an active life--that is, living and working in the world. Blessed John Soreth established the Carmelite nuns in 1452. The Third Order, for seculars, began two centuries later.

The reform by Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross

 

Throughout the centuries many saints and blesseds in various countries reformed the Carmelites in their lands. The most significant reform came from saints Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross in 16th-century Spain. The communities they established eventually became the separate Discalced Carmelite Order. "Discalced" means "shoeless." They wore sandals as a sign of poverty and penance. Teresa and John were later named doctors of prayer by the Church. This means the Church not only approves their teaching, but recommends it to all Christians.

These days, the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance (O. Carm.) and the Discalced Carmelites (OCD) see themselves as two branches of the same family. Though their goals and teachings are somewhat different, they share much in common. There are also at least a half-dozen new members of the Carmelite family that have been approved by the Church, including the Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, to which my brother belongs.  They would probably all agree with the spirituality posts on this blog. Nevertheless, when I speak of Carmelite spirituality, I am speaking about OCDS spirituality, which is what I know most about. I was a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS) for about 15 years.

Continue reading at Contemplative Homeschool.