Author: admin

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5

By | | Comments 16 comments

The love that I felt from God not only encompassed my being but extended to all including those who had perpetuated much injustice. I was led to understand the compassion for souls that seemed to be so much the focus of Jesus’ ministry even as he was led to death. 

This love and compassion is all-encompassing, all healing and perpetual for each person as God awaits to draw all souls to conscious awareness of union in love. 

The denial of this love seems to rest with our desires and volition. In some sense, we choose to be awakened to God’s love in us by the many decisions, acts, and desires that are a part of our every day. It is not only at the level of conscious choice but where our heart’s desires are played out.  

To express this thought differently, it seems that our capacity for love is somehow proportional to our awareness of and union with God. In contemplation, we continually choose to seek a closer union with God. 

Sometime after I had received the gift of awareness of God’s love in contemplation and, certainly, after the first of the year, my consulting work dried up and I began slowly looking for other opportunities. My personal financial situation was somewhat desperate from many losses and debts incurred when the business was failing.  

Two months into the new year, God came to me in meditation with a strange message. “DO NOT WORK ANY LONGER.” The message was quite clear and I told my wife what I had heard. In my usual obstinacy, I reasoned that if God did not want me to work, then I would spend the time just seeing what was available on the job market in teaching, research projects, government, and some industries – all of which I had in my background.  

Although my resume had a great deal of depth, I didn’t receive a single response or inquiry during the next two months. Then, one Saturday evening after dinner as my wife and I were sitting at the table and I was lamenting the lack of response, my wife said, “You are being disobedient to God by continuing to search for work. What would you do, financial considerations aside, if you could choose anything at all?”  

Her statement about “being disobedient to God” felt like a slap across the face. I responded, again with some lament, “I would be of service to other people, but I don’t know what that means.” My wife and I mutually decided that I would seek ideas for my future purpose on Monday from the Director of Pastoral Care at the hospital where I was volunteering as a Eucharistic Minister. 

On Sunday while we were at the celebration of the Mass, my wife mistakenly approached one of the chaplains who she thought was the director. My wife briefly relayed the question and the chaplain, who I knew, and gave her a name of a supervisor of clinical pastoral education (CPE) with the admonishment that she couldn’t help me at the moment but maybe had some ideas.  

The next day I telephoned the CPE supervisor and told her my situation. The first words from her mouth were, “I can’t help you right now, but I am teaching a class at a nursing home on Wednesday. Why don’t you come and sit in on the class and I will have time afterward to talk to you.” I agreed. 

After the class, she told me, “Since I talked to you on Monday, I’ve had one student drop out.  You can stay in the class if you want to?” I did want to stay because I felt very much that I belonged there. Thus, began my training for ministry. Prior to my first class, I had never heard of CPE. 

Click to check out Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 1, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 3, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 4, and Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 4

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 4

By |

One experience I have described in an earlier blog, The Dark Night of the Soul: Part 2, with the losses from my business and the injustice done to my family. The stress became so overwhelming that I cried out to God in despair. 

Another dark night period, after I had lost my business and my employment contract had been prematurely terminated eight months thereafter. My son called the day I was terminated and, without the knowledge that I was no longer working, asked if I were interested in doing some consulting.  

I told him I was interested and began consulting the next week. I had gainful employment for the next six months. I perceived that the hand of God had intervened, as often the case, to provide for me and my families’ well-being.

Nevertheless, the next few months were a dry period in my meditation.

I did not know what God wanted for me and there was a notable absence of God’s presence when I sat down to pray. No matter how long I sat there, it seemed void and without fruit. However, I had an intense longing and desire for God and I also had a strange sense that God was somewhere near, just not present to me.  

Initially, I struggled with the thought that my prayer life was somehow at fault but since this experienced was so contrary to what I knew, I resolved to persevere. I continued the practice of sitting in the void and, then at the end of the session, I would offer prayers for others which was also my usual practice.  

This went on for several months until I was finally able to experience a flooding of God’s love into my being. I was filled so completely that I felt consumed by this love; I could sit for any length of time and revel in the grace and blessings that had been bestowed on me.  

Yet I had no sense that I was deserving of this tremendous outpouring of love, rather it humbled me to the point of being mentally prostrate before God. 

Click to check out Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 1, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 3, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5 and Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 3

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 3

By | | Comments 10 comments

During the dark night of the soul to struggle at this time is fruitless, for God has captured the soul and keeps it in abeyance. There is no longer illusion and worldly desire to comfort or self-identity to control what is happening.  

This is a period of timeless waiting and of purification of the soul, preliminary to becoming awash in the infinite sea of God’s love.  

However, at this point of the journey, it is a perpetual and perplexing state of unknowing. “The Cloud of Unknowing” is a 14th-century treatise (author anonymous) on the deep and penetrating contemplative mysteries of God.

During this period, any remaining remnants of psychological attachments such as fear, anger, non-forgiveness, envy, despair, and so forth, are purged along with worldly or material attachments.   

Much has been written about the dark night of the soul, but in the experience of contemplation, it is that last step of finally realizing complete and utter dependence on God, the last turning of all to His loving care. 

My dark night was seemingly much less intense than many contemplatives have described in their writings.  Although I felt deeply the lack of God’s immediate presence, I never felt the total abandonment or despair that many speak of in their journey.

I suppose that there have been two periods in my life that I could describe as the dark night of the soul. 

Click to check out Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 1, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 4, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5 and Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2

By |

For me, it took many years of meditation to move towards contemplation, although I did experience some moments and periods of illumination along the way.

Contemplation began with the longing and burning desire to be with God.  

It is as though my soul was reaching out but could not immediately attain a deeper union with God.  This longing was centered in my very being and as soon as worldly affairs pulled in the opposite direction, the longing intensified until a restful contemplation again gave partial relief.  

There was an innate knowing that only in contemplation would the object of desire be found.  Again and again, I returned to contemplative prayer in lasting hope that my will, the felt source of my burning desire, would become one with the Divine Will.  

My heartfelt prayer became, ”Not my will, but your will, Lord, be done.”

To deny the inclinations toward contemplative prayer would be to deny my very life sustenance. Deep within my being was sought what only God could satisfy; God was drawing my soul into an infinite love so that “I” no longer existed as “self” but was lost in God. 

God may not immediately gratify that which has been given up.  The soul may enter what we and others have described as the dark night of the soul.  

Click to check out Meditation Become Contemplation: Part 1, Meditation Become Contemplation: Part 3, and Meditation Become Contemplation: Part 4, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5 and Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 1

Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 1

By |

The point at which God-centered meditation becomes contemplation is totally dependent on God. Contemplation can be defined as a state of being in which the contemplative is absorbed into and in union with a loving God.  

It is a continuous state of being in the presence of God.  It is a pure gift from God for the contemplative is aware that he/she has done nothing to deserve to reside in God’s presence. 

The sense of being loved by God is overpowering and at the same time empowering.  It is empowering for the realization that God’s love is there, and has always been there, at the center of one’s own being and is there to be shared by everyone.  It was always there, so close, that like the air we breathe, one cannot see it or feel it. 

Perhaps it is only movement, as air moves in order to feel it, toward the God created center of our being that allows us to perceive it now. This love is overpowering in that it fills the soul in constant communion with God.  This love spills out of us as water overfilling a cup. We have no choice but to carry this love to all we meet.  

All souls are worthy of God’s love for all are of creation.  God is pure mercy, pure forgiveness, for how could God reject that what God created?  At some time in the journey of interior spirituality, meditation becomes contemplation. 

Click to check out Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 2, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 3, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 4, Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 5 and Meditation Becomes Contemplation: Part 6

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 4

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 4

By |

For many years now, I have sensed gifts of the Spirit and the peace of God within me.  It carries over into all the relationships that I have with others, and persons often comment about the peace that they see or sense in me. 

There is no doubt that this peace came to me in meditation and whenever I sense that I am becoming perturbed or experience unrest or if I do become overwhelmed with my feelings—I find a quiet place and wait until peace comes upon me once again. 

It is often in the details of life that peace may become eroded especially when I neglect meditative prayer for a time.  In times of crisis or in the face of extreme suffering, I usually experience peace as a deep reservoir that I can draw upon.

The gift of peace does not insulate us from suffering. In fact, we may be called to suffer, as Christ suffered, in order to enter into the suffering of others.  It is in the mystery of poverty, that is the letting go of all attachments, and through suffering, we find the strength in 
the Holy Spirit to connect with those who are often suffering just as we are, and we are able to assist in offering God’s healing power. 

These connections are seldom, if ever, of our doing. These encounters of healing are the Holy Spirit bringing hope and joy into situations of suffering and despair.  Again, it requires a certain emptiness of “self” in order to reach out and trust that the Holy Spirit is always more capable than we are to heal the human body and spirit.  

Our “desire” to heal may be great but, even as doctors or psychologists, our ability to heal is limited – limited to the body or the mind respectively – unless we can connect with the spirit in ourselves and with the spirit of the person.  Even then, we are powerless in and of ourselves.  

As a chaplain, I realize each day the extent of my powerlessness. Each day and each visit is an entirely new experience. As I walk into the hospital each morning, I am always reminded of how inadequate I am to the task.  Even on days when I am tired and lack energy, the Holy Spirit provides the energy and emotional reserve needed to connect with the patients. 

My lifelong tendencies toward the logical and analytical have finally been sublimated to the emotional and spiritual needs of the patients.  I have struggled with this personal issue in my training as a chaplain and now I observe this tendency in many others whose intellect seems to block their spiritual growth.

Yet, I continue to observe spiritual and physical healing each day as well.  It is humbling to be used on occasion as the instrument of that healing. 

Click to check out Gifts of The Spirit: Part 1, Gifts of The Spirit: Part 2, and Gifts of The Spirit: Part 3

Gifts of the Spirit: Part 3

Gifts of the Spirit: Part 3

By |

A particular gift of the Spirit that God seems to will for us in meditation is the gift of peace.  One may experience a calmness or more peaceful state almost immediately upon beginning in meditation.  

However, as meditative prayer deepens and God becomes the revealed center of one’s life, the gift of peace comes to the interior of the soul and resides there. It is the peace that is born of the assurance that God is always with us; that God’s plan for us is our plan for ourselves.  

This interior peace is the peace that surpasses all understanding because it is not knowledge or analysis that brought us to this interior state.  It is the revealed presence of God in our soul. 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.(Philippians 4:6-7) 

We live now in and for this moment, for we understand that this moment and every succeeding moment belongs to God.  It is the realization that the total commitment of the self to our Higher Power gives us the freedom to be who we truly are, a child of God.  

In one sense, this peace is a call to a passive sort of action for we carry this peace with us wherever we go.  Others may see or sense this peace within us as it carries within the assurance and confidence that God is always with us.  Obstacles to living the fullness of life become learning opportunities and part of God’s plan for us.  

Since God as pure goodness is revealed to the interior of our soul there is a willingness to await the next revelation in our lives and, then, to carry out God’s will. The Holy Spirit creates the next opportunity for our service and provides whatever strength and power are needed.

Click to check out Gifts of The Spirit: Part 1, Gifts of The Spirit: Part 2, and Gifts of The Spirit: Part 4

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 2

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 2

By |

Another time I received the gift of the Spirit, I took a retreat by myself to a cabin in the woods. I arrived late in the afternoon and it was already dark outside since the month was February. I decided to make a fire and spend some time in prayer before preparing dinner.  

As soon as the fire was roaring and I settled into a deep meditation, I began to weep uncontrollably in sadness for a person very close to me who had been in an unhappy marriage for years.

The sensation I felt was, that I was taking on all the years of sadness and pain but somehow it was dissipating through me to God so that it was at the same time elating and joyful.  I had never experienced anything like this previously but I knew innately that it was healing and, therefore, continued in that state for a length of time.  

Eventually, my prayer and focus shifted to another friend whose daughter had suffered extreme trauma. Again, the tears, sadness, elation, and joy continued until the focus again shifted to the daughter of another good friend who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

All in all, the weeping and joy continued over a period of two hours.  I immediately called my wife to share with her what had happened.  I didn’t know how to interpret what had happened but I was certain that it was the work of the Holy Spirit and worthy of trust.  

Within a week after returning from the retreat, I had spoken to my close friend and the two mothers about what I had experienced.  Several months later, I was reading about the “gift of tears” that was experienced by some of the “desert fathers” (some had attempted to prolong it as much as two years) and it allowed me to name my own experience.

Click to check out Gifts of The Spirit: Part 1, Gifts of The Spirit: Part 3, and Gifts of The Spirit: Part 4

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 1

Gifts Of The Spirit: Part 1

By |

There are many gifts of the Spirit that may be experienced through meditation. God may call someone to tongues, prophecy, healing, the gift of tears, and the many other gifts enumerated by St. Paul. 

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.(l Corinthians 12:1-11)  

One should neither be surprised or elated to experience such gifts especially as meditation is practiced over many years.                        

Initially, as the Holy Spirit becomes active in one’s life, it is natural to be both frightened and awed at the power displayed by God.  And, we should remain in awe but we should not take possession of the gift, so freely offered, as our own. 

We should immediately offer the gift back to God in thankfulness, and in so doing, we offer the gift to others as God has called us to do. 

To take possession of the gift as payment for our own righteousness is to risk the loss of all that we have gained in the spiritual life. God may give us a gift to use in a particular situation and then may never call on us to use that gift again for many years.

One instance I recall, my four-year-old daughter came running home breathlessly saying that our neighbor, Catherine, was dying. Catherine lived with her brother and sister and all three were elderly and devoutly religious.  I immediately went down the street to see Catherine and was told by her brother that she was upstairs in bed very sick.  

I went up to her room and found her in a weakened condition and near death.  The doctor had been there but could do nothing else for her.  As we spoke, she revealed to me that she was not able to pray and it was giving her great anxiety. Although I had not been with a dying person before, I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit and began praying aloud for her. 

Immediately, peacefulness came over her and she became very calm and stated her readiness to go to God.  I felt the same peace and left her feeling very uplifted and joyful. She died later that day.  

As I look back after many years, the time with Catherine foreshadowed my call to ministry in which I often see my role to intercede with God in prayer for other souls in need.  

Click to check out Gifts of The Spirit: Part 2, Gifts of The Spirit: Part 3, and Gifts of The Spirit: Part 4

Prayer of the Heart

Prayer of the Heart

By |

One of the dependencies lost through “the dark night of the soul” is images or other such gratification. Prayer is no longer a function so much of the mind or imagination as it is a prayer of the heart, discussed earlier. 

Prayer of the heart seems to well up from the innermost being or core and can be directed toward God or in a loving relationship with Christ or wherever your beliefs guide you.  

Head prayer in meditation seems no longer meaningful or even possible. It is similar in experience to what St. Paul relates: 

In the same way, the Spirit comes to help us, weak that we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us, in groans that words cannot express.  And God, who sees into the hearts of men, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will. (Romans 8:26-27)  

The prayer of the heart, then, can be said to be a gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift, once bestowed, can be developed with openness and frequency of use, to permeate many activities of work and play outside of meditation.  

However, regular periods of meditation seem to produce the required balance for an active and directed prayer life through prayer of the heart.  I have experienced prayer of the heart as another level of turning oneself over to God.  

It came to me as a surprise in meditation when it seemed that my heart opened up and received God’s love in such a way that it began outpouring in prayer for “self” and others.  Mind or reflective thought has no part in the prayer.  Instead, it was an outpouring that simultaneously and effortlessly flowed out to others, purified my interior self, and reached out to God.  

Toward God, there was an aspect of longing or aching in the heart that was not wholly satisfied.  However, it did not leave me in an anxious state in any way, rather it seemed a desire of the heart for God similar to human love–when two people are momentarily apart and long to come together again. 

Over time, there is a definite healing aspect of this type of prayer and less dependence on the mind to deal with the anxieties of daily life.  Life ebbs and flows, of course, but the heart responds prayerfully in a much more measured and receptive way to the vagaries that one may encounter. 

Click to read The Dark Night of the Soul: Part 1 & The Dark Night of the Soul: Part 2