Catholic  

Contemplative 

Affiliation

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Notes on the Contemplative Life

Contemplative Notes

1.

How does one begin the contemplative life?

First, if even there is the smallest attraction, follow it.  Accept it.  It comes from the Holy Spirit.

Then make room for the Spirit.  Make an offering of your heart.  "Eternal Spirit, by the merits of Jesus our Savior, dwell within me and transform me into the image that the Father sees, re-born of God by You, the Spirit in the waters of Baptism."

Close your eyes.  Sit still or kneel.  Listen for the silence that comes from that simple intention of being in the Spirit.  Know that this is the sacred space you wish to dwell in all the days of your life.  "Lord, my heart is your heart, live in me.  My heart is a tent wherein we dwell together.  I surrender.  To know you and to love you personally embracing me, as I can know and love any other person.  You are thus so personal to me.  No one can engage me as you can engage15 me and enrapture me.  You sustain me in being so that You are more “me” than I am myself.  You are my salvation, my holiness, my wisdom beyond the capacities of my natural powers.  You are to me because of your grace."

Be conscious immediately of the interior conversation that is always going on within us.  We are always talking within ourselves or gazing upon the moving pictures of our fantasy.  Here is the meeting place of your contemplative life.  The willingness to surrender that conversation and go beyond is the beginning of contemplative prayer.  Here is where you will surrender all that the conversation clings to outside the tent, so you can follow Christ into the Father and dwell with the Father in the Spirit.

There at the door of that interior conversation you enter into contemplative prayer.  There is the firm intention of your heart that you give over the conversation to the Triune God.

Up to this point of your life in this interior conversation, you have been the main subject and your feelings and agenda have been the main object of your conversation.  Now, it will change.  I desire to put there instead the Mystery of Christ dwelling within me. 

In this type of prayer, your contract of love is this.  It’s very simple and gentle.  I pronounce gently in my heart the Name of Jesus.  My intention is this.  Whenever, I pronounce that name as a silent prayer within me, it echoes my donation of my entire being into the Mystery of Christ.  No long speeches; no detailed images even of Christ.  I surrender even remembered or conjured-up holy feelings.

The simple, gentle re-echoing of that Name is enough.  Or if it is not the Sacred Name, some other sacred word representing your intention suffices.  Only do not keep changing it.

Where am I?  What do I say?  What plans do I make?  What sentiments do I express to the Lord of my life?  None.  Just let it be that Name and the silent, quiet simple Mystery of Christ which holds me from the very depths of my being and acting.  I surrender.  I consent.  I receive all.  This is the place where I will to be, in Christ and in Him in the Father through the Holy Spirit.

This exercise becomes one of my methods of prayer.  I will enter into this contemplative space several times during the day.  Nothing can interfere with it.  No person, no activity, no mood swing, no feelings of emptiness will take me away from this space of love within my heart.  There are no yardsticks of measurement.  There are no good moments of prayer or bad moments.  As long as I am there in silent love, that is all that matters.

I know that I am on the right path.  It is safe.  It is part of the contemplative tradition of the Catholic Church.  I don’t need any Eastern non-Catholic methods of prayer or philosophy.  In Jesus I have all.  No other name has been given for salvation.  The Name of Jesus guards me from all the deceptions of the Devil and the illusions my mind generates.  I respect other religions and paths but once having received the Lord Jesus as my life, I will not compromise or waste any moment.  There is an infinite space to move into without wasting time on that which is periphery to the mystery of Christ.

I know that I am on the right path when I see this silent space of love in prayer as the normal outgrowth of my Baptism and my sharing in the Holy Eucharist.  It is the summit of my life in the state of grace.  It has been restored to me in my repentance through the Sacrament of Reconciliation-Penance.

It is the fruit of fidelity to the Church.  Never am I separated from the Catholic Church, the fullness of Christ upon the earth.  As I go deeper into the Divine Mystery of union with the Trinity, I will grow deeper into the Church.

I know I am on right path because this space of quiet prayer, this resting in the Triune God is brought about by the theological virtues given to me at Baptism, faith, hope and love. 

I know I am on the right path because each of the faculties of the soul, knowledge, understanding and will, are all involved in this divine life that I receive in this quiet space of prayer.

The life of the soul, the deepest levels of spiritual consciousness, consists of memory or knowledge, understanding, and will, i.e. intention, motivation, love-choices.  The transformation of these powers of the soul by grace is the work of contemplative prayer.

--William Fredrickson, Obl.OSB, D.Min.