Contemplative Prayer: Attending to the Heart

“More than all else, keep watch over your heart, since here are the wellsprings of life” (Proverbs 4:23). What a remarkable text from Proverbs, a text we heard at our Morning Prayer on Thursday.  There is a paradox in this selection because the very next verse reads: “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you” (4:24). Turning to the gospel, we have Jesus who says: “It is what comes out of a person that defiles.  For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…” (Mk 7:20-21a). My dear sisters we are given a paradox, a paradox which takes the shape of a cross…yes, a cross, which we are asked to shoulder if we want Life, Life in abundance!  On the one hand the heart is the source of life; on the other hand from the heart also comes forth devious and crooked speech, along with an array of things that defile and profane, destroy even the beauty of life entrusted to us.

So what are to do?  We can quickly observe such darkness in others and especially now in our world where for example such devious and crooked speech seems to be the norm.  But how observant are we of our own hearts?  In John’s gospel for this Sunday Jesus is saying ‘work for food that lasts’ (6:27). Fr. Russ Terra in his homily spoke of the ongoing spiritual work that is so essential for bringing forth life and that carries the grace to transform what defiles and profanes.  

Along with the essential inner work of self-knowledge and conversion, I put forth the main reason why this monastery exists and why we each found our way here. We are part of an Order whose nature and purpose is “wholly ordered to contemplation” (CST 2). What does it mean that the focus of our lives together, that the use of our time and energy is to be ordered to contemplation?  John Main describes meditation and contemplation in this pithy way:  “‘The word meditation comes from the Latin meditarewhich breaks down into the roots stare in medio—to remain in the center.  The word contemplation suggests the same.  The word contemplation does not mean looking at anything—God or anyone else.  Contemplation is being in the temple with God.  The temple is your own heart, the depths of your own being’” (quoted in Prayer In the Cave of the Heart, Cyprian Consiglio, p.50).  Our prayer practice:  lectio, silent prayer, the Divine Office and Mass, these are to help us as we do our daily activities ‘to remain in the center’, to be in the temple of the heart with God.    The fruit of contemplative prayer is that it slowly changes us from within; it shifts our consciousness from a predominately ego-oriented one to a God-centered awareness.  Such cultivated awareness helps us to observe, to see what fills the heart and not get taken by it.  The silence, the healing silence, which is the silence of God, awaits us beneath this emotional content that arises unbidden.  Dwelling even for a moment in this silence in prayer can help us as we engage in our outer activities and relationships.  

In the gospels we hear often that Jesus goes off ‘to a lonely place to pray’.  In this lonely quiet space he nurtures his connection to his Abba and he attends to his heart.  We hear such questions in the gospels as ‘where does he get all this wisdom? (Mt 13:54)’ and we see how with such cunning he cuts through hypocrisy; we see how he accesses wisdom and the power to heal.  Where do you think he got the knowledge to say that it is from the human heart that evil intentions come?  All these things were part of a profound listening, the fruit of his prayer, the fruit of maintaining his connection with his Abba: the Father and Jesus are one…but this relationship was not automatic: it was maintained through prayer.  He went to a lonely place to pray, or in the midst of his ministry, when tested, he bent down into the silence and wrote in the sand and then stood up and spoke words of truth to the hypocrisy of those challenging him (Jn 8:1-11).  What am I getting to by referring to these statements?  Prayer, especially contemplative silent prayer, where we hear the silent voice of the Spirit, where we dwell in that secret room with Christ, we are given eyes that are clearer, a heart ready to forgive, a perspective that is Christ like and not dominated by pettiness or harsh judgments towards one another.  When we have to discern something, or when we are in a conflict with another…the first place to go is that silent room, that inner temple where God is waiting. Prayer as Sr. Ruth Burrows has said is not primarily something we do but what God does within us (The Essence of Prayer, p.1).  And so it is: we enter the silence of that inner chamber and let God act, purifying, transforming, healing…

Prayer as Listening

ART: IVAN MESTROVIC

Recently we received some conferences on prayer in the monastic tradition by Fr. Daniel Hombergen OCSO.  I was moved by Fr. Daniel’s reflections of Enzo Bianchi’s book, Why Pray, How to Pray especially the chapters “On the subjects of The Initiative God takes in relationship,“ and “The germinating of authentic prayer where there is listening.”  Fr. Daniel differentiates two movements with our relationship to God. The first is the strong initiative taken by God in searching for humanity, calling us, questioning us, as well as asking us to listen and receive what God has shared with humankind from Genesis to Revelation.  The God who “first loved us” (1 Jn. 4 :19) speaks. God begins the dialogue with His people.  Enzo Bianchi states, “God has turned Himself towards human beings in order to enter into relationship with them, in order to open up dialogue with them which is directed toward communion” ( Why Pray? How to  Pray, p.24). “God reveals Himself as Word and makes of Israel a people who listen, even before making them a people of faith, unveiling to them their vocation: the call to listen” (p.25).

After God’s self- revelation throughout history human beings respond in faith, blessing, laudes, thanksgiving, adoration, supplication and the confession of one’s own sins (Why Pray, How to Pray, p.22-23). This second movement,  being incomplete, is the human person’s response to God, directed at love for God and the neighbor. This movement can be a distortion if our human attempt at prayer is limited to our own effort and if we believe we can pray solely by ourselves. “If human prayer, as the desire for God, presents an ascending movement of words toward heaven, listening on the other hand, is characterized by a descending movement, by a descent of the Word of God towards the human being; the one who truly prays, from Abraham  onwards (Gen. 12:1) is the one who listens, who opens his ears to God” ( Why Pray? How to Pray, p.25).

Authentic prayer germinates where there is listening; it is integral as it precedes our capacity to reply. We hear this most poignantly in the gospel readings for the feast of the Transfiguration, namely; “Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him’” ( Mk. 9:7, Mt. 17:2, Lk.9 :35).  “Speak Lord for your servant is listening” ( 1 Sam. 3 :9). This is the first act of prayer, which, unfortunately, we are tempted to reverse into “Listen, Lord, because your servant is speaking” (Why Pray? How to Pray, p. 26). Enzo Bianchi re-states, “Listening is already praying and should have absolute priority, as it acknowledges God as the One who takes initiative for our encounter with him” (p.26).  An example of a response to active listening in the Old Testament is 1 Kings 3 :9.  God asked Solomon what he wanted, the young Solomon replied, a “heart capable of listening,” not “a docile heart.”  It pleased the Lord that Solomon asked for this (1Kings 3 :10).  St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans also says, “faith comes from listening.”

Enzo Bianchi cautions, “when one searches for formulas and gestures to give shape to prayer in which an individual is particularly in search of assurance  and satisfaction, prayer can degenerate into an expression of spiritual arrogance, a substitute for really performing God’s will" (Why Pray? How to Pray, p.27).  By being aware and attentive to the Word of God, namely listening, we will hear the Lord speaking ( Dt. 4 : 32-33 ) and loving ( Dt.7 : 7-8) for our God truly loves us!  Jesus when asked what the first commandment was replied, “Listen” knowing very well that it is from the capacity to listen that the capacity to know and love God and neighbor flow ( Mk. 12 : 29-31).  Enzo Bianchi notes then that the movement of Christian prayer is delineated:  from listening to faith, from faith to knowledge of God and from  knowledge to love, the ultimate response to God’s gratuitous love for us (p.27).

We, for our part, struggle to pray because in our lives we encounter the 8 vices or thoughts of gluttony, fornication, avarice, melancholy, anger, acedia, vainglory and pride of which both Cassian and Evagrius write about in the Conferences and Praktikos respectively.  To counter these negative thoughts, we have the example of Christ the Incarnate Word, namely, to cry out to our “Abba”, your will be done, not mine, and have mercy on me a sinner as we hear the tax collector say in Scripture. We are powerless over these vices in our lives and it is only by God’s grace and mercy that our thoughts may be purified by reaching out to our “Abba.” Hopefully our little mustard seed of faith in God and renunciation of the ways of the world will help us to convert distracting struggles into occasions of prayer so a greater self-knowledge and a pure heart can be created in our being.

Sr Ann-Marie, OCSO

As our listening deepens and matures we enter into the mystery of dialogue between the three persons of the Trinity. This communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is fed by reciprocal listening, as some of the Words of Jesus demonstrate: “I have made known to you everything I have learned (heard) from my Father” ( Jn. 15:15).  “When the Spirit of Truth comes…, he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learned (heard)” ( Jn. 16:13).  “Father, thank you for hearing my prayer” ( Jn. 11 : 41) ( Why Pray, How to Pray,p.28).

The Father’s gift of Jesus to us provides an excellent model on how to be a daughter/son  by listening, in order to do the will of God, even in the times of suffering and struggles.  We know that love overcomes as we remember the Paschal Mystery, and that the Holy Spirit is given as gift to reassure us that God’s presence is always with us. The mystery of Love is incomprehensible, however let us foster a deep listening in our lives as we daily come to Christ in prayer and are nourished with his wisdom and love.