Study of the Sacred Page

An important part of Christian prayer is identified in our tradition as "the study of the Sacred Page."  It refers to the study of Sacred Scripture but extends also to the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as well as the great saints and mystics and even other Christian authorities.  Prayer and theology converge on this point.  Indeed, the original meaning of theology took up the mystical gaze (that is, contemplation) to which study of the sacred page inclines the soul.

Such a study is the soul of theology - it gives theology life.  Without this life, theology is dead.  This is because, carried on the propositions of the faith and handed on in the words of "the Sacred Page" is the gaze of Christ, the Word made flesh, who is risen from the dead and ever present to those who seek Him in faith.  So beautiful is this gaze that there are no words to describe it.  Whenever anyone glimpses the eyes of the Redeemer while pondering sacred texts of our faith, that person's heart is pierced and so to the hearts of those he or she teaches - they share together a loving knowledge, a heart to heart with the Lord.  He regards each person with such intense love - and those who discover this piercing glance have found something worth dedicating themselves to completely. 

Not just any kind of study can find Him - indeed our sacred patrimony proposes such study must be grace filled contemplation, guided by true devotion for the Lord, humbly open to conversion of heart.  Such a study must readily suffer the loss of all things in following Christ - counting all else as rubbish save knowing Him.  This study must be open to suffering the truth - the truth about one's own self before God and the truth about God who laid bare his heart for our sakes.

Liturgical and Contemplative Prayer

Liturgical prayer and contemplative prayer, when authentic, immerse the soul in the same mystery, and raise our hearts above this life and our present sorrows, into the awesome majesty of God.  When we actually and fully participate in the public worship of the Church, faith joins us to our Great High Priest who is the threshold to Heaven, the Bridge to the Father's House, the Bridegroom coming for his Bride.

Liturgical prayer provides a sure reference point for our contemplative prayer - the reference point is Christ and the true participation in Christ's prayer the liturgy of the Church opens for us.  Contemplative prayer quenches itself on the rivers that flow from the wounds of Christ made present in the liturgy.  This is why the new translation of the liturgy coming out in November is so important for our life of prayer.  More attentive to the Scriptural references of the Latin texts, the new translation connects with the deep streams of tradition that have sustained contemplative prayer for the last 2000 years.

Contemplative prayer opens up the deep recesses of the heart any meaningful participation in the liturgy demands.  Without contemplative prayer, liturgical participation remains only on the surface of the heart, unable to pierce into the depths of our humanity.  With deep prayer, the grace of the liturgy flows through the arid and difficult parts of our lives, transforming them into something beautiful for God.  Drinking in the rivers of grace flowing from the Fount of Life, contemplative prayer also extends the fruit of our liturgical life - turning the prayerful soul into a fount of life for others.

Here, the Bride becomes like her Bridegroom - and the most beautiful of all friendships is truly anticipated.  As Dr. Edward Sri explains, the Mass is really "the wedding feast in which the Lamb unites Himself to his Bride, symbolizing the final consummation of the union between Christ and the Church ... It is in this heavenly marriage between Christ and the Church we participate  through the Eucharistic liturgy here on earth as a foretaste of the communion we hope to have with our divine bridegroom for all eternity."

Dr. Edward Sri has recently published two wonderful works on the new translation of the Mass.  A brief and succinct review of the changes and the rationale behind them are in:

A Guide to the New Translation of the Mass, West Chester, PA: Ascension Press (2011),

and a longer reflection on the parts Mass as the new translation relates to the Bible is in:

A Biblical Walk Through the Mass, West Chester, PA: Ascension Press (2011).

Divine Mercy and habitare secum

The Christian life of prayer is rooted in the mercy of God.  There are such dark places in our lives, only with the mercy of the Lord can we face ourselves and deal with the reality of who we really are.   Living with yourself, this ideal began to be articulated around the time of St. Benedict, although it was a lived part of Christian spirituality from the very beginning.  It means not only confessing sin and doing penance for the evil that one has done or entertained, not only accepting one's weaknesses and limitations before God, but most especially habitare secum means being able to enter into the depths of one's own heart to humbly listen to the Lord who waits for us there.   

Christian prayer deals with the reality of the human heart.  The heart is the spring from which flows all that is good and evil about ourselves.   It is broken and wounded, laden with many sorrows, and yet still capable of finding joy in what is good.  It is an inner sanctuary where God speaks to us.  People who do not want to deal with themselves or deal with God do not like to go there.  They remain unfamiliar to themselves and unaware of what is driving them in life.   Yet, when God calls us to Himself and we begin to yearn to be with Him, entering into our hearts, accepting what is there and offering to the Lord is the best way to find Him.  

The reason why has to do with the theme of mercy Pope Benedict singled out in his homily at Sunday's beatification of John Paul II - mercy is the limit of evil.  John Paul II loved the theme of Divine Mercy - it was the mercy of God that helped him deal with the cruel brutality of World War II which was followed by decades of Soviet oppression.  John Paul was convinced that Divine Mercy is the limit of evil because the more he trusted in Jesus, the more mercy triumphed over evil.  Contemplating the face of Christ and clinging to the mercy of God was the secret not only of dealling with himself but also being merciful to others, even those who tried to kill him.  His confidence in Divine Mercy made John Paul II a compelling advocate for the dignity of the human person - it is why people were drawn to him all over the world.  They wanted to know the Mercy of God his life in Christ radiated.


Evil, the mystery of sin, dehumanizes - but Divine Mercy raises on high! Mercy is love that suffers the misery of another, the evil that afflicts someone's heart, so that the dignity of that person might be restored.   Christ embraced our misery on the Cross that we might know God's mercy.

How this applies to the heart is that the good and evil we find there are not co-equal dualistic principles.  Good has definitively triumphed over evil in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  When we turn to Him in faith, He gives us the power of his mercy and teaches us to realize the victory of good over evil in our lives.  He has already suffered our misery with us and is ever ready to meet us there - so that in Him all that is good, noble and true about us is rescued from the mystery of sin and raised up to new life.  

To learn to live with ourselves - this is to look at those places in our lives in which evil has a foothold and to offer these to God so that we can realize in ourselves how Divine Mercy is the limit of evil.  However deep the abyss of our misery - the abyss of mercy issuing forth form the wounds of Christ is inexhaustibly deeper.  The more we discover this limit to the evil in our own hearts, the more we can rejoice in the remarkable and astonishing presence of the Lord in our lives.  Rather than being driven by all kinds of brokenness we do not understand, we find ourselves able to live like St. Benedict, Bl. John Paul II and the other great saints - who through such interior deliberation discovered the secret of living with themselves before the face of God - habitare secum - is seeking the Mercy of the Lord.

Theological Contemplation and the Lord's Gaze of Love

There are many ways to enter into silence.  Teresa of Avila was told to think about scenes of the Lord's passion.  St. Augustine in the first nine books of his Confessions reflects on the patient presence of the Lord in his life, even throughout the time he rejected his faith.  St. John of the Cross also mentions a contemplation on the doctrines of our faith - a kind of mental prayer he describes in Spiritual Canticle, stanza twelve.  Because it is a way of prayer which involves reflecting on sacred doctrine, I like to call this theological contemplation.

St. John of the Cross uses a beautiful image to illustrate what happens when we prayerful ponder sacred doctrine in deep silence. He describes this prayerful reflection on the content of our faith as peering into the reflective surface of a spring of water.  When our faith is pure, when we faithfully receive the teachings passed on to us through the Church, he suggests this opens up a deep loving knowledge of the Lord which matures us and raises our friendship with Him onto a whole new level.

The basis for this description is the fact that the propositions of our faith, the articles we believe, are "truth-bearing."  These doctrines (like the Incarnation, or the Trinity, or Christ's work of redemption) bear First Truth, the ineffable mystery of God Himself.  Another way to consider this is that the articles of the faith are like veils which disclose the substance of our faith.  They are like silver plated gold jewelry explains St. John of the Cross.  The golden substance under the shining silver of the propositions we believe is the Living God.  Like all veils, the content of what we believe serves to both protect and disclose something unspeakably beautiful.   The veil of our faith protects God from being misunderstood.  It also discloses Him to us, as we learn to see Him in it.

In this life, limited and frail human intelligence lacks the capacity to behold the incomprehensible love radiating from the face of God.  So the Lord has adapted Himself to our capacity, permitting himself to be reflected in truths we can understand.  In other words, we believe what we believe because this faith helps us find the Lord.  He has chosen to reveal himself, to allow Himself to be reflected, through sacred doctrine.

Now St. John of the Cross's description of a reflection on a watery surface comes in.  A prayerful reflection on sacred doctrine is like looking into a pool of water that your friend is looking into.  If you are patient for the water to smooth out, if you allow your grasp of the faith to be pacified by prayer, you will see the eyes you search for.  What a wonderful description of the truths of our faith!  As we assent to them, they make a enchanting spring in the soul where a beautiful encounter is meant to take place, where friends find a mirror into each others heart.

St. John of the Cross describes this reflection in terms of a remarkable presence of God.  While God is reflected in all creation, this special reflection of the Lord in sacred doctrine pierces the heart.  It is a look of love that binds us to the Lord in a new way.  John of the Cross describes seeing the eyes of the Lord gazing on us in love.   Our gaze meets His gaze.  Something of God is impressed deep into the soul.  We realize He has been searching for us, waiting for our friendship.  This loving gaze of God captures the heart.  For those who glimpse this presence, catch a glimpse of the Lord in the truths we believe, this experience of the substance of our faith is sketched into their hearts.

Anyone who has experienced this theological contemplation can never live the same way again.  It not only changes the way one thinks, but it goes deeper, transforming even the affections of one's own heart.  Everything that once seemed so important in life takes second place to a new priority of the heart, a new hunger and thirst for God.  The heart turns to the Lord with love enflamed.

Friendship with God and Teresa of Avila

Teresa of Avila, in her masterpiece, Interior Castle, after describing all kinds of grades of prayer and mystical experience of the Lord, goes on to say that in addition to all these kinds of union, there is another kind of union with the Lord - a union of wills.  What she is saying is that the Christian life of prayer is suppose to be a life of friendship with God - a real friendship that ought to bring out the very best in us, and a friendship that reveals the very best of God.   She explains that the measure and standard by which we know our prayer is real, that our friendship with the Lord is real, is through our obedience, our readiness to do his will come what come may.   His will is, as described by her, that we love one another, 


"He desires that if you see a Sister who is sick to whom you can bring some relief, you have compassion on her and not worry about losing devotion: and that if she is suffering pain, you also feel it: and that , if necessary, you fast so that she might eat."  Interior Castle, V:3.11 (translators Rodriguez and Kavanaugh, Washington D.C.: ICS, 1980, p 352).


As noted in the last post, the presence of the Lord in prayer is above all performative, a life of love I must live out not only for his sake, but even for my own sake, if I am to be true to my deepest self.  This means, if we are not to betray the Lord or ourselves or abandon the One who awaits us with love, we must act on what we know the desires of Christ to be - desires that He discloses to his friends in both prayer and daily life.

Prayer and Living in the Presence of Christ

Benedict Groeschel, in I am with You Always (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010) tells the story of a young Russian atheist named Andre Borisovich Bloom who set out to prove the Christian faith false by reading the Gospel of Mark.  Instead, as he came into the first chapters of the Gospel, he noticed a spiritual presence in the room with him.  He connected that intensely personal presence with the Risen Christ to whom the Gospel bore witness.  This mysterious and spiritual presence, far from condemning him, invited him to live by love, awaited him with love.  He knew that the whole meaning of his life was to be found in remaining in that presence, and it was chiefly to this task that he dedicated the rest of his life.  He took the name Anthony at his baptism and later, after being made Archbishop in the Orthodox Church, he wrote about this experience and his life of prayer in Beginning to Pray, the book that inspired this present web log.

I came across Beginning to Pray as a youth at a summer camp.  His reflections validated my own experience of prayer and encouraged me to go deeper and be more disciplined.  He especially helped me to see that the Scriptures not only gave an account of what Jesus said and did in history, they also shed light on his risen presence in our lives right here and now in faith's mystery.  When we look at prayer this way, it dispels the myth (a myth of satanic origins) that God is some sort of oppressive force bent on preventing us from thriving.  Instead, this mysterious presence of Christ makes living by love a beautiful possibility for our lives.

The experience of Christ in prayer is not emotional or sentimental, although feelings of devotion and tears of compunction help us cling to Him with greater resolve and determination.  His presence is not conceptual or an intellectual idea, although holy thoughts and profound insights often bind us to him with greater intensity, and at the same time, lead to a peaceful inner freedom.   The presence of the Lord is deeper than the powers of our imagination and even intuition: it is a presence at the very core of our own being and existence - more present to us than we are to ourselves.  

St. Augustine describes Him as the Light, the Life and the Love through whom we live and move and have our being.   His presence makes possible a life of love.  This being the case, the presence of the Lord in prayer is above all performative, a life of love I must live out not only for his sake, but even for my own sake, if I am to be true to my deepest self.  This means, if we are not to betray the Lord or ourselves or abandon the One who awaits us with love, we must act on what we know the desires of Christ to be.  Through prayer and study over the Sacred Scriptures, through holy conversations and faithfulness to our life commitments, through persevering in love through all kinds of trials and sacrifices, through the sacraments: in all these experiences, the Lord constantly speaks to our hearts, helping us to see what we must do in the present moment, helping us to see how we are to live by love.

Anthony Bloom focused the importance of living out the Will of God Christ's presence in our lives makes known.  His life is a testimony to this effort.  In particular, he understood the words of the Holy Bible to be addressed to us personally, sometimes so directly that they can make our heart burn within us:  "These words tell us what we already know from our experience of life, and those are absolute commandments.  Those words we must never forget.  Whenever we fail to do so, we break our relationship with Christ, we turn away, we refuse the burden, the yoke of his discipleship."  Meditations, A Spiritual Journey (Denville, N.J: Dimension Books, 1971) 18. 

Holy Conversation and Christian Faith

Prayer is a conversation with God.  But what a conversation!  The Lord has already initiated this dialogue.  He has already spoken the first word - even before we make the sign of the Cross.  As his Word, already knocking at the door, empties Himself into our heart, we find something beyond words to offer to God.  What is the Word that gives us speech, that gives us the confidence to address the Almighty, to entrust to Him our deepest sorrows and joys?  The Word is Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead.  By the gift of the Holy Spirit, this Word continually comes to us in new ways, ready to shower unique and un-repeatable blessings on us.  If we attend to Him with faith, if we cling to Him with our whole being, which means clinging to Him on the cross, we free God to do great things, to transform not only our own lives but through our obedience, the whole world.

There is one heart that received this Word so completely that it transformed all of history, saved the whole human race from death and imbued the world with new meaning.  She was not only among poor herself, but she was deeply concerned for the plight of those who seemed to have no hope, the hungry, the despised.   Her concern looked to God: waiting in hope for his saving action, trusting in His goodness and love.  She clung to God with complete confidence.  The Lord was drawn to her humble simplicity, a humility that only his grace can produce in the human heart, that the human heart can only receive as it surrenders to his great love.  He waited with even greater hope in her, entrusting to her not only his divine plan, but his very self.  Her response, her answer in this holy conversation?  "Let it be done to me according to your word."

St. Augustine explains that she bore Him in her heart even before she bore Him in her womb.  St. John of the Cross marvels at how she sees men able to have real joy because, in her Son, God is now able to cry.   Heaven declared her full of grace, but her neighbors thought her disgraced.  Yet in every generation there are those who call her blessed.  She pondered all these things in her heart.

Mary's faith in the Lord, a faith born of humble simplicity, deep trust and true hope, a faith filled with love, a faith that constantly pondered the ways of the Lord, this faith is a model for anyone who wants to really pray.  It is a living faith that Christ's death on the Cross has opened up for us, a faith entrusted to us, produced in us through the Holy Spirit who overshadows our lives.  Such faith takes the holy conversation we have with God far beyond any mere exchange of ideas.  We can trust in Him because He trusts even more in us.  When we say "yes," when we trust in the Lord, the Word of God permeates our humanity, transforming it from within, making it super abundantly fruitful for great and hidden purposes.  It is in the fulfillment of this divine dream we discover the truth about ourselves and about God, truths which both we and God are meant to marvel at together as real friends, a true unity of love, life and light.  For our part, we must think on the Lord with the ready obedience of living faith: surrendering every thought to Him, trusting with confident hope that "He who is mighty has done" and will do, "great things."

Theological Contemplation, Deep Prayer and the Christian Life

The early Dominicans counted as one of the nine ways of prayer of St. Dominic the practice of sacred study or what could be called, theological contemplation.   For St. Dominic, study of the truths of the faith is described as an intense conversation as between friends, and exchange of profound questions and beautiful answers with the Lord.  He needed this time with the Lord because he knew that only God himself could sustain him in all the work that was entrusted to him.   Meditation on some revealed truth from the Scriptures or as presented by one of the Fathers of the Church would raise his mind to the heights of contemplation where he would find new strength and refreshment, or else find himself pierced to the heart and humbled before the Lord's great love.  He was certain of the Lord's presence in this, convinced that this was an intimate and deeply personal exchange.  This is because he would understand this pursuit of truth as part of a dialogue with the Lord, the unfolding mystery of his ongoing, daily encounter with Christ risen from the dead.  Theological contemplation, seeking to understand and know the Lord in a manner open to an encounter with Him, helped St. Dominic remain firmly in the service of the Lord, and for those who yearn to enter deeply into the silence of God, it is among the most beautiful practices recommended by the saints.

This kind of study is not merely an intellectual pursuit - it is aimed at the heart.  In fact, the battle for the heart is waged in the mind.   If we want to encounter the Lord in a life giving way in our hearts, how we think about God, how we understand our lives, and how we order our priorities must be completely surrendered to the Him.   The surrender takes place through an ongoing conversation.  He works gradually and patiently to lead us into deeper life integrity.  This loving surrender to Christ is what St. Paul calls the renewal our minds, a spiritual way of thinking that allows us to live a transformed life, a life offered to God.  To help us have such an encounter with the Lord, the great teachers of prayer in the West discuss three kinds of theological contemplation: they tell us to think about the life of Christ revealed in the Scriptures, to think about the presence of Christ in our own lives, and finally to seek the Lord by considering the truths of the faith revealed by Christ.

When St. Teresa or St. Catherine of Siena tells us to think about the life of Christ, they want us to focus on the tremendous love He reveals in everything He did.  Everything He said and did has been preserved in the memory of the Church, especially in the Holy Gospels, so that we might know Him intimately in our hearts.   The gaze of love on the face of Christ, even at the scourging at the pillar, is a gaze He wants to share with each of us Teresa of Avila suggests.   When Catherine of Siena describes Christ suffering on the Cross as the bridge to the Father's love she invites us to a mindfulness of the Lord can be uncomfortable, even very difficult.  This is because as we behold his love we are invited and even challenged to go beyond our own indifference, to move from living with a divided heart into a whole-dearted existence for the Lord.  Such love is the only way to respond to the love offered to us in Christ.  To this end, John of the Cross recommends we study Jesus as a model for own lives - that Christ's total dedication to the Glory of the Father is an inner attitude every follower of the Lord should strive to take on.

The saints also encourage us to go through all our memories and seek the presence of God, especially in those painful memories where He seems absent.   In this effort, we humbly ask the Lord to show us how He was present to us when we cannot see it ourselves.  Catherine of Siena, on this point, insists that self-knowledge is essential if we are to make any progress in serving the Living God.  St. Augustine breaks into prayer throughout his Confessions as he shares his memories of the merciful Lord at work in his life even when he was furthest away from God.  St. Teresa also encourages this practice as a way of remaining recollected and keeping our hearts open to the mysterious presence of Christ when we strive to pray.  She herself experienced in her own search for the presence of Christ in her life a deep stirring of devotion, contrition over sin and a source of strength which opened her to even deeper life-changing encounters with Jesus.

Finally, during times of silence, it is also good to think about the teachings of our faith revealed by the Lord, like the mystery of the Holy Trinity or the Incarnation, or the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  Looking deeply into the writings of St. Paul or into the life of Abraham or David is also very fruitful.  There are so many beautiful connections between the truths that have been revealed by Christ through the apostles in both the Old Testament and the New that one could devote a whole lifetime to finding them and never exhaust what God has made known about Himself.  Sometimes, as we marvel at these connections, we experience a deep awareness of the Lord's presence which draws us into a beautiful silence. Resting in such silence, attentive to the Lord and His great love, this is adoration - a deep prayer of the heart in which our whole being bows before the glory of his majesty, and in doing so realizes more deeply its true identity and purpose.

Theological contemplation, as a way of deep prayer, takes up all these practices in a manner that is open to the life-changing presence of God. Such contemplation helps us experience the Word of God as something more than merely informative.  When we raise up our minds to the Lord like Dominic and the other great saints, God's Word is performative - it leads to action, to conversion, to authentic love.   When this happens, our friendship with the Lord deepens and we find within us new capacities to serve Him and those He entrusts to us in ever deeper and more beautiful ways.

Teresa of Avila and the Mystery of Deep Prayer

Teresa's discovery of deep prayer at about forty years of age not only renewed the society of 16th Century Spain, but it brought new life to the whole Church at a time when such life was most needed.   What was true then, is also true today:  Christianity will only remain a vital force in our culture to the extent that Christians enter into the depths of prayer.  

The world needs what is most authentically human - the tenderness, courage and greatness that comes to the fore in our hearts when we live life to the full.  The secret to the fullness of life is to know God. Only God can reveal the truth about who we really are.  Only He can restore the divine likeness which we are meant to have.

Teresa, although a pious religious, had come to dread deep prayer.  She was experiencing something that everyone experiences in varying degrees in their relationship with the Lord.  At a certain stage along the way, something in us resists the grace of prayer.  But to resist such a grace is to resist love, and to resist love, this is to resist our own humanity.  Always degrading, unchecked dark tendencies of which we are scarcely aware take hold.  In Teresa's case, these included pride, her desire to be in control, and the joy she placed in being highly regarded by others.   If the Lord did not intervene, her hard heart would limit his ability to show her the truth and restore the image of his glory He created her to be.

Thus, her experience on the way to chapel when she saw a statue of Jesus was a very important moment.  She had begun to glimpse her mediocrity and all the ways she had failed to fully follow the Lord, but how to move beyond the comfortable life she made for herself?  She had no idea.  She wanted a deeper devotion, a more authentic relationship with the Lord.  Yet such a friendship seemed impossible because she felt she had been unfaithful to his many generous and undeserved invitations.

The statue showed the Lord after the scourging that the pillar.  She had probably passed by it before and not even noticed it.  But this time, as she walked by - it was as if the statue was looking right at her, or better, as if Jesus was looking at her through the statue.  The look was not one of condemnation.  Rather, it was a gaze of love.  She suddenly realized that He who was scourged for her sake was gazing on her with love, and love alone.  He was awaiting her, searching for her heart, longing for her friendship.  This look pierced her to the core - it shattered her pride, made her surrender her desire to be in control, and made the esteem of others completely irrelevant.  She fill on her knees, tears flowed, and her heart surrendered.

This was the beginning of many profound encounters with Jesus.  She loved to return to his look of love again and again in her heart.  She would meditate on the Scriptures to try to find that look and to consider the inexhaustible depths of meaning it contained - those rich treasures of knowing Him and herself in relation to Him.  And for her humble efforts to find Him, He would entrust Himself to her in deeper and deeper ways.  It was out of this relationship that she had courage to lead a whole movement to deep prayer throughout Spain, and around the world.  Not everyone appreciated the new vitality she promoted through the contemplative life.  In prayer, however, she found so much courage and determination that even her worst critics eventually changed their minds and decided to live a life of prayer themselves.

Those who want to pray in a way that will change the world must allow Him to lead them into the deepest depths of prayer.  This means, they must allow Him to make them uncomfortable with where they are at in their lives.  It is a tremendous grace to be unsettled with the state of one's relationship with God.  It is pure gift to yearn for something deeper and more authentic in one's life.  This kind of discomfort is a special preparation for the most wonderful and beautiful encounters this life has to offer.  It is the threshold to the humanizing power of deep prayer.

The Life of Teresa of Avila, the sort of spiritual autobiography she penned under obedience, shows the kind of life and the wonderful fruits deep prayer produces.   In deep prayer, yet undiscovered potentialities of the human heart are constantly unlocked, and the world is given back a little hope it once lost.  This pilgrimage is one of love - where new and mysterious encounters of the Risen Lord are waiting to take place.

Theological Contemplation

Spiritual theology or mystical theology is the knowledge we gain by living faith in the Lord God.  St. John of the Cross describes it as general and obscure - but also as beautiful and as enchanting as exotic unexplored islands of some new world waiting to be discovered.   English mystics call it a cloud of unknowning.  St. Gregory of Nyssa describes it as the cloud and darkness that covered Mt. Sinai at the great theophany of Moses. For St. Augustine this is an encounter with the Light from which all light comes, that Light that made us - not a knowledge of what but of Who.  St. Thomas explains that this knowledge is the most certain even if it is not the clearest kind of knowing.  St. Teresa describes it as a gaze into the eyes of the One who was wounded for oursakes.  For her, this knowledge is the principal cause of compunction, the water which alone quenches the gardens of our hearts.  For Catherine of Siena this knowledge is gained by plunging deep into the wounds of Christ and venerating him with kisses from his feet to his lips - the bridge from our misery to the Father's mercy.  All these saints are agreed that such knowledge is a sheer gift which we can only fully recieve by spending time in prayer and a life disciplined by taken up our own crosses.  Though it costs dearly, the whole theological enterprise limps along without it -- such contemplation is the life blood of any meaningful study of God and of anything in relation to Him.  Even after 2000 years of great saints, theologians and mystics, theological contemplation remains a vast barely known frontier of human existence -- for most of the inexhaustible riches of Christ are still waiting to be discovered.

That Loving Knowledge

Although the Almighty is beyond the power of human understanding to grasp, Christians believe that knowing God's Will is possible because Jesus, in his humanity offered for our sakes, has given us real access to God.

The kind of knowledge the Risen Lord gives us is different than the merely factual kind of knowing. Such factual knowledge is all about simply knowing what to do - how to make or fix something. There is nothing to be gained in approaching the Mystery of the Living God like a service manual.

Knowing God and his Holy Will is, instead, deeply personal. In this loving knowledge, St. John of the Cross explains, love (not naked reasoning) leads us forward into the Divine Mystery. What the intellect understands follows behind our love for the One who discloses Himself. The loving will knows the Loving Will of God and a union of wills, each given to the other, becomes possible. This love is a friendship love - it sees the goodness and beauty of God because it has loved Him and been loved by Him first. St. Paul calls this the Wisdom of God (see 1 Cor. 6-13). Some theologians call this experimental or experiential knowledge of God. There really is not words to describe this kind of knowledge - yet those who know the Lord in this way really have something to say, something the world needs to hear, something we need in our lives.

With this kind of loving knowledge, a joy, peace and a dynamic self-possession grows in the heart. Every time someone acts in accord with this loving knowledge of God, these fruits increase -sometimes exponentially. This fruit, which St. Paul enumerates in his letter to the Galatians, is produced by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). When we choose to act in accord with the loving knowledge the Lord shares with us, it frees the Holy Spirit to be fruitful in our hearts.

It is possible to act against this knowledge, to act as if we were ignorant of God. St. Paul warns against living with our minds conformed to this age or like those whose minds are darkened (Rom 12:2, Eph. 4:18). It is possible for those who believe in Christ to choose to live in the flesh - to allow the unconscious hidden drives of our nature to make our decisions for us, not only in big things, but especially in the little things we think no one knows and no one will be hurt by. This living in intentional ignorance is what keeps us immature spiritually - acting against what we know in our hearts.

There is no reason for discouragement if we suddenly realize that most of our lives we have chosen to live in ignorance. Teresa of Avila lived like this until she was almost forty years old. The Lord however would not let her continue - and when she was off her guard, He pierced her to the heart with His Love. Just as He touched her to the core, He can touch any one of us - it is something worth asking for, something worth enduring every kind of trial to obtain.

So the spiritual life really begins when we take up the struggle to make room in our lives for the loving knowledge of God that only Jesus gives. This is why Christians must make silent prayer a priority in their lives. It is a knowledge that comes from the Cross and doing all we can to gain this knowledge is worth it.

Christian Knowledge and Mysticism

Christian mysticism is rooted in the mystery of Christ, and the only secret knowledge it provides is the knowledge of faith.   Faith's secret is the secret of love. The Bride of Christ lives in the presence of her Beloved from whom she receives the secret of love. All who share this secret discover a whole new way of life, a supernatural kind of living in this world but not of it. This is true mystical knowledge, a kind of knowing that results from the members of Christ body encountering Christ Himself.

This ‘hidden’ knowledge should not be confused with esoteric experiences which some non-Christian spiritualities claim to provide.  Esoteric knowledge or enlightenment is arrived at by meditation technique and is at best an admirable human achievement. Christian mysticism does not culminate in this sort of enlightenment nor is it the result of what is mastered by techniques. The knowledge which Christian faith provides is “mystical” insofar as it involves a union with the mystery of Christ through the holy mysteries unto union with the Holy Trinity. It is a contemplative knowledge that anticipates the ultimate end of the Divine Economy, the perfect unity of creatures with the Holy Trinity in which the fulfillment of all desire is realized – that eternal beatific vision of inexhaustible and exceeding Love.

In itself, such knowledge is beyond the ability of human speech to fully communicate because it exceeds the power of human intelligence to conceptualize. The mystery of Christ cannot be contained in the narrow confines of any created intelligence’s categories of thought.  This kind of knowledge is so different from natural knowledge that some comtemplatives refer to it as "unknowing."   All other thought loses its dynamism, except the thought of Christ.  The only reason this kind of mystical knowing is possible is because in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh.

Because the Word dwelt among us and poured out his substance on the Cross, the truth bearing statements of our faith, the articles of our faith, bear the Truth which is the Lord. It is this Truth that is encountered in Christian prayer and to which our faith holds fast. Because the natural power of the human mind is incapable of attaining it, it is described as a dark night, a cloud of unknowing, a wound and a ray of darkness. Because it surpasses all intellectual operations this knowledge is described as a loving glance, a touch and a divine kiss which goes beyond the intellect into the very substance of the soul. The mind receives this heart to heart by way of gift – the gift of faith. Under the fruitful power of the Holy Spirit, this gift opens up a purified understanding of divine things and the very wisdom of God. This kind of seeing which faith avails is called contemplation, a seeing which is at the same time a hearing of the Word.

Though the simplest of children can enjoy this loving knowledge, theologians and mystics struggle to articulate it. Yet, as St. Augustine observes, woe to us if we do not try because “No one can know the true meaning of the language of the spiritual writers if he is unable to explain it theologically; and, on the other hand, no one can know the sublimity of theology if he is ignorant of its relation to mysticism.” Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Spiritual Life, trans. Sr. Timothea Doyle, OP, London: Herder (1948) pp 16 and 20.

Although theologians and mystics struggle to articulate this experience of the Church, anyone who has tasted such loving knowledge can no longer live as he once did.  The merest of children experience this.  Perhaps this is why Christianity is not the religion of aged gurus on top of mountains, but the faith of the children of God.  When one meets the Lord in prayer, one finds oneself pierced to the heart, preoccupied with the magnitude of the friendship love of God revealed in Christ Jesus. Even if such a person were to fall back into his former way of life, he would have to contend with something profoundly unsettling and painfully haunting: namely, the indescribable joy discovered in meeting the Lord, and the unrequited sorrow of having turned away from him.  (Think of the rich young man.)

To know Jesus Christ is not reducible to an intellectual experience – it is an experience that takes up one’s whole person and demands the response of one’s whole life. This kind of knowledge is transformative, making one’s life so completely different that some, like St. Paul, will “count all else as rubbish” save for this knowledge of Christ Jesus. Such knowledge demands a new way of life – a life in and for love alone. It is a performative knowledge. It leads to a life of fruitfulness, a life rooted in Christ’s salvific mission.  But here I must end this already too long post!

Christian Enlightenment

Nescivi – I no longer knew anything. This is the first word of the last retreat reflections Elisabeth of the Trinity would author. These words denote an experience of Christian enlightenment different from any other kind of enlightenment ever known. Faith gives us a certain but general kind of knowledge different from any natural light by which we might see things. In this kind of knowledge, love leads and understanding follows. It is the knowledge of of one moved by eros - but not simply a natural love, divine eros drives the heart.

It is August 16, 1906. She is suffering from Addison’s disease and will die within three months. She is racked in pain and weakening, unable to nourish herself or sleep. She has been struggling with this illness for a year. Severe pain for long periods of time has a way of purifying what we see in life. But this kind of knowledge, the knowledge one recieves by suffering chronically and acutely at a young age, is not that to which Elisabeth is trying to draw attention. Merely enduring suffering was not really the driving force of her life. What drove her more than ought else was her desire for Jesus. She was so focused on this pursuit that she even saw her illness as just one more way that she might find him. And she found him all the time, in ever new and deeper ways. Each time she found him, a new supernatural light beckoned her to seek Him even more.

Nescivi, as is the case in most all her reflections, has layers of meaning. Some of these are obvious and others subtle, requiring prayerful attention to ascertain. In this case, she asserts that Nescivi is the Bride’s song in the Canticle of Canticles 6:11 and 12. If we look at the Scripture passage itself, it does not quite suggest Elisabeth's explanation. She did not have access to the actual full text of the Canticle of Canticles. Her understanding of the actual scriptural passage draws from a secondary resource: John of the Cross's poetic reinterpretation Spiritual Canticle.

In the Spanish poem, more than the Scripture verse itself, nescivi expresses the effect of having encountered the Beloved. Truly meeting Jesus has the tendency of changing everything we thought we knew about life. It is not that what we knew was completely wrong. It is just that the way we knew it missed the point. We discover in a single lingering instant, He is the point. John of the Cross tries to convey the weight of this kind of encounter of Christ by poetically describing it in terms of the nuptial romantic love celebrated in the Canticle of Canticles. In this endeavor, his poem focuses on the interior movements of the Bride and the Bridegroom, the particular quality of their shared eros. After entering into a secret wine cellar to tryst with her beloved, the Bride recalls how overcome with love she was and begins to sing, “I no longer knew anything.”

Elisabeth identifies with this experience. It is the music of a certain kind of knowledge, which St. John of the Cross explains, is unlike any other kind of knowledge we could ever possibly have. It is personal knowledge of Christ in which the heart leads the intellect. This loving knowledge moves our entire being, dragging the intellect with it. This knowledge is not irrational, but superrational - something which merely human insight cannot arrive at. St. Augustine explains that it is not merely a light above our minds like oil on water -- it is a participation in the light from which our intellects come. It is a kind of divine knowing in us.

When we know the Lord in this way, we no longer desire to know anything else. This encounter with Jesus is so magnificent, so absorbing that it envelops our whole existence, captivates the full capacity of our awareness. At the same time, this absorbtion, envelopment, and captivation deepens our uniqueness, makes us even more ourselves. If we lose ourselves, it is only so that we more profoundly find out who we really are. Elisabeth contemplated in this experience her true identity - at once particularly hers and eternally the destiny of those who love the Lord, "to be the praise of his Glory."

When we are overwhelmed by the love of the Lord and in this love see who He has called us to be, we have a new supernatural kind of knowing. St. Paul calls it the renewed mind, the mind of Christ. In relation to everything we once thought was important, this kind of knowing instills a sense of not knowing anything at all. Elisabeth herself explains this experience in the words of St. Paul, "I no longer want know anything" but “to know Him.”

This is different than any natural sort of enlightenment because of its particular and, at the same time, supernatural character. When the Bride encounters the Bridegroom, her particular identity is realized in their loving encounter as is the truth about the Bridegroom. By analogy, the encounter with Jesus reveals at once the truth about who he is and at the same time, the truth about the soul who encounters Him. But unlike the encounters of nuptial love, this truth does not end in death. Something about this encounter is deeper and more ancient than death itself, and reveals something that the mortal light of nature cannot see. Supernatural enlightenment, the gift of knowledge, allows us to see the world as the Risen Lord sees it - no longer subject to death but a glorious pathway to the Father's House.

For Elisabeth, the source and ground of this kind of knowledge is rooted in the knowledge of Christ himself, the song that echoes in the heart of the eternal Son of the Father. No one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him.

In supernatural enlightenment, each particular human heart is known in relation to God from the perspective of Christ crucified. In turn, Jesus sees each one of us and all of us together with the eyes of his Father. Jesus knows the deep recesses of the Father's heart and suffers the Father's love for us. Christ's heart actually aches to share this love particularly and universally. Similarly, in the Father's wisdom and love, He foreknew each of us and all of us together in his Son. The Father knows how much Jesus aches for love of us. And so, the Father searches for us and waits for us in his Son. His Son is our way to Him.

How do we set on this way? Accordingly to Blessed Elisabeth, we must join the music of Christ's soul - the movement of love in his heart, his divine eros must move our hearts as well. His love and confidence in the Father must become our own love and confidence. His love for the world and desire that all might have eternal life, must become the burning passion of our own hearts. When, in our own uniqueness, we imitate Christ, not only exteriorly by our efforts to love but interiorly by faith on which all real love depends, the Father is delighted because now He knows his Son in us. This delight of the Father in us is what Jesus allows us to taste when we encounter Him. As we follow Jesus in this loving kind of knowledge, paradoxically, we become more fully human, more authentically ourselves.

How different this is from every other form of enlightenment where we are either absorbed into a greater reality or unmaksed as a mere illusion to hide nothingness. The Father created each unrepeatable and unique human heart outside himself not so that it might be absorbed in Him, but rather that it might be loved and learn to love. Such is divine eros - the love revealed in the household of God. This is the inheritance of the saints.

Elisabeth is pointing to this as she begins her reflections for the sisters of her community. This kind of enlightenment, this kind of knowledge, is the most important of all human pursuits. Without it, the true destiny of our humanity remains obscure. It lacks the certainty that only God's love can bring. How do we find this enlightenment? The passion to love God in real friendship, divine eros, is a gift. It is something to be asked for in earnest. Like a Bride, we must utilize our full human capacity, all our effort, all our might, to seek the Bridegroom - for in Christian enlightenment, the one who asks, recieves; the one who seeks, finds; and the one who knocks discovers the welcoming eyes of the Lord.