Beginning to Pray

November 7, 2010

The Memorial of Elisabeth of the Trinity 2010

November 4, 2010

Elisabeth of the Trinity - Devotion in Prayer

The last couple posts have been short reflections on the spiritual vision of Elisabeth of the Trinity, a French Carmelite nun who lived from 1880 to 1906. Her memorial is November 8. This posting continues these reflections.

Almost twenty years ago, I was privileged to speak to the prior of the Carthusians in Vermont about Elisabeth of the Trinity. Her educational background was modest, and yet her grasp of theology strikes many as profound. Many contemplatives, especially Carthusians, are drawn to her writings. I asked Father Prior why this should be the case. He explained that many contemplatives, in the last five hundred years, struggled with devotion to the Divine Persons of the Trinity. In fact, many who dedicated their life to prayer had been so taken with the One Divine Nature that the doctrine of the Trinity was sometimes not well maintained. The result was that many contemplatives were not able to understand their prayer in specifically Christian terms. Oftentimes, their understanding was more Platonic or Aristotelian than it was Catholic. This means they were trying to understand their experience of prayer without a firm grounding in Revelation. And what God has revealed to us in Christ Jesus is not simply intellectual insight. Contemplative prayer was at risk for becoming a rationally abstract and philosophical enterprise. This kind of contemplation would not suffice for maintaining the contemplative vocation in the long term.

Father Prior, a former student of Dietrich von Hildebrand, (For info on von Hildebrand, see http://www.hildebrandlegacy.org/main.cfm?r1=1.00&ID=1&level=1) went on to observe that after Pope Leo XIII's Divinum Illud Munus, in 1897,(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13divin.htm) renewed attention was given to the Divine Persons as an object of theological reflection among academic theologians. Many works were dedicated to trying to recover what this doctrine means for the Christian life, in particular as it is experienced through the Divine Indwelling. Unfortunately, few of these works were found to be beneficial for contemplatives. Most of this theology was done without reference to the experiential or experimental knowledge (mystical theology in the ancient sense). So this research failed to resonate with contemplative experience.

Blessed Elisabeth, a carmelite from Dijon, attended to the Divine Persons in her own contemplation. In particular, she composed a prayer call, O My God, Trinity whom I Adore (see http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/ste46001.htm). Because her writings are the fruit of deep contemplation, filled with love of God, packed with wonderful quotes from other proven spiritual writers, theologically balanced, and Scriptural - they found something in what she had to say that did more than any other works of formal theological reflection. Father Prior maintained that for many contemplatives, she helped them recover a devotion to the Trinity that kept their contemplation profoundly Christian.

For a wonderful website about Blessed Elisabeth go to: http://elisabeth-dijon.org/v_en/english.html

November 3, 2010

Elisabeth of the Trinity and the Song of Praise

For Elisabeth, the soul's greatest activity is a song of praise. Contemplation and even the Beatific vision are described in terms of this spiritual, interior song. The soul is, for her, lyrical: its thoughts, emotions, imaginings are the strings of a lyre which require tuning. She believes silent prayer and self-control keep this interior lyre in tune. As it is more in tune, it becomes capable of producing the interior harmonies that Jesus offers the Father. She believes this music is possible for us because the Holy Spirit produces the movements of Jesus' heart in the soul. The music culminates at the Cross. It is from the Cross that Jesus offers the great canticle of his heart. This canticle gives fitting praise to the Father and redeems mankind. The soul's song is meant to be a participationg in the suffering humanity of Jesus. Only through the experiences of his humanity is serving God possible. His humanity poured out for us, in her thought, is access to heaven. By describing this access in terms of the interior music of the soul, she makes clear that prayer does not involve merely intellectualizing Jesus' humanity. Prayer involves a real participation in his suffering love. It is a taking up of the Cross. While she herself was suffering in the final months of her life, she wrote her community the lyrics of the song the soul sings in this song of praise: "I glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ" (see Gal. 6:14); "With Christ I am nailed to the Cross" (see Gal. 2:19); and "I suffer in my body what is lacking in the passion of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church" (see Col. 1:24).
Last Retreat, #13.

November 2, 2010

Elisabeth of the Trinity and the Apocalypse

Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity understood the importance of making contemplation a priority in one's life. Spending time in silence before the Lord leads to a discovery of one's true identity, an interior rectitude, and a sense of one's ultimate purpose in life.   The Book of Revelation (4:8, 10-11) relates St. John's vision of great heavenly creatures falling down in praise and adoration before the throne of God. Blessed Elisabeth asks, "How can I imitate in the heaven of my soul this unceasing occupation of the blessed in the Heaven of Glory?" (Last Retreat, #20)

Before providing her answer, it is worth considering the relationship between what she calls the heaven of her soul and the Heaven of Glory.   In her own theological contemplation, our souls are meant to be a kind of heaven in the sense that it is where God dwells and is praised by faith. She believed that by letting go of everything in life which was not for love of the Lord and for His glory, a person disposed himself to a very special encounter with the Lord. She describes how those who dedicate themselves to the Lord in this way experience Jesus rushing into the interior chamber of their inmost being like a Bridegroom coming for his Bride. It is in this kind of relationship with Jesus, a union of real friendship, that we are able to praise God - in fact, we become the praise of his Glory (Last Retreat, #19). She knows that this experience of the Lord is only analogous to what awaits us in glofy - in this life, we do not see face to face and the glimpses the Lord allows us are transitory. But the fruit of heaven, the joy of praising God, of knowing and loving Him, of being known and being loved - this we can have by faith even now.   How?

Blessed Elisabeth claimed that St. Paul sheds light on her inquiry. When he speaks of being rooted and grounded in love - he is inviting us to a deeper experience of the Lord in prayer (Eph. 3:17). Love is the depths of God in which the soul must root itself she explains. To be rooted in love requires that we take time to turn our attention to the Lord - she says, gaze on the Lord. She is speaking about a simple effort to attend to the Lord, and allow ourselves the time we need to become aware of his presence. It is a growing awareness that is worth making time for in one's life.  This awareness can pierce our hearts, give real power to change our lives, and help us discover in ever new ways the joy of really knowing the Lord. Elisabeth herself witnessed to her own experience and she was convinced as we silently attend to the Lord in our prayer, as we take time to adore Him, all our interior movements, acts, and aspirations, even the most ordinary ones, are rooted more deeply in the One who is Love, who gave himself up for us.

November 1, 2010

All Saints Day

What does it take to be a saint?   It means to be set apart for God, dedicated to Him. What characterizes this dedication is a unrepeatable friendship with Him. Friends share everything they have with each other. They are always trying to pay each other back - and each side is always trying to "out-do" the other. Saints play this game with God eventhough God can never be out done. It is in this spirit that the saints think "because Jesus gave his life for me, I can do no less than give my life back to Him", and they find a way to dedicate every moment to loving Him and all those He entrusts to them. And no matter what they do, they do not think that they have done very much at all, because they constantly see in new ways how much God has done and never stops doing.  The way they see it, they really have it better than they deserve - and they are driven by love to repay love for love.

This kind of friendship is impossible by human effort alone - but the Gift of the Holy Spirit which Jesus won for us on the Cross and for which He never stops interceeding on our behalf, this Person-Gift, the Lord and Giver of Life, makes such a friendship possible. He animates us with God's love so that we can love like God.

The saints are all very clear on what it takes to fully recieve this Gift of God: integrity of life. This is worth fighting for with all one's heart and strength. Grace is not magic and the Cross is not cheap. The Lord has made this struggle possible to win by his grace but it involves constant vigilance, perseverance in all kinds of trials, and above all prayer - begging God for his strength which in the end is the only thing that gets us through.   Yes, we fall a thousand times, but always the Lord is there to pick us up and help us start again.  Real love is precious because it costs - what value is anything that does not have a price?   After what Christ has done for us, is this price, the little effort I must put into resisting sin and loving tenderly, too much for us to pay? Our help is in the name of the Lord, and to Him belongs all the glory. For those dedicated to this ongoing struggle, as difficult as it is, we have every reason to hope - Jesus himself taught us: blessed are the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the pure of heart (that is, those with integrity of life), they shall see God.

Thank God for all our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, who have fought the good fight, who have won the race, who persevered to the end.  Through great trials, the Lord purified them and made them strong. Now they see His Face. Many of them were killed for their witness, and many of these witnesses offered themselves in our own lifetimes - and most of these we will never know in this life. But someday I hope to meet them, to become like them - free, free to see things as they really are, free to love with all my heart.