203- Lectio Divina or Meditation?

Summary: In this article we will see that if a person can be understood as not having quite reached second conversion, then that person will have to be content with the initial practice of Meditation and avoid diving into Lectio Divina. This will mean that when a person is facing difficulties in the initial implementation of Lectio Divina we will need to discern between two possible reasons: 1- the legitimate normal difficulty any person faces when practising Lectio Divina, and 2- the fact that the person hasn’t undergone the second conversion yet. If so, the person is not ready yet and needs to practise Meditation and not yet Lectio Divina.

---

Introduction

In this article, for the first time I do address in a new way the difficulties we face when we need to implement Lectio Divina and seem to struggle and/or fail. I consider Lectio Divina as we teach it (i.e. with the personal and direct intervention of the Holy Spirit allowing us to really listen to the Lord) under the perspective of whether we do or do not need to practise it. I do open a new horizon to our theological reflection attracting our attention to the difference in the working of the grace of God before and after second conversion. Considering second conversion as a tool of discernment regarding this issue is therefore new.

Lectio divina as we present it, takes for granted that the second conversion has occurred in the life of the practitioner. This is why the direct and supernatural action of the Holy Spirit (Contemplation) is involved. If the second conversion hasn’t occurred, we will then need to be patient, wait and, in the meantime, exercise ourselves in Meditation which doesn’t involve the direct personal action of the Holy Spirit (Contemplation).

1- Lectio Divina as we teach it

Until today, I have generally assumed that the main criterium of discernment for applying Lectio Divina or not as we teach it at the School of Mary, is to ascertain if the person has read at least once the four Gospels, Acts, one or two important letters of St. Paul (Romans) and some extracts from the Old Testament. Otherwise, I used to invite people to read a paragraph from a Gospel before going to sleep, as a starting point, until the person acquired a minimum of familiarity with the Bible. I used to use the image: before reaching the motorway, we need to take the small roads first, then larger roads, until we reach the motorway (i.e. the Lectio as we teach it). I still taught the supernatural Lectio Divina that involves the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit to allow us to really listen to Jesus and put his Word into practice.

The question is should we reconsider this option and not merely assume that any Baptised person would be able to practise Lectio Divina as we teach it, i.e. with the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit?

Lectio Divina as we teach it involves looking at the two ways of the working of the Grace of God. The General and the Particular Help of the Grace of God. The General Help is constantly given to us, and it helps us read, think, study, meditate, ponder. It is a general help of the grace of God given to the mind, helping it to see, understand and act with the ordinary light of faith.

The Particular Help of the Grace of God is the direct and personal intervention of the Holy Spirit in us that makes us enter into direct contact with the Risen Lord. The Particular Help is typical of the post second conversion way of acting of the grace of God.

St. Thomas Aquinas talks about these two ways of acting of the Grace of God (see Summa Teologica I-II^ae Q. 109, A.6). He actually uses the expression of “preparative grace” for the General Help and “Grace” itself for the Particular Help. St. Teresa of Avila, on the other hand, keeps the expressions “General help” and “Particular help” ((Life 14,6; see as well 3Mansions 1,2; 5Mansions 2,3)).

What, then, is the dividing line between the two modes of action of the Grace of God? Can any person receive the Particular Help of the grace of God? No, it is typical of the post second conversion time.

Do we use either one or the other? Or better said, does it mean that after the second conversion all the workings of the grace of God is made according to the Particular Help of the Grace of God?

It is fundamental to understand what is at stake here and how the two modalities of the action of the Grace of God interact. We don’t have one for the pre-conversion and the second for post-conversion. Rather we have the general help for the pre-conversion, but after conversion the two are used, as one prepares and leads to the second as St. Thomas Aquinas rightly says. In this sense we continue to read, think, study and meditate, but all these activities lead us toward the direct and personal intervention of the Holy Spirit in us, the particular help of the Grace of God.

The Lectio Divina as we teach it bears in itself the two workings of the Grace of God. One leads to the other.

2- Can everyone immediately apply Lectio Divina as we teach it?

Those who receive the teaching on Lectio Divina as we teach it in the School of Mary are on their spiritual journey. If they are receiving the teaching on Lectio and they are before their second conversion, the chances for them to be able to apply it as we teach it are very slim. Why? Because at this stage of growth the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit is not yet active.

Therefore, one needs to be careful not to push people too much into applying Lectio Divina as taught, or try to “torture” them by asking them to repeat the process and to keep on trying to do so, as this could lead to their even feeling guilty because it is not “working”.

We need to be able to discern between the intrinsic difficulty of implementing Lectio Divina and the impossibility to do so if the person needs first to do “meditation” (the person is before conversion).

3- Is Lectio Divina for all?

Yes and no. Yes, Lectio Divina is for everybody, but not immediately; it all depends as we said above where they are on their journey. If they are before their second conversion, people should start by meditating, which is using the general help of the grace of God in order to learn from a text they read and implement what they have learned. It is not yet the supernatural Lectio Divina, but purely “Meditation”.

4- The medieval meaning of "Meditating"

It is important to understand the differences in the use of the word “Meditation”. Today, in modern life, the expression “meditation” is used and applied in a very broad way, sometimes even for just some body relaxation. This is not the way it is being used here. We use it according to the traditional Christian meaning of it acquired especially during the Middle Ages.

Meditating in the Middle Ages is to use one’s mind, while reading a text (Scripture or Spiritual or Theological or Philosophical text), trying to find clarity in the text, discerning the main points, seeing the connections between them, to think about them, ponder, and from this work of the mind we deduce new lights or lessons, or resolutions. It is normally meant to lead us to improve in our Christian life, our practice of the virtues, our understanding of our faith and more so, the practical implications we draw from them.

To meditate implies a predominant use of the mind, under the General Help of the Grace of God. It involves the general light of faith.

It is in this meaning that Guigo the Carthusian uses the verb “to meditate” in this spiritual ladder: read, meditate, pray, contemplate.

St. Teresa of Avila uses the verb and St. John of the Cross as well, in the same meaning.

5- St. Teresa of Avila comes to our rescue

All the above is in a way summarised in St. Teresa of Avila’s life and works. Her conversion (which is a second conversion) leads her to experience the direct and personal action of the Holy Spirit (the “supernatural as she calls it” (see Mansions 4, first paragraph)), putting her in direct contact with Christ. It is from that moment on in her life, at the age of almost forty, after twenty years of monastic life that she experiences this change in herself. The majority of what we know about her, then, is the “new Teresa”, the Teresa of Jesus, what comes after her second conversion.

In her works, we can easily find the dividing line between her life before and after her conversion. For instance, in the book of her life, where she explains prayer, and talks about four ways of watering a garden (i.e. receiving the grace of God), her first way, is “meditation”, which falls before the beginning of the supernatural action of God in her. The following three ways of praying all involve the particular help of the grace of God, or the “supernatural”.

The same applies in the masterpiece, “The Interior Castle”. The first three mansions are pervaded by the action of the general help of the grace of God, while from the fourth mansions onward (4, 5, 6 and 7) we see in action both the general and particular help of the grace of God.

It is also significant to note that even if St. Teresa of Avila speaks essentially of Mental Prayer (i.e. Prayer of the Heart) and never about Lectio Divina, it is absolutely fair to apply her theology of the working of the Grace of God to Lectio Divina.

In this case, as we have just said: Meditation is the main activity before the Second Conversion. Any person who hasn’t yet gone through her second conversion is bound not to be able to practise the supernatural Lectio Divina, i.e. Lectio Divina as we explain it in the School of Mary. Why? Because the latter involves the direct and personal intervention of the Holy Spirit, allowing us to meet and hear the Risen Lord talking to our heart.

1	2	3
Meditation	Second Conversion	Lectio Divina
General help of the grace of God		General and Particular help of the grace of God (supernatural)
Working of the mind with the general help. Extracting thoughts that nourish the progress in faith and moral life.		Elevation of the mind with the power of the Holy Spirit, healing the will and transforming it, allowing a new knowledge.

Note: Second Conversion in itself deserves a separate article and treatment. Often it is regarded as only a grace from God, a grace where human effort is not involved. But when we study the teaching of the Doctors of the Church, especially St. Teresa of Avila, we start to understand more clearly what is at stake in the second conversion, i.e. what are the exact proportions between on one hand the direct intervention of the grace of God (the “Particular help of the Grace of God”) and on the other hand the human effort in using the “General Help of the Grace of God”, and that it takes time to occur. In fact, St. Teresa’s life and writings are uniquely rich for the learning of the “second conversion”: it is at the centre of her life and of her teaching.

The book of “Way of Perfection”, offered to the sisters of the monastery she first founded, St. Jose, at Avila, in fact is directly related to the lessons learned from her second conversion.

6- Meditation in St. John of the Cross

The teaching given by St. John of the Cross helps shed an extra light on this issue. In fact, in his works, he does mention something very illuminating for our subject. He tries to help us identify the moment when we “cross” from “Meditation” to “Contemplation”. He offers three signs (plus one). One of these signs is the difficulty or incapacity at a certain point to meditate! Which means to go with our mind, with the general help of the grace of God from one idea to another in a text. Why so? Because the grace of God has reached a point where it is shifting to a higher level of working, i.e. the particular help of the grace of God. It is true that he specifically talks about this phenomenon in Mental Prayer (Prayer of the Heart) but it can easily be applied to the rest of spiritual life. It is very interesting to see how he noticed that the person from a specific moment onwards can’t anymore pray using the mind only (with the general help of the grace of God).

Translated into the workings of “Lectio Divina”, we can say that once a person reaches this point in her spiritual life, she won’t be able to simply meditate on a text. The need and urge (and God’s desire) will be to enter into a direct contact with the Risen Lord, through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. In this case, Lectio Divina as it is taught in the School of Mary will be applied without too much difficulty, or better said: with its normal challenge, because there is always a challenge when we practise it, the challenge of going from the general to the particular help of the Grace of God, which is from “reading in order to understand the text” to “reading in order to listen to Jesus”.

7- Why the delay?

One can always ask this general question: why does Jesus delay the action of the particular help of the grace of God? Why can’t He just always act directly with the Holy Spirit? Since the coming of the Holy Spirit is what characterises Christian life, why doesn’t the Holy Spirit work immediately in the life of a Christian?

Interestingly enough, we find different answers to this question in the Gospel, in Jesus’ teaching itself. First, let us consider Jesus' reply to the Young rich man who was asking him: “Good Master what shall I do in order to have Eternal Life?”. Jesus doesn’t immediately say to him: you need one thing, go sell what you have, give the money to the poor, carry your Cross and come and follow me. No. Jesus acts progressively, step by step, like a good teacher or formator. He starts by asking him about Moses’ Teaching: “have you put into practice the [ten] Commandments?”. Jesus in fact is first and foremost checking if the foundations of spiritual life in the human being (the first stage of formation) have been laid. Jesus is checking to see if the young man used the general help of the Grace of God in order to apply the Ten Commandments. In fact, perfection doesn’t come first. The foundations come first. He could have, for instance, asked him about his faithfulness to his duties of state, if he has a job. All these aspects of life are important, implicit and fall into the framework of the Ten Commandments, i.e. of what any human being can do using the general help of the grace of God. Let us remember what we said above: this help is given to each human being, and at all times. This means that is should be used. We can’t emphasise the fact more strongly that these aspects should be done, achieved, realised before even talking about any form of Perfection.

It is only after He asked him this question and made sure that he did, that Jesus looked at him and loved him! Here come the specifics of the second conversion: entering into a direct and personal relationship with Jesus, hearing his Call to follow him. A new life!

The Gospel says that that was Jesus’ reaction: He looked at him and loved him. Why? Because this is the starting point of a new life. This is why St. Teresa of Avila when she wrote her life said: until then (her conversion) it was her life, and from that moment on, it was “Jesus’ life in her”. The phrase “of Jesus” attached to her name then started to have a living meaning.

The conclusion of this first insight given by the Lord is the necessity to lay first the foundations. So, a Supernatural Lectio Divina comes after Meditation, comes after laying the foundations, i.e. doing all that could be done using the general help of the Grace of God.

8- Indications of the Parable of the Sower

Interestingly, the Parable of the Sower can shed a light on this issue of Meditation vs Supernatural Hearing of the Word of God (i.e. Lectio Divina as we describe it). Why so? It does so because its main purpose is to analyse our way of listening to Jesus’ Words, the Seeds He came to give us. It offers four ways of listening, three of them not bearing fruits, each one for one or more reasons. By deepening our understanding of the reasons, we understand better the workings of the grace of God, i.e. God’s part in the process and our part. We can also draw a line between the first three types of persons and the fourth one, this line is drawn by the Lord himself when He clarified that only the good soil is bearing fruits, in multiple ways, some 100, some 60 and some 30.

The first soil: “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.” (Mt 13:19). These are the persons who, “though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.” (Mt 13,13-15) The Lord’s comment is tough. But there is a serious teaching here for us. The soil here is not “opened” in order to receive the Divine Seed. A serious effort of ploughing is needed.

The soil is the image of our heart and mind. How can we “plough” the soil of our being? By focusing on what is available, at the reach of our hand: putting into practice God’s Ten Commandments, for they summarise God’s will, and the ordinary grace of God is given to us constantly. We can use it to convert, confess, or simply act and put into practice. This step reminds us of the Lord’s first reply to the young rich man: have you put into practice Moses’ Commandments? They are fundamental, they are very close to what the natural light of reason can reach out to, they are a sort of “natural law”. What else could be done at this stage? Paying attention to having a serious involvement in life, with a job, fulfilling the duties of one’s state, helping in the Parish or Community.

As a consequence, at this stage, the mind needs opening and the heart too. It comes with a personal effort of reading, thinking, meditating and extracting conclusions, acts to be done. We understand here that we can’t offer or teach the person here Lectio Divina as we usually do it. Conversion is not yet there, plus, the person is not even necessarily close to the line of conversion. Let us think of the first or second mentions in St. Teresa. Crossing over from the first to the second mansion, avoiding committing sin. This brings the person to the third mansion and roots the person deeply in this regular ordered “rational” life. It is necessary for many people to achieve this stage. There are exceptions, certainly, for the Lord can have mercy on certain big sinners and offer them powerful graces to take them out of their grave sins, but still, they will have to go back to the fundamentals, and implement them until they have strong roots.

The second soil: “The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no roots, he remains for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.” (Mt 13:20-21) Once the soil is opened by the effort made by the person to put into practice Moses’ Commandments and have an ordered life, it is necessary, as we just said, to persevere in these new virtues so they can gain deeper and stronger roots in us. Learning perseverance and resilience removes the rocks in our soil.

We have often heard after the Vatican Council about human formation. It is the core of this stage. Human virtues; think of even what the Greek philosophers taught us to practise, and this entire structure has been integrated by St. Thomas Aquinas, showing that the supernatural virtues and the working of the Holy Spirit are grafted onto these initial “natural” virtues. This stage has its proper warfare, i.e. combating vices and bad habits.

The Third Soil: We are still in the realm of the general help of the grace of God. “The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the delusions of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Mt 13:22) Efforts are made, there is growth, but it doesn’t reach completion, because the human being pays attention to the “worries of life”, “the delusions of wealth”.

The Fourth Soil: It is only with “The Good Soil” (with definite article: The) that we will be able to cross over from “the general help of the grace of God” to “the particular help of the grace of God”, i.e. the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. “But the [one] having been sown on the good soil, this is the [one] where hearing the word and understanding its implications brings forth fruit and produces–indeed, some a hundredfold, and some sixty, and some thirty.” (Mt 13:23) As we can notice, having entered the supernatural realm, we have progress and always a greater fruitfulness: thirty, sixty and finally a hundredfold.

We may consider that the parable of the Sower is a parable that analyses the different modalities of action of the human being, helping us to understand and devise how things are worked out in us, how we interact with the Grace of God and its different types and modalities. We may consider that the Parable shows us through the first three soils what we are supposed to do in order to implement proper Meditation, aiming of course toward the reception of the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit.

We need first to plough the soil, work it, use the general grace, with the help of Meditation, making use or our mind, of our will, using our free will, which is fundamental. It is a preparation, like John the Baptist who opens the way, flattens the mountains and the hurdles in order to be ready to receive the Messiah and his Anointment. Then an entirely new stage of our life starts, with the help of the Holy Sprit, and more stages of purification, initiated by God himself will occur.

The parable of the Sower is here to tell us that things don’t happen while  we remain passive. Each of the first three soils is an indication for a work that should be done by Meditation. This is so because it is by Meditation and through it that we use our faculties, train them, exercise them, and make them fit in order to receive Jesus’ Spirit.

9- Conclusion: what should we do?

With attentive discernment, it is important to try to sense if the person is before the second conversion or after it.

If the person is after it, this means that trying Lectio Divina as we do it is possible. How can we check? It is better to give time to the person and check through a one on one session what is not working. We need to discern between the intrinsic difficulty proper to the normal practice of Lectio Divina and the need first for Meditation. This comes from learning more about Lectio Divina and trying to see the personal history of the person if she went through a moment of change.

If the person is before the moment of conversion which is the case of the majority of parishioners, one needs to direct the person toward Meditation. It can be meditation of the Scriptures, or certain books that offer a meditation on a specific subject in Christian life. One can read on spiritual subjects and meditate upon them. One can read spiritual comments on the Bible. One needs to remember the main tasks of this stage:  fidelity to the Commandments and Duties of State.

It is not advisable at all to force the person into Lectio Divina, or worse make the person feel undermined about not doing it the way we explain it. One needs pertinent discernment and patience.

At the end of this short article, a question remains: should the School of Mary teach some methods of Meditation?

Jean Khoury

17^th January 2020

201- From “Meditation” to “Contemplation”, According to St. John of the Cross

Question: Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Ch. 14 page 193. Does the Prayer of the Heart method that you teach skip the discursive meditation? Or does it assume that the person is past that first step?

Answer: Your question here is very technical (theologically). This is the type of question that for many years I had hoped to be asked by a theologian or by an assiduous reader of St. John of the Cross. It deserves an answer. A technical one too. But it is a “scary” question, that has occupied the best theologians of the Western Catholic Church for half a century. However, they haven’t reached practical clarity about it despite superficial claims made by some recent historians.

In Chapter 14 to which you allude as well as in the previous one, St. John of the Cross talks about a shift that happens in Spiritual Life where, because of growth, a person would find himself being moved on from (discursive) meditation to the first level of contemplation. He does offer three signs to determine whether a person has been really moved by God from one state to the other. What, however, does this shift mean? There are various meanings which should be kept present in our minds:

- It means crossing the “red line” we have between the Third and the Fourth Mansions.

- It means entering the “supernatural” as St. Teresa puts it in the first lines of the Fourth Mansions. 

- In other words, it means entering the Particular help of the grace of God.

- It means, undergoing the Second Conversion! (think of St. Teresa of Avila’s Second Conversion at thirty-nine years of age.

Other questions then arise from the above-mentioned. Can we just decide by the power of our own will to cross over so, as a result, we find that we have crossed over? Can we enter the Fourth Mansions through our own willpower? Can we undergo the Second Conversion through our own willpower? What could be done to cross this line? What is the relationship between the General Help of the grace of God and the Particular one?

As you know, usually theology says: God gives the Particular help of His Grace when He wants, the way He wants and to whom He wants. But this is only part of the Truth. The rest of the Truth is: He has the earnest burning desire to give Himself to us, He is very thirsty to give Himself to us. In this sense, it is not in His plans to delay or to give Himself in a random way. Look at what St. Thérèse discovered the 9^th of June 1895 or St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque, or, indeed, many saints: they discovered that the Torrents of God’s love seem to be compressed in Him, and that He has a great desire to pour out His Love into our Hearts.

St. Teresa gives another answer: in order to “trigger” the Grace of God it is important to work on the Virtues in a heroic way. Examine the first half of the Way of Perfection where she explains a more Perfect way of practising the three virtues that summarise the Gospel: humility, detachment and love (of the neighbour). Today I translate her concept and condense it into the practice of a true Lectio Divina; in this sense I consider that now that we have access to the Bible which was not so in the case of St. Teresa of Avila, now that we have a rich Lectionary (the renewed one from 1969), practising Lectio Divina not only replaces the first part of  the Way of Perfection (working on the virtues) but it is even better because it offers more security and power (Jesus speaks through His Word), as well as more flexibility  as it is not only focused on three virtues, but includes Jesus adapting to our needs. The Power of a truly supernatural Lectio Divina is such that it boosts our spiritual life and the practice of the Prayer of the Heart.

Similarly, when St. Thérèse felt drawn to offer herself to the Merciful Love of God (9^th June 1895) she didn’t ask herself: “am I at the right level of growth to make this act of offering?” Or: “Can I do it?”, “Will I receive His Grace or not?” Also, when her sister hesitated to offer herself, Therese still invited her to offer herself, her sister being just a novice at that time. “Offering oneself to God” and in return “God giving Himself to us” is the quintessence of the Prayer of the Heart.

Question: You ask me about the teaching offered in the School of Mary and if I assume people who attend the Course and the Formation have passed this line that separates “meditation” and “contemplation”.

Answer: Not everybody comes to the teaching/courses of the School of Mary of their own volition. Mary brings them in. Consequently, therefore, it is not possible for me to avoid teaching supernatural Lectio and the supernatural Prayer of the Heart. Any serious person who is committed in the Charismatic Renewal is in my view already in the Fourth or more Mansions. This is in fact the stage of the beginner! He is a beginner in Spiritual Life but a beginner, nonetheless. Therefore, it is not uncommon to be at this stage of Growth.

Question: Does some work have to be done beforehand? Or do we have to assume that to a certain extent it is purely in the “random” way of a pure choice of God?

Answer: YES of course a lot of work can and should be done! Implementing the whole of Adult Catechesis is a ‘must”. The four parts of the Catechism, especially the first three, should be noted. It is very important to digest and live this book first. Plus, you may add to this, the necessity of a serious commitment in the parish or in some service of neighbour. Having a regular prayer life and prayer time is of the essence, though, of course it will be rather on the side of reading and meditation. This will get people closer to the red line.

St. Teresa of Avila practised the Prayer of the Heart for more than fifteen years before her conversion! Did she receive supernatural graces? I am sure she did! How come, then, she failed to grow spiritually and receive more as she did after her conversion? The reason was that the working of the virtues (translate: supernatural Lectio) was not being implemented properly, and I have explained this on different occasions. St. Teresa said that not practising to perfection the virtues made us remain like dwarfs… and that Prayer of the Heart and lax life do not get on well together.

So, one can even, like her, practise the Prayer of the Heart, and one might even receive some supernatural graces (contemplative ones), but one will not have spiritual growth, certainly not a steady growth. This is why the lessons we can draw from her second conversion are fundamental for all of us, they are a teaching for us. They are for all the Church. Her life, indeed, is God’s answer to the Protestant movement initiated by Martin Luther a few decades before her. The Church before St. Teresa had been trying for three centuries to reform herself and failed. These three centuries are embodied in the twenty years that preceded St. Teresa’s Conversion. She is a paradigm that summarises the crisis of the Church in her time.

Practising love of neighbour to a perfect degree hastens the process of getting us closer to the red line.

Now, technically, my teaching of both Lectio Divina and the Prayer of the Heart involves the supernatural action of God in each one respectively. There is contemplation (of course supernatural) here and there. The particular help of the Grace of God is involved in both cases.

In Chapter 13 of Book 1 of the Ascent St. John of the Cross also teaches the way to produce the full power of our effort, echoing St. Teresa in the first part of the Way of Perfection, when she insists on a perfect practice of the virtues.

Similarly, My Master Fr. Louis Guillet OCD always thought that a seriously committed person (think a postulant or a novice nun) will very rapidly enter into the supernatural action of God (contemplation).

Question: One should, according to St. John of the Cross, have a loving general knowledge or awareness of God before leaving the discursive method - what does this mean?

Answer: Just to clarify your question: are you saying, “does one have to wait to have the three signs of the shift in order to abandon ‘meditation’”?

As you will notice, in my teaching of Lectio Divina and of the Prayer of the Heart I never use the word “meditation” namely, discursive meditation: going from A to B, then from B to C. In this light I mean that meditating will take us from A to C. In Lectio I do say: read, read, read, read. I do not say: read, meditate, pray, contemplate. Of course, the first “read” I mention is about understanding what the text says. But I wouldn’t call it “meditation”. In each Lectio, I always set the goal of reaching the sacramentality of the Word, i.e. the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit.

For the Prayer of the Heart, I use St. Thérèse’s shortcut, or summary of the Prayer of the Heart: the Act of Oblation. It involves everything: the general help and the particular help. The general help is realised through the movement of offering oneself totally to God, without conditions, like a little child. This makes us immediately available to and entrusted into the Hands of God and His Action. He does not need more than an act of oblation to God’s Love, like a little child, through the Hands of Mary. God’s Love is the Holy Spirit, i.e. the particular Help, i.e. “contemplation”.

It is true that the more the person grows, the more the practice (repetition) of the Act of Oblation will allow a greater outpouring of the grace of God during the Prayer of the Heart. But it does not mean we have to wait years or see certain signs or factors in order to make it. Saint Thérèse invited her sister who was a beginner, a novice, to make the Act of Oblation with her.

Question: Am I then dismissing what St. John of the Cross says?

Answer: No, I still think that his doctrine of the three signs is still useful. Fr. Louis added a fourth: fearing sin, i.e. having a new perception of the ugliness of our sins in the eyes of God. But the question can be put from a different angle and I prefer to analyse St. Teresa’s Second Conversion and the lessons we learn from this angle and the Act of Oblation.  I do not want to lean on one teaching only (i.e. St. John of the Cross’ three signs), but on three teachings coming from three different Doctors of the Church, shedding light on one issue.

From 1890 to 1940 roughly, theologians debated the subject of Contemplation and its nature: “Is it for all?”... “Is it acquired or infused?” “Can we acquire it by using our own strengths: the general help of the grace of God or is it infused, i.e. depends purely on God: the particular help of the grace of God?”

Even if, toward the end of the battle of the theologians (1940s), they leaned slightly toward the infused nature of Contemplation, we never got any explanation on how the shift really works, i.e. the crossing from one stage to the other (think: “third” to “fourth mansions”, or “meditation” to “contemplation”). To date we do not have an answer! Even if we tend universally to say that Contemplation is infused (supernatural) we still remain with the half-truth about how to receive it: “God gives it the way He wants, when He wants to whom He wants”.

Meanwhile, in fact, there are ways to get us close to the border, ways that hasten the progress, like almost forcing God’s hand to make us enter into “contemplation”! The expression (forcing God) is not mine, it is of St. John of the Cross, when he says in the Spiritual Canticle that practising love of neighbour the way St. Paul describes it, can almost “force” God’s Hand to pour His grace into us i.e. the particular help.

As St. Teresa would never separate the perfect practice of the Virtues from the practice of the Prayer of the Heart, I would never separate Lectio Divina from the Prayer of the Heart. A true supernatural Lectio Divina (as I teach it, which involves the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit) is for me an important condition that “triggers” the Grace of God during the Prayer of the Heart. The Lord Himself gives us the clue: “whoever loves me, keeps my Commandments, the Father will love him and we will come and dwell in him and him in us” (John 14:21).

One wants to know what true love is. It is to keep Jesus’ Commandments, which is real Lectio Divina, listening to the Risen Lord and putting his Word into practice by His Grace.

As a consequence, a new love of God wants to be outpoured: The Father will love Him. This is the starting point of the Prayer of the Heart: a renewed outpouring of Love.

As a consequence: The Lord and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) will come and dwell in the person. This is a supernatural Prayer of the Heart.

The secret of triggering “Contemplation” (the Son and the Father coming within us) is given to us.

It is the secret of a fruitful Communion during Mass: Mass is the enactment or realisation of the New Covenant. A Covenant needs a written text, a written Contract, realised in the Word of God, the Liturgy of the Word and in Blood: The Lord’s Sacrifice, the Liturgy of the Eucharist. If we want “contemplation” to occur during Communion, we need to listen first to Jesus in the Liturgy of the Word as this triggers a new powerful grace! Steady growth is thereby ensured.

Question: One knows by faith by faith that God loves us, or is it a more sensitive feeling?

Answer: yes, essentially of course it is a truth of our Faith. If we are faithful to Him in Lectio, He pours Himself into our spirit, not necessarily into our soul, emotions, senses. But Prayer often leads to these echoes that are manifest outside of our spirit, echoes that fall in the soul (mind, will), emotions, senses. Echoes of the substantial Meal received in our spirit. The echoes are the crumbs that sometimes God allows to fall into our conscious part.

Of course, if we consider seriously what God did for us, how He gave us His Son, we can know that He loves us truly, totally and constantly. Knowing, not feeling. It is a deep intuition, the intuition of Faith. Sometimes it can be very dry, and therefore be just a pure act of faith without any feeling. However, it helps us to grow to make this act of Faith from time to time.

Finally, let us have recourse to Mary’s faith, the essence of purity of heart and spirit.

195- Meditating the Passion and Lectio Divina

What is the difference between “Meditating the Passion of the Lord” (MP) and practising Lectio Divina (LD)?

MP is taking one of the four accounts of the Passion, reading it, pondering, praying on it. It is therefore based on the Sacred Text like LD. It’s immediately obvious, too, that on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday our LD and MP coincide. In fact, during the Palm Sunday Mass and during the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday, we have as a Gospel reading the entire account of the Passion.

Equally significant is that both LD and MP are said to be powerful. Also, both rely on a reading of the Sacred Text. In a way, therefore, they seem very similar. How is this relationship derived?

The relationship between LD and MP is in fact complex. Both are fundamental forces: vital, powerful and therefore unavoidable. Let us see in which sense they are so:

1- LD is listening to God and putting his Word into practice. In this sense it encompasses the core of the message of the Gospel. It is the core of any prayer: “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21).

2- MP can be said to perform the Ephphata, that is, the opening of our inner capacity of hearing God’s Word. It is on the Cross and through His Passion that Jesus saves us and therefore opens what was closed by the disobedience of the first Adam. With the Passion, everything starts to make sense in our life because it is the starting point of our new life in Christ. So, in this sense, MP opens the way for LD.

It is necessary to be aware, too, that Isaiah 53 has a central place in the New Testament. It is a prophetical text, given many centuries before the Lord’s Passion, but was perceived by the Apostles and authors of the New Testament as talking about Jesus, and describing his Passion. This perception is the pure gift of the Grace of God, an opening in the mind performed by the Holy Spirit, allowing us to “see” in this text Jesus during his Passion (see Luke 24:44-47). This unique experience that only the believers have (see St. Paul below) is the corner stone of the New Testament. We can’t stress this point enough (see also Acts 8:26-40).

St. Paul states that only faith removes the veil that stops us from seeing Christ in the Old Testament: “We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed. And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord [by Faith], the veil is taken away.”(2 Co 3:13-16)

3- The account of the Passion of the Lord is the core of the Bible. It contains the most dense and powerful pages. It is the Holy of the Holies of the New Testament and of the entire Bible. Some exegetes even stated that some Gospels (think of Mark’s) are like a long introduction to the Passion and the Passion.

It is in the Passion of the Lord that the maximum point of the Love of God is manifest. Isaiah 53 exemplifies in fact the core of our piety and paradoxically the summit of the manifestation of God’s love for each one of us. When St. Paul contemplates the Cross, he says: “he loved me and died for me” (Ga 2:20)!

4- It is still important to underline the fact that each week can be said to be a holy week that leads to Sunday, i.e. the Resurrection. Some mystics lived the Passion every week, showing us the deeper spiritual meaning of each week and what happens in it. They reveal its ascending movement: from the Passion and Death to the Resurrection of the Lord. The application of the Salvation realised by Christ 2000 years ago is happening everyday. This is why St. Paul says: “I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the Church” (Col 1:24).

5- In Lent and mostly during Holy Week, we are called to practise MP, live the Passion and benefit from its powerful grace. 

6- The wisdom of the Church makes her decide not to centre the entire Liturgical year exclusively around the Passion. So, throughout the year we have all the other Mysteries of Christ (Advent, Christmas, Easter…): hence we are not in Lent throughout the year. Hence the rich variation in the daily readings. Hence LD. LD is focused on the daily readings that follow the different phases of the Mysteries of Christ's Life. In each tide of the Liturgical year we face a different facet of Christ Mysteries. Each one shows his great love, compassion, mercy and the joy and pain at times which they bring.

7- When we read the Passion and meditate upon it, whenever we feel a word or a verse is touching us, we stop and dwell in it, so it has time to touch us, and communicate to us the Power of Salvation. The Passion then becomes actual or real for us; we see Our Saviour saving us, we receive His Love and Salvation, Mercy and Forgiveness. We become contemporaries of the Passion. We might weep over our sins or just out of the unbearable love Jesus is giving us. Isn't this a powerful LD? (MP is a particular form of LD.) MP is where Jesus acts directly in us, where the Words of the Passion touch our substance and burn us, heal us. We are filled by the grace of God almost without our collaboration other than just going through His Passion. Aren't we in it? Part of it?

8- If LD is the most powerful type of Prayer, what is then MP??! If LD is the most powerful type of prayer, the Passion is the most powerful LD.

So, as we see, we can't separate LD from MP. MP is an LD. MP opens the way for LD. All LD is a contact with the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus communicates Himself. The Passion is that communication at its most intense.

_____________

On Meditating the Passion of the Lord:

On Lectio Divina see this link (click here).

170- The Purpose of Lent

Each of us greets every Lent with the renewed desire and determination to rediscover anew the very meaning of this liturgical season, and especially to find a practical way of applying this meaning through the question we ask ourselves: “What shall I do this Lent?” 

What is Lent?

God gives His Grace to each one of us, from the Day of Pentecost onwards. The entire liturgical year has important powerful moments (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter) and "ordinary" moments: Ordinary Time.

Lent time is unique, because of the quality and the power of the specific Graces that God wants to give us during this time: in fact during Lent the power of the Grace of God can be compared to multiplying this grace by two. This is clear evidence, therefore, that God is waiting for us, giving us extra help for this sacred and more intense time of the year. The grace of God helps us to turn resolutely toward Him, to be totally focused on Him. Remember the First Commandment: you shall love God with "all" (your heart, mind, energy, soul) is repeated three or four times. The emphasis is glaringly placed on the repetition of “All.” This epitomises Lent: God reminding us who we are, and that only He can quench the thirst which invades our very being.

Lent is a time that allows us to grow spiritually so we can participate in the Passion-Death-Resurrection of the Lord more powerfully, more efficaciously and in greater depth. Lent is to enact the 40 days Jesus spent for us in the desert, fighting the three basic tendencies in us (power, pleasure, possession), and to win. He leads us, opens the way, He, in fact, is the Way. In our case, the 40 days prepare us and lead us to Holy Week and the goal for each year, is to participate then in a deeper way so as to receive the Powerful Graces of Holy Week.

Lent is a deepening of the meaning of the promises of our own Baptism. In fact Lent is a period of 40 days that prepare us for an important act: we are heading toward the Easter Vigil where we will renew the vows of our Baptism and of our commitments in the Church. It is a time of Conversion: returning to God. This always involves a 180 degree turn from the attachment and pursuit of creatures, to the attachment, the discovery and every deepening discovery of love of the Creator. 

The characteristics of this period are many. Lent, first and foremost, is a time of Prayer, more intense than in the rest of the liturgical year. Dedicating more time for Prayer is necessary in order to meet Jesus, to know Him better, to fall in love with Him! Spending long moments in silence with Him ensures this.

It is also a time for making practical offerings and sacrifices: fasting and alms giving, but also a time for deepening our Spiritual Life. To enhance this effort Lent offers us a time for drawing closer to the Word of God. Taking more time, offering a better listening capacity to the Jesus who wants to talk to us.

To inspire our efforts, reading a good book on spiritual life, meditating on it, and working on it is very advantageous. But more important than this is that in Lent we pay attention to Jesus the Groom. Jesus explained the meaning of christian fasting by saying that his disciples will fast when He, the Groom, will be absent. This means that the entire effort of Fasting and Lent is motivated by the renewed search for Jesus the Groom as we become aware of His absence from our daily life. It is the Holy Spirit who inflames our desire to find Jesus and be united with Him.

Again, at a more practical level, Lent is a time for good and deeper examination of conscience. A time for going to Confession and returning in a renewed way to God, to Jesus. At best it should involve Spiritual Direction: another person sometimes sees better what we don't see and at the very least, God confirms his grace through this humble act of consulting a Spiritual Director. Even the more practical means, above-mentioned, can at this time be deepened as new dimensions emerge, namely, fasting with our tongue, fasting with our thoughts.
It is noteworthy to add that if we are planning to fast more than what the Church asks, it is important to consult a Spiritual Director and to obey God through him/her, because the effort of obedience is regarded more favourably by God than the effort of any other sacrifice we might offer Him outside of obedience. A sacrifice offered automatically outside of obedience can, in fact jeopardise our spiritual efforts. Being outside of obedience jeopardises our spiritual effort.

In obedience to the great commandment of Jesus to love God and our Neighbour as ourselves, Lent provides the perfect time for opening our heart to those brothers and sisters we never think of: the sick, the housebound, the prisoner and especially to that special need of our own times: the growing homeless and the refugee. People we never think of. Praying, too, for those who are far from God, will show greater love for those for whom He also gave up his life on the Cross. It can be basically characterised as a time essentially of Mercy, where we ask God to give us a Merciful Heart like His. A Time where we open our hearts to our enemies, we pray for them, we are patient with them and love them, by the Grace of God.

Small Tips 

One can attend some good talks.

One can go for a retreat: short (week-end recollection), or a long one (seven days or more).

One can visit a place of Pilgrimage.

One can attend a Play or a film on the Passion. Or reflect on a Masterpiece on the Passion, reading about it, or meditating upon it. 

Advice 

- Drawing closer to the Word of God: rediscovering or intensifying the practice of Lectio Divina, based on the daily readings will reconnect us directly to Jesus, and will make of us a better conduit for the flow of the Graces of God and His Mercy from us to our neighbour.

- Meditating the Passion of the Lord is probably the most powerful tool for Growth. Linked to it is the devotion called: the Via Crucis. One can, on each Thursday evening, start to read one of the four Passions of the Gospels, from the last supper, in order to follow Jesus. If God touches us with a word or sentence, it is advisable to dwell upon them, and remain with Jesus, in prayer. This is a very powerful means to receive the grace of God and of gaining a deep and moving experience of Jesus. So, from Thursday evening onwards, one follows Jesus with the passage corresponding to the event, from the Last Supper, to the Garden of Gethsemane, including the following day, Friday, the judgement, crucifixion and death, then one remains with Mary, believing and waiting for the Resurrection, early Sunday.

- Drawing closer to Our Lady by taking some time daily to stay with her. Meditating on some texts: St Luke, "True devotion to Our Lady" (De Montfort). Our Lady is very important if we are to seek a deeper spiritual life. Therefore, discovering Her place in our life, or deepening it are very important.

Please see as well these two articles:

What is Christian Fasting?
The Power of Fasting

Course "Meditating the Passion" available online

For a short period of time the videos of this Course will be available for free. (click here)

Blessed Lent 2017

For more information please see leaflet here

Do you have a guardian Angel? 2/2

(The following is taken from the eBook: "Seven letters from your Angel" please see the link here)

First letter

A Palpable Presence 

My Beloved,
As you see, I start my first letter to you calling you "my Beloved", this is just to open your eyes to the fact that I am somebody who loves you dearly and to whom you mean everything. Yes, my life is linked to yours as I am destined to be always close to you, to walk the journey of this life with you; to help you, guide you and comfort you; to give you all sorts of help according to your needs of the moment. We are called to walk together, to "grow" together; our destiny is to be together.

Even though I am immersed in the Light and Love of Above and am constantly submerged with heavenly joy; I am continuously with you, I never abandon you, and am here to help you and serve you.

The "smiling angel" (Reims Cathedral)

As you see, my first letter to you has the reassuring title that summarizes my first gift to you: "a 'palpable' presence".

Yes I am "palpable"; my being can communicate with you in several tangible ways. So this is to reassure you that you will not be in the illusion of an abstract speech, you will not be transported to an abstract world through strange experiences (even though the spiritual experience with me will lead to such new horizons). I am here, present for you, very present for you, looking at you with such care and love. I am your closest friend, and it is so natural to be here and communicate. It is as if you have your eyes closed in a room full of sunlight with your best friend close to you; you feel his presence, you know that he is here; he sees you.

I listen to you always; whether you tell me with your voice or only with your thoughts. So this is the first step. I am with you all the time, I hear you, and I see you. I am not indiscreet. I am here when you need me, I respect you.

As I mentioned: my presence is palpable, you too, can hear me. Here are some examples from your daily experience, so you'll realize that we have communicated before, but you didn't know it was me. Very often, in the early morning, when you are still in bed, and you are in a state between sleeping and being awakened, I send you a small luminous message. You may start to notice the first thought, not the subsequent thoughts. The first is pure and comes from me; the impressions that follow are already "immersions" in your day, in your world, in your problems. The very first one is my gift of the day. So don't forget to treasure my first message of the morning and help it give fruits in your day, as the day is the unit of your life. Every day is an entire life.

But I am not here only to give you the first message. I will give you other examples: very often I protected your body from accidents, or from being harmed. You perhaps didn't pay enough attention to my protection, but I am here. And in many ways I even penetrated into your material world, for example the engines you use, electricity, I help when it is necessary. Sometimes I soften sharp effects, so any harm becomes like a message, a warning from me telling you that you are forgetting something, and your balance is broken.

Very often, I also communicated to you my thoughts. Yes, in your head, in your cranial bone you have a "window" on each side: your temples. This is to open the communication with me, so I can communicate to you my thoughts, the light, new ideas, and indications for decisions and new insights. As you see, through your soft skin and brain, I communicate to your mind ideas, thoughts and light. Yes, it is subtle and difficult to make the difference between my thoughts and yours, because we are so close, and you don't have ample awareness of what happens in your mind and how. But you will always notice that my thoughts are new. They don't come from you but rather from an external source. You may notice that very often they come when, after a hard struggle in the darkness, your tensions are released, so that at this point you are ready to receive my light. The effort you made, the struggle you went through, dug a place for the light, so you can hear me and receive my light easily.

Sometimes my warning may appear like "knocking" in your brain, such as when you have a headache; it is just a way to attract your attention, so you would stop any activity and listen to me.

Sometimes I give you a sign of my presence, like for example placing on your path a small feather.

So as you see, we have already spoken and communicated just like two close friends.

My beloved, now that you have a new awareness, we can do more. If you are more attentive to my presence, to the free gift of my constant presence beside you, if you envisage how much I want to help you in your daily life to reach new heights, you will increase your perception, your capacity for communication, and you will feel me more tangibly.

Some people can see their angels or other angels. If this gift is given to you then it is fine - enjoy this help. However it is not necessary to see me. We communicate already, and the normal daily means are given to you. You will always have my thoughts and ideas to help you every day, according to your needs. Now concentrate more on what is already given to you and improve it with higher awareness.

Meditate, take a few minutes to ask for my help to see clearly today’s step. Everyday you can grow. So take a few minutes, concentrate, ask for my help and watch for my guidance, clearly identifying today's true need – the path to follow.

Treat me as your friend; speak to me and then focus on feeling my presence, my love and my help more clearly.

I offer you today and only once, the gift of receiving small (or large) signs of my presence. Ask for three signs and surely I'll bring them to you, so you will doubt my presence no more.

But later, don't keep asking for these signs. Respect, sincerity, and commitment are important. It is not a game; it is a relationship, a friendship. Afterwards you will enjoy many signs of my presence, as they come, like in a dance in nature.

Now one last word of advice: don't hesitate to read again and meditate on this letter. Accordingly you'll be able to extract its substance and have a new start in your life.

Tomorrow, I'll send you my Second Letter. Don't think about it now, receive today's grace, and leave tomorrow for tomorrow.

I am here; I won’t leave you, EVER.

Rejoice in our friendship.

Your Angel

(From the eBook: "Seven letters from your Angel" please see the link here)