by Fr Ian
Different types and different stages of prayer, cont.
C. Affective prayer
A well-known saying of Saint Teresa of Avila is that in our relationship with God the important thing is not to think a great deal but to love a great deal.[16] The goal of prayer isn’t to entertain profound ideas and thoughts about God, even less to construct original theories about God, but to strengthen the bonds of a real, personal communion with God.
Affective prayer, then, refers to the gradual transition we
make from discursive prayer and meditation, in which our reasoning faculty
tends to play the largest part, to a prayer in which the commitment of love
towards God becomes more dominant.
We could call this form of
prayer a prayer of the heart if we bear in mind the biblical meaning of ‘heart’
- not the seat of our emotions principally, but the deepest centre of the
person where fundamental dispositions of will, desire and conscience, and then
also the accompanying emotional attitudes, take shape.
It’s in the heart that we
orientate ourselves either towards God or away from him. It’s in the depth of
our heart that we basically open up in receptivity to God, and once we’ve taken
this step we start to advance in a continuing, deepening conversion of life and
become a wholly new and different person under the influence of God’s grace
(Eph 4:22-24). And so it’s from the deep dispositions of our heart that our
prayer assumes a greater and greater degree of love for God.
As the spiritual theologian Father Jordan Aumann puts it, ‘There is no specific difference between affective prayer and meditation, as there is between meditation and contemplation; it is merely a simplified meditation in which love predominates’[17]
Our longing for God isn’t
solely a desire for satisfying intellectual answers. It’s a broader, larger
hunger, a longing not only to know God but to love and serve him with the power
of our will and our affections. Perseverance in prayer and the progress we make
over time draws out, expresses and fulfils this longing.
The real fruits of affective prayer
One of the potential pitfalls of affective prayer is the tendency to hanker after strong emotional reactions during prayer and then, in order to satisfy this hankering, to work ourselves into experiencing purely manufactured feelings. If we’re guilty of this tendency it’s an indication that we’re still too self-absorbed, when actually we should be directing our attention away from ourself and towards God.
Spiritual progress can never be measured accurately by strength of feelings, which are often superficial and transitory and a form of self-indulgence. Our approach to prayer should be governed rather by attitudes of patience and trust: that God is slowly, surely, but probably imperceptibly, effecting the necessary transformation in us.
And
in fact the fruits of prayer are not to be identified with any sort of powerful
wave of emotion experienced while praying, but with real growth of
holiness and virtue, including a decline in self-absorption and
self-aggrandisement, outside the times of prayer (Mt 7:16).
D. The ‘prayer of simplicity’
Catholic spiritual writers have used several expressions to describe this type of prayer: prayer of the heart, prayer of simple presence, active recollection, acquired contemplation, the prayer of simple gaze. The term ‘prayer of simplicity’ is usually attributed to the French bishop and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) and this passage from his writings gives us a good idea of what he meant by it:
‘Meditation is very good in its time and very useful at the beginning of the spiritual life; but we should not stop there, since the soul, by its fidelity in mortifying and recollecting itself, ordinarily receives a purer and more intimate prayer, which may be called the prayer of simplicity. This prayer consists in a simple view, a gaze on God, on Jesus Christ or on one of His mysteries.
Therefore, leaving reasoning behind, the soul makes use of a sweet contemplation which holds it peaceful, attentive, and susceptible to the divine operations and impressions which the Holy Ghost communicates to it. It does little and receives much…and, as it draws nearer to the source of all light, grace, and virtue, it is also proportionately expanded...’[18]
The different forms of mental prayer - meditation, affective prayer, the prayer of simplicity - aren’t radically different activities. But they’re distinct points along a single path, and there’s a progress or advance involved in the passage from one to the other.
The course of travel, as we can see from Bossuet’s remarks, is towards a more contemplative prayer, and in the prayer of simplicity, as distinct from affective prayer, the key feature is that the multiplicity of ideas, inner dispositions, emotional attitudes with which we approach God become simplified and unified. They resolve or fuse into a single movement of calm, quiet communion with God which Christian spiritual masters - echoing Bossuet’s language - have described with phrases like ‘a simple loving attention to God’ or ‘a gaze of ardent love’.
We can see that the prayer of
simplicity isn’t likely to be experienced by new converts or beginners in
Christian faith, unless God grants them a very particular grace, which is rare,
but always possible. Nor is it likely to be experienced by Christians who
haven’t fostered a regular, disciplined prayer life over the course of many
years.
Rather, it’s the fruit of a certain growth and maturity in the person’s Christian life as a whole. God becomes the dominant influence, the ruling guide in all our activities. We become detached from many of the things that previously we sought and strived for and God becomes the central object of our devotion.
We renounce sinful
goals and grow in virtue and holiness. Another way of describing the process is
to say that our life becomes simplified, all our thoughts and emotions become
more integrated around God and our personal vocation to be holy as God is holy.
Naturally this is reflected also in the way we pray. Our intellect, our imagination and will focus, or concentrate, on God and we grow in a kind of inner intuitive closeness to him, a deeper awareness of his presence around us and within us.
This takes place
even while God remains an incomprehensible mystery to us at the level of
analytical reason. Fundamentally of course what we’re experiencing is a growth
in love for God and therefore a deepening of communion with God.
The prayer of simplicity
brings us to the threshold of a contemplative relationship with God. Classical
spiritual theology often describes this level of prayer in terms of acquired
contemplation.
This means contemplation
acquired by dedicated effort on our part, as opposed to contemplation in the
strict sense, where God infuses a deep awareness of, and communion with,
himself while we remain almost entirely passive and receptive. I’ll try to say more
about the nature of acquired contemplation in a future post, when we
explore two specific ways of meditative and contemplative prayer.
There is only one way to find God,’ wrote Saint Teresa, ‘and that is by prayer. Those who point to any other way are deceiving you’.[19] Father Marin agrees:
‘Sanctification, self-knowledge, profound humility, recollection, mortification and many other things which are necessary for the attainment of perfection are morally impossible to a person who does not practise meditation.
A person who aspires to sanctity by giving himself completely to the active life while neglecting the life of prayer may just as well forget about Christian perfection. Experience proves that there is absolutely nothing that can supply for the life of prayer, not even the daily reception of the Eucharist. There are many persons who receive Communion every day, yet their spiritual life is mediocre and lukewarm. The reason is none other than the lack of mental prayer, either because they omit it entirely or they practise it in a mechanical and routine fashion.
We repeat that without prayer it is impossible to attain Christian perfection, no matter what our state of life or the occupation to which we dedicate ourselves. The spiritual director must insist constantly on the faithful practice of mental prayer’.[20]
NOTES
[16] Antonio Royo Marin, O.P., The Theology of Christian Perfection, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, (orig. pub. The Priory Press, 1962) p. 514.
[17] Jordan Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology, Continuum, 2006 (orig. pub. 1980) p. 324.
[18] Quoted in Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Volume One, Tan Books, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2013 (orig. pub. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis and London, 1947) p. 540.
[19] Quoted in Approach to Prayer by Hubert Van Zeller, O.S.B., Sheed and Ward Ltd., London, 1958, p. 116.
[20] Royo Marin, p. 521.
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