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Moving beyond good and evil

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Much of the discussion about Centering Prayer appears mundane. What’s the big deal anyway? Why can’t people just pray however they want? Even I sometimes question whether I could spend my time better than in challenging these teachings. Then along comes a statement from a Centering Prayer “guru” that is so outrageous it puts everything into perspective. Such a statement was shared with me today.

Watch this video, which was released last month by the Garrison Institute, for which Fr. Thomas Keating is a spiritual adviser. Pay close attention from about 45 seconds until 1 minute 6 seconds. He’s a bit hard to hear and understand, so turn your volume all the way up.

Now, did you catch that?

Fr. Keating said that contemplation “moves beyond [the] dichotomy” of good and evil, that “all the opposites are resolved” by it.

What is he talking about? Is he right? Is this what Christian contemplation does?

Absolutely not! In fact, this statement alone is so far outside the teaching of the Catholic faith that it should open the eyes of every Christian who has been told that Centering Prayer is in the same category of prayer that the saints practiced.

The Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Culture for Religious Dialogue wrote:

“In New Age there is no distinction between good and evil. Human actions are the fruit of either illumination or ignorance. Hence we cannot condemn anyone, and nobody needs forgiveness. Believing in the existence of evil can create only negativity and fear.” (Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the ‘New Age,’ 2.2.2)

Fr. Keating’s teaching is New Age, not Christian.

Good and evil are real!

The Catechism repeatedly and unabashedly teaches the dichotomy of good and evil. For example:

“Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil.” (No. 1749)

And

“There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.” (No. 1761)

Becoming aware of God’s presence within oneself is a key component of Centering Prayer. Yet here is how the Catechism speaks of God’s presence in the soul:

“Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (No. 1776)

In other words, the innermost sanctuary of man, his “inner core” where he meets with God is his conscience! He must obey the law of God written in his heart. There can be no communion with the indwelling God without acknowledging the difference between good and evil, rejecting evil, and choosing good.

Centering Prayer suggests that good and evil are not real, but only constructs that a person moves beyond as he grows spiritually. Such a teaching mocks the doctrine of Original Sin. If no choice is good as opposed to evil, no choice has moral value. No choice can separate a person from God.

What about Original Sin?

Unsurprisingly, given this latest statement, Fr. Keating’s view of Original Sin is problematic. In Open Mind, Open Heart, he defines Original Sin as:

“A way of explaining the universal experience of coming to full reflective self-consciousness without the inner conviction or experience of union with God.”(20th Anniversary Edition, p. 189)

Thus his rejection of “the dichotomy of good and evil” makes perfect sense in the context of his theology. For Fr. Keating, good and evil are illusions. Original Sin is an illusion. What man needs, according to Fr. Keating, is a change of consciousness. Redemption is meaningless; what are we to be redeemed from? Who is to redeem us? After all, Fr. Keating has also said that the distinction between God and the soul is an illusion. If our “true self” is God, all we need to do is tap into that true self by ignoring our conscious thoughts and feelings and changing our inner convictions. We do not need to journey towards union with God in this view. We already are in union with God. We just don’t know it!

Only the truth heals

In contrast, the USCCB writes of sin and redemption:

“We cannot speak about life in Christ or the moral life without acknowledging the reality of sin, our own sinfulness, and our need for God’s mercy. When the existence of sin is denied it can result in spiritual and psychological damage because it is ultimately a denial of the truth about ourselves. Admitting the reality of sin helps us to be truthful and opens us to the healing that comes from Christ’s redemptive act.” (Excerpt from the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults,  as found on the USCCB website)

Far from healing our wounds, rejection of the reality of sin causes us further damage. This rejection of reality does not destroy a false self–it creates one! If we desire healing, we must bring the wounds of sin to Christ and receive His mercy.

No good and evil, no sin, no redemption, no mercy. Yet the Holy Father Pope Francis has declared this the Year of Mercy.

Practicing Centering Prayer brings a false peace by denying that the conflict within ourselves and in our world has any meaning. We are told to simply “detach” from our thoughts and feelings about it, to move beyond opposites such as good/evil and God/man. We are told to go beyond them, to a deeper level, beyond reason, beyond feeling, beyond imagination.

This latest video demonstrates that doing so means going beyond the boundaries of our faith in Christ. May I also say it is beyond the pale?

Avoiding false teachings on prayer (Part II of III)

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Betende_von_Chodowiecki_(01)
Kneeling in Prayer by Daniel Chodowiecki (Wikimedia Commons).

 

This series by Dan Burke originally ran at SpiritualDirection.com and has been reposted here (slightly edited) by permission.

In our first post we briefly reviewed the challenges that surface when we ignore the wisdom of the Church regarding the distinctions between the three different forms of prayer and the problem of spiritual naturalism. In this post we will cover the progressive nature of prayer and how a misunderstanding of this reality can lead us astray.

Ignorance of the progressive nature of prayer

The third error commonly found in most modern pseudo-mysticism is the absence of any acknowledgement, or understanding, of the progressive nature of prayer and communion with the Lord. In this case, the unsuspecting disciple is taught a prayer method without appropriate relational boundaries that define a loving relationship between persons.

How would you feel about a man who was openly and serially unfaithful to his wife, all the while cavalierly pursuing intimacy with her as a right or expectation? Similarly, these blind teachers will lead pilgrims to a method of intimate “contemplation” without any concern for the state of their soul or their relationship with the one with whom they are seeking intimacy.

Here’s a scenario that plays out every day in these groups that sell this spiritual poison (usually at around $200 per workshop): A Catholic sincerely desires to deepen their relationship with God. He is welcomed in with hushed-holy tones and loving smiles, directed to a prayer method, and coached to practice this method with the promise of “contemplation.”

However, there is often little concern about whether this pilgrim is actually in a state that makes it possible to even begin this prayer relationship. If this sincere pilgrim is living in mortal sin, he is incapable of fostering that relationship without first engaging in a repentance that begins with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

To return to our spousal analogy, the unfaithful spouse must turn from his sinful ways and seek forgiveness and restoration. Upon the foundation of this restored relationship, holy intimacy can then begin to slowly develop, as faithfulness to the relationship is more fully realized.

The Cloud of Unknowing

A classic and specific example of this methodology comes through the use of the advice in the book, The Cloud of Unknowing. The unknown author of the book properly and very forcefully admonishes the reader that without serious preparation for the author’s advice through diligent ascesis (see next paragraph), they cannot and should not seek to tread the path revealed in the Cloud.

What does this mean? Repentance is merely a foundation of behavior that reflects what it looks like to have a loving relationship between persons. Turning away from sin and toward holiness is a long and challenging process known as “ascesis.” The pilgrim can expect a deepening level of intimacy with the Lord (up to the point of infused contemplation) to the degree that his life faithfully reflects a covenant of love between persons. An expectation of intimacy without this ongoing attention to a loving and honoring relationship is sinful narcissism that results in nothing more than self-worship of spiritualized emotions and delusion.

Suffice it to say that developing intimacy with God is not achieved instantaneously. Just as a child must learn to hold up his head, then roll, then crawl, then walk, and then run, our spiritual life develops in phases that are similarly predictable and understandable. In my book Navigating the Interior Life, I cover the three ways of the interior life that natively reflect different stages of growth in prayer and intimacy with God. Most treatments of this topic are no less than 500 pages in length – so we cannot dig into the detail here – however, the key is that depth of prayer comes through stages of development that cannot be bypassed through naturalistic methods.

In our final post on this topic we will explore the dangerous effects of a pseudo-spirituality that moves the soul into a depersonalized view of God. We will also turn the corner and focus on a few ways we can dig into the real thing.

Dan Burke is the Managing Editor of the National Catholic Register, President of the Avila Institute, the administrator of SpiritualDirection.com, and the author of several books on mystical theology.

Avoiding false teachings on prayer (Part I of III)

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Betende von Chodowiecki ''Devotka Popolska''
Woman Praying with Rosary
by Daniel Chodowiecki (Wikimedia Commons)

 

This series by Dan Burke originally appeared at SpiritualDirection.com and has been reposted by permission. Stay tuned for parts II and III.

A faithful follower of the Lord asks: Dear Dan, I enjoy reading more modern writers about prayer and the spiritual life but I am always worried about false teachings that could lead me away from the heart of the Church. How can I know when an author is not orthodox or teaches something that could lead me to deception instead of to God?

You are wise to be concerned about finding the pure teaching of God on the matter of prayer. If the enemy can confuse us about the manner in which we communicate with our Lord, he can do much damage to our faith. Unfortunately, it seems that for every one good book on the topic of prayer, there are ten that contain various kinds of pseudo-mysticism that sound good and can yield positive temporal outcomes, but lack authentic mystical tradition.

I will attempt here to provide a summary of the most common problems with modern teachings on prayer so that you can effectively navigate past the empty teachings of the world and toward the truth of God.

Lost without distinctions

With respect to trusting particular modern authors, the first and most common red flag is that they ignore the distinctions provided by the Church between the different kinds of prayer. Whether done out of arrogance, ignorance or sloppiness, this disregard is a signal that the author is not at all concerned with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and the thousands of years of spiritual wisdom in the Church. These are writers to avoid.

The Church outlines three distinct forms of prayer in the Catechism (part four, chapter three), each with their own definition and related teachings. These are: vocal prayer, meditation and contemplation. Often meditation and contemplation are incorrectly presented as the same thing, though they are not synonymous. When authors do this, any differences between these two distinct forms of prayer are ignored or explained away – an approach that is a sure path to confusion and a clear sign that you’ve uncovered unreliable teaching. This is particularly true because meditation is a work of the will and intellect of a person. Said another way, fruitful meditation can be experienced through the will and the intellect. Contemplation however, especially what is known as “infused contemplation,” is strictly the realm of God’s grace. In summary, meditation is the work of humanity (for the most part), and contemplation is the work of the Divine. Put in the light of faithful tradition, the danger of confusion between these two forms of prayer and the negligence of some modern writers becomes more clear.

“Prayer” methods rooted in spiritual naturalism

The second danger sign is a perspective that is rooted in a form of spiritual naturalism. This orientation is the outgrowth of well-intended persons using purely human means (e.g. psychology or non-Christian meditation techniques) to overcome common challenges in prayer. The confusing twist here is that these ideas are usually wrapped in spiritual terms in a way that often masks their purely human trappings.

For example, to deal with distractions in prayer, the pilgrim is instructed to focus on a “sacred word” or a mantra instead of receiving guidance on how to focus on and engage with the Lord himself. Though these purely human methods can help to minimize distracting thoughts, this positive gain is not in the direction of the Lord, but of earth or self. In the end, it does nothing, in and of itself, to draw one deeper into union with Christ in prayer. Properly used, these methods can provide fertile ground for focus on the Lord, but more often the end is silence of the mind and centering in self rather than engaging with God.

To be clear, the problem here is not necessarily in the methods, but in a shallow focus. This focus diverts our attention from the understanding that prayer is, in its essence, a communion between persons, not a spiritualized mental or psychological exercise. I am not discounting all of these methods wholesale. The problem is primarily rooted in misuse and a misunderstanding of authentic ascetical and mystical theology as the appropriate backdrop for the understanding and use of any prayer method.

In our Part II of this series, we will cover the progressive nature of prayer and how a misunderstanding of this reality can lead us way off the narrow path of a deepening relationship with God in prayer.

Dan Burke is the Managing Editor of the National Catholic Register, President of the Avila Institute, the administrator of SpiritualDirection.com, and the author of several books on mystical theology.

Centering Prayer and distractions

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William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_The_Difficult_Lesson_(1884)
The Difficult Lesson
 by Bouguereau

 

One Centering Prayer practitioner wrote to me in an online conversation, “In this information age of constant texting and tweets I think Centering Prayer is a very practical way to do ‘be still’ and surrender in God’s presence; it’s helped me to detach from negative thoughts and feelings…”

This is a common assertion, one I’m sympathetic to. We certainly do have too much “noise” in our world–not just beeps and drum beats, but also texts and pop-ups and real-time videos. The over-abundance of sensory stimulation distracts us from focusing on God in prayer. How can we be free of such distracting thoughts?

Fr. Keating’s solution

Fr. Thomas Keating responds to the notion that Centering Prayer seeks to make the mind blank in these words:

“Centering Prayer is not so much the absence of thoughts as detachment from them.” (Open Mind, Open Heart, 12)

Later, he says:

“As freedom from the thralldom of habitual thoughts and desires grows, we are able to enter into interior prayer with a quiet mind.” (ibid., 13)

Although this quote makes it sound like a truly quiet mind only belongs to those advanced in prayer, such is not Fr. Keating’s teaching. Throughout his writing is the idea that thoughts are “the enemy” of deep communion with God.

“The method consists in letting go of every kind of thought during prayer, even the most devout thoughts.” (Open Mind, Open Heart,  21)

Now, there is certainly a sense in which one’s thoughts get in the way of intimacy with God. If you are thinking about your latest Facebook post throughout your prayer time, your prayer won’t be very fruitful. Prayer is not about social media. These thoughts are hampering your spiritual growth.

Your thoughts are not the real problem

So, how do you solve this problem of wild thoughts? Centering Prayer tries to solve it by setting aside all thoughts during prayer, both sacred and profane. This is not the traditional Catholic solution. The wayward thoughts are not really the problem; they are only the symptom of the problem. The disorder is not in being attached to one’s thoughts about Facebook, but being attached to Facebook. If Facebook distracts you during prayer, you should spend less time on social media, or take a break from it long before you go to mental prayer, or use it only for the glory of God and not your own pleasure.

God made the human mind. The capacity for thought is a gift. A healthy and fully developed human being thinks. There is nothing disordered, nothing ungodly or unholy, about thinking.

An analogy

Let’s use an analogy to look at this more deeply. Imagine you are praying and you have serious digestive problems. You find it hard to pray, because you are uncomfortable and in pain. The reason for your indigestion is that you over-indulged in greasy foods. So, how do you keep indigestion from interrupting your prayer time in the future?

Do you throw out digestion, or try to set it aside and become “detached” from it? How can you? Digestion is a healthy process that is involuntary. Your indigestion is not due to a defect in your body so much as a defect in your eating habits. So you give up over-eating greasy foods. You eat foods that agree with you and the indigestion goes away, no longer interfering with your prayer.

When you give up bad eating habits in order to strengthen your prayer time, you practice detachment from food. You use food in a way that serves God’s will instead of battling it. You make a sacrifice out of love for Christ. You grow spiritually, as a result of your (response to) indigestion!

What are you thinking about?

 Now, let’s go back to thinking. Unlike digestion, which is always involuntary, thoughts are sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary. You may be able to ignore small aches and pains during prayer, but major discomfort is impossible to neglect. You think about it involuntarily.

What about other thoughts? You might start your prayer time with the right intentions and effort, but still you think about Facebook in spite of yourself. These thoughts too are involuntary. They differ from thoughts due to laziness or carelessness, intentionally daydreaming during prayer. As soon as you recognize them, you try to turn your mind back to Christ.

The mind was made to know. When it thinks, it is doing its job. You must make sure that what you put into your mind outside prayer won’t distract you from God during prayer. Just as you put healthy food in your body to keep digestion working smoothly, you put godly thoughts in your mind to keep your involuntary thoughts during prayer profitable.

In other words, during your day, think of God often. Regulate your thoughts outside of prayer. Are you spending a lot of time daydreaming? Are you thinking judgmental, malicious, or lustful thoughts? Break these habits outside of prayer. Follow the teaching of St. Paul:

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)

If your involuntary thoughts during prayer are of lovely and praiseworthy things, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

St. Teresa’s advice

St. Teresa of Avila writes in Interior Castle:

“We should not be distressed by reason of our thoughts, nor allow ourselves to be worried by them: if they come from the devil, he will let us alone if we take no notice of them; and if they are, as often happens, one of the many frailties entailed by Adam’s sin, let us be patient and suffer them for the love of God.” (Fourth Mansions, Chapter 1, 11)

Now when Teresa talks of “taking no notice” of our thoughts, she does not mean we should try to set aside all thoughts. Rather, she means that involuntary thoughts should not worry us, even if they should come form the Devil. She goes on to say that we will not suffer from wayward thoughts in heaven, and adds:

“Even in this life God delivers us from them when we reach the last mansion.” (ibid., 12)

If you are unfamiliar with Interior Castle, the last (or seventh) mansion is the transforming union, the heights of the spiritual life on earth. Even some saints do not attain this state. Teresa did, and she knew others who did as well. She was well-qualified to teach us about it. Only in this highest stage–long after the beginning of the contemplative life–should we expect freedom from our thoughts.

Teresa herself suffered for fourteen years from a wildly distracted mind in prayer. She writes:

“Some find their thoughts wandering so much that they cannot concentrate upon the same thing, but are always restless, to such an extent that, if they try to fix their thoughts upon God, they are attacked by a thousand foolish ideas and scruples and doubts concerning the Faith… There are a great many other people just like this; if they are humble, they will not, I think, be any the worse off in the end, but very much in the same state as those who enjoy numerous consolations.” (The Way of Perfection, Chapter 17)

Teresa is very practical. She does not ever counsel people to try to put aside all thoughts through their own power. She instructs everyone to strive to keep their thoughts focused on God, but she is understanding towards those who find this difficult.

“[I]t is impossible to speak to God and to the world at the same time; yet this is just what we are trying to do when we are saying our prayers and at the same time listening to the conversation of others or letting our thoughts wander on any matter that occurs to us, without making an effort to control them. There are occasions when one cannot help doing this: times of ill-health (especially in persons who suffer from melancholia); or times when our heads are tired, and, however hard we try, we cannot concentrate; or times when, for their own good, God allows His servants for days on end to go through great storms. And, although they are distressed and strive to calm themselves, they are unable to do so and incapable of attending to what they are saying, however hard they try, nor can they fix their understanding on anything: they seem to be in a frenzy, so distraught are they. The very suffering of anyone in this state will show her that she is not to blame, and she must not worry, for that only makes matters worse.” (ibid., Chapter 24)

What is Teresa’s solution? Not trying to avoid thinking any thoughts at all, but being patient and humble and trusting and doing one’s best.

In fact, Teresa gives the exact opposite advice that Fr. Keating and Contemplative Outreach give when it comes to setting aside one’s thoughts. She says:

“Taking it upon oneself to stop and suspend thought is what I mean should not be done; nor should we cease to work with the intellect, because otherwise we would be left like cold simpletons and be doing neither one thing nor the other. When the Lord suspends the intellect and causes it to stop, He Himself gives it that which holds its attention and makes it marvel and without reflection it understands more in the space of a Creed than we can understand with all our earthly diligence in many years. Trying to keep the soul’s faculties busy and thinking you can make them be quiet is foolish.” (Life,  Chapter 12)

Detachment is not primarily about thoughts

Detachment from thoughts is not the type of detachment that concerned the saints, because thought in itself, as we have seen, does not keep one from God. Emptying yourself of thoughts does not bring you into closer union with God.

“[T]he emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us.” (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, 19)

Instead of trying to ignore all thoughts in prayer, try to live in such a way that your involuntary thoughts glorify God. Avoid thinking about worldly things when you are talking to God. Think instead of godly things. Meditating on Sacred Scripture helps you to fill your mind with thoughts of God so that you can grow in knowledge and love of Him. Follow God’s will in the smallest details of your life outside prayer. Then if you have distracting thoughts in prayer that you can’t control, remain peaceful and entrust them to God. He will free you from them in His own way and time.

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Open Mind, Open Heart by Fr. Thomas Keating: a Review

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This post originally appeared at DetailThomasKeatingDiscussionWithTheDalaiLamaBoston2012-380x375SpiritualDirection.com with a different title. It has been slightly edited.

Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating is the premier promoter of the practice of Centering Prayer. His book Open Mind, Open Heart, first published in 1986, has sold over half a million copies. Is this book a good resource for growth in prayer? Can I trust Fr. Thomas Keating as a guide to the spiritual life? In this post we’ll take an in-depth look at this book and the theology behind it.

Fr. Keating, like all those who promote and teach Centering Prayer, claims to follow the tradition of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Thérèse of Lisieux, and others. However, in his book he provides no evidence to back up this claim. He quotes none of these saints. In fact, he has very few quotes from any Catholic sources and none that give us their complete context.

In the introduction, Keating describes Centering Prayer as a “specific method of awakening the gift of contemplation” (page ix).* In contrast, the Carmelite saints rarely speak of techniques or methods of prayer. Instead, they urge a life surrendered to Christ. In order to avoid such criticism, Centering Prayer advocates insist they are not teaching a “technique” but a “method.” They seem to think that substituting the synonym “method” for “technique” solves the issue. It does not.

The real problem lies in the idea that we can attain to infused contemplation by following a set of steps in our prayer time, thus making states of consciousness more central than Christ. Such an idea is antithetical to the teaching of the Carmelite saints. Humility, perseverance in prayer and virtue, and faithfulness to God’s grace throughout the day–supported by growing detachment to created things–are what constitute the necessary preparation for contemplative prayer.

Throughout Open Mind, Open Heart, Fr. Keating over-emphasizes the soul’s role in attaining contemplation. I expected this would be the case from what I already knew about Centering Prayer. What surprised me were the many theological errors I found–some of them egregious. To be fair, a few of Fr. Keating’s descriptions of how the soul should behave during Centering Prayer are very close to orthodox teaching about acquired contemplation–the final stage of prayer in the Purgative Way. But we must remember the adage lex orandi, lex credendi–prayer is the expression of what we believe. Bad prayer methods and bad theology reinforce each other.

I cannot address every error in the book in a blog post, so I will confine myself to those that are most troubling. Let’s look at Keating’s teaching about the nature of God, man, sin, redemption, and the proper focus of our prayer.

1. Who is God?

Perhaps the greatest error, and the one most widely known, is Fr. Keating’s blurring of the distinction between God and man. Accused of pantheism, he and other Centering Prayer advocates respond that they teach panentheism. Panentheism covers many different spiritualities, some more problematic than others. Fr. Keating specifically teaches non-dualism. Non-dualism contradicts true Catholic spirituality. Here is just one quote among many that shows the problem:

“God and our true Self are not separate. Though we are not God, God and our true Self are the same thing” (158).*

In orthodox Catholic teaching, even at the highest stages of union with God, the soul always remains a distinct personality.

Another problem centers on our ability to know God. Fr. Keating writes that we don’t know exactly who or what God is (41),* and as we mature in faith, we do not even want to know (66).* This is repudiated by such Scripture passages as this:

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

In other words, we do not fully understand God now, but our spiritual transformation entails knowing Him as He is. Our desire to know Him, as well as our understanding itself, move in the opposite direction that Fr. Keating proposes.

2. Who is Man?

Writing about the method of Centering Prayer, which involves letting thoughts slip past your mind without taking notice of them, Fr. Keating says the method prepares one to accept that “when the body slips away from the spirit, no great change is going to take place” (53).* He does not elaborate, but he is obviously speaking of death, the separation of the soul from the body. If death brings “no great change,” why do we need a resurrection? The body is an essential part of the human person. And, we profess the resurrection of the body in the Creed every Sunday at Mass, and every time we pray the Rosary.

3. Sin and Redemption

Fr. Keating writes that the main thing separating us from God “is the thought that we are separated from Him” (33).* This same error shows up in his discussion of Baptism, in which he says “our sense of separation from God and from others is destroyed” (159)* and is in his definition of Original Sin, wherein he repeats the error that separation from God is an illusion. Of course, separation from God due to sin is a reality (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1849-1850), not an illusion that we must be set free from.

How can we grow towards union with God? Fr. Keating says repeatedly that our thoughts and emotions are what primarily keep us away from Him. (See, for example, page 164.)*

4. The Focus of Prayer

Finally, Fr. Keating gets the focus of our prayer time entirely wrong. This may not seem like such a big deal, until one reads exactly what his error is. This is where the bad theology ends in a bad prayer method. The focus is completely off.

Fr. Keating writes, “The method consists of letting go of every kind of thought during the time of prayer, even the most devout thoughts” (21).* He clearly states more than once that this includes every type of communication and inspiration coming from God Himself. He urges his followers to use a “sacred word” during prayer, but not only can that word be something completely secular if one chooses, Keating says that “the less the word means to you, the better” (40).*

Where is Christ in this prayer? He is not at the center of it. Fr. Keating, without any evidence to back up his assertion, states that God’s first language is silence, so that, if we attain silence, God will come and fill it (48).* (Elsewhere, Fr. Keating names St. John of the Cross as the origin of this quote about silence, but I have found no citation telling me where to find it in the saint’s writings and have not been able to locate it myself. If a reader can point me to the quote in St. John’s writings, I’ll amend this post.)  In contrast, we read in Scripture, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God” (John 1:1). From all eternity, God has been speaking. The Word He speaks is God the Son. Jesus is God’s first and eternal language. If we are truly open to God in prayer, we will seek Him through His Son, not through a forced silence of the mind.

Elsewhere, Fr. Keating mentions Jacob’s dream of a ladder going up to heaven. Fr. Keating says the ladder “represents different levels of consciousness or faith” (90).* But in the Gospel, Jacob’s ladder represents Christ:

“[Jesus] said to [Nathanael] ‘…I say to you, you will see…the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1: 51).

Some Closing Thoughts

In this post, we’ve examined some of the teachings about the nature of God, the nature of man, sin and redemption, and the focus of prayer according to Fr. Thomas Keating. We’ve demonstrated how Fr. Keating’s thought differs from authentic Catholic spirituality, by quoting from just a few of the many examples of error in his book Open Mind, Open Heart and showing how they differ from authentic Catholic spirituality. His text says a lot about how states of consciousness, in Centering Prayer, are more central than Jesus is.

Centering Prayer, as taught by Fr. Thomas Keating, is not traditional Christian prayer. It is based on a theology more influenced by Zen Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation than by the saints whose names Fr. Keating sprinkles throughout his text. It will not help a person prepare for infused contemplation. The evidence speaks for itself. My advice about Fr. Keating is to completely avoid his “theology”.

***

* Quotes from Open Mind, Open Heart are taken from the 20th Anniversary Edition (Bloomsbury: London, 2006).

Art: Detail from Thomas Keating, discussion with the Dalai Lama Boston 2012, “christopher”, 14 October 2012, CCA; L’Extase (The Ecstasy),

What is contemplation?

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This post originally ran in two parts at Contemplative Homeschool. I have edited it slightly here.

Contemplation for Carmelites is the summit of the spiritual life on earth. It is (or should be) the goal of all Christians. But there is a lot of misunderstanding about what contemplation is. The word is used in so many senses, both in secular and religious circles.

The most common definition of “contemplate” is  “think about” or “meditate on.” In this sense, we can contemplate virtually anything.

Pére Marie-Eugene, OCD, gives a great explanation of three types of natural contemplation in I Want to See God.

First, there is aesthetic contemplation. This is when our senses experience beauty and we respond to it with emotion. The classic example is looking at a sunset. A deep communication goes on between the beautiful thing and our heart. We no longer meditate on the details of the object, but simply gaze with love. We soak it in. We feel we have touched something transcendent.

The second type of natural contemplation is intellectual. A philosopher or scientist who has spent years looking for a key idea or law, suddenly finds it. At that moment, he stops inquiring. His intellect is stilled. He delights in his discovery.

Thirdly, there is theological contemplation. This occurs when you are enraptured by a divine truth or a scene from the Gospels. The truth is so awesome, you just want to drown yourself in it. Again, the details fade. Something beyond them has moved your heart. You might experience this in your prayer time, but it is not yet supernatural.

There is a fourth type of natural contemplation, which we could call personal contemplation. A new mother, holding her infant for the first time, saves the counting of fingers and toes for later, being totally caught up in her love for her child. Or two lovers  gaze at each other in awe, saying nothing, even thinking nothing for that moment. Personal contemplation is especially akin to supernatural contemplation.

Christian contemplation versus eastern meditation

Non-Christian contemplation consists of an impersonal awareness. Zen Buddhists practice a meditation or contemplation that is agnostic. God does not come into play. Transcendental meditation, which comes from Hinduism, consists in losing one’s personality in an impersonal, all-encompassing deity. Both these varieties of contemplation are achieved by practitioners’ own actions, which lead to an altered state of consciousness. Centering Prayer also falls into this category.

Christian contemplation is completely different. It is a loving gaze at God who is Love. Supernatural in origin, it can’t be produced through techniques. Modern writers often use the modifier “infused” to indicate that God pours contemplation into the soul.

Meditating on Sacred Scripture (the Bible) can produce theological contemplation, also called acquired contemplation. Christian meditation teaches us to know and love Jesus, thus preparing us to open our hearts fully to God’s love. It helps us form the habit of quieting our souls before God, focusing on Him instead of ourselves. See an example of Christian meditation.

God initiates supernatural contemplation

When a soul dedicates herself to prayer, especially Christian meditation, as well as growth in virtue, she greatly pleases God. God then initiates–in His own time–a deeper love-communion with her.

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us…” (1 John 4:10). Love begins with God. God bestows His love upon the soul and lifts her up, so that she may also gaze upon Him in love. She communes with God beyond words, concepts, and images. This is a foretaste of Heaven, when we will see and love God as He is (see 1 John 3:2).

Complete union with God rarely comes all at once. Instead, there are stages of contemplation. St. Teresa explains these in Interior Castle. As the soul is cleansed from sin and improper attachments to created things, she opens herself more fully to God’s love. Prayer and virtue grow together. True contemplation produces a marked growth in virtue. Sins that seemed unconquerable before are suddenly vanquished.

Natural contemplation can prepare the soul for supernatural contemplation, but it cannot produce it. Nor can eastern religious techniques. Contemplation proper is the action of God. He desires to bestow it on every human being.

 

Centering Prayer: What the Vatican has to say about it

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By Dan Burke, SpiritualDirection.com. Re-posted by permission.

Has the Vatican ever addressed the topic of Centering Prayer or the teachings commonly held by those who advocate or practice Centering Prayer?

Yes, the approach to prayer commonly referred to “Centering Prayer” has been formally and specifically addressed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (we provide the text of this important document below). Here’s a little background that might be helpful.

In a kind of spiritual awakening during the 70s and 80s there were a growing number of well-intentioned Catholics who began to explore the integration of non-Christian Eastern prayer practices and traditional forms of Catholic prayer. There were sufficient concerns about the outcomes of this effort to prompt a response by the Vatican through then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), who issued the letter below to all of the Bishops of the Catholic Church warning of the potential errors in this area.

One only needs a cursory understanding of the history and teachings of Centering Prayer to understand that it is clearly dealt with in this document. As well it is important to note that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has not condemned or suppressed the Centering Prayer movement here or elsewhere. It simply proposes corrections, reforms, and redirection to ensure that those inspired to seek Christ through prayer do so in keeping with the time-tested and faithful traditions and inspirations of Christ and his Church.

Just to be sure that I am being charitable regarding this topic, I don’t condemn honest people seeking to deepen their prayer life through those who have popularized the method. All Catholics who care about their faith will constantly seek to improve their relationships with God and will thereby constantly find themselves correcting their spiritual trajectory. This gentle but specific treatment asks all of us to evaluate the practices and trajectory of our prayer lives to ensure we are pursuing God in a manner that pleases him and is thereby in keeping with Church teaching on the subject.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, if you are a serious Catholic seeking an authentic and profound relationship with Christ in prayer, this document is a must read.

*****

LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON SOME ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, October 15, 1989

I. Introduction

1. Many Christians today have a keen desire to learn how to experience a deeper and authentic prayer life despite the not inconsiderable difficulties which modern culture places in the way of the need for silence, recollection and meditation. The interest which in recent years has been awakened also among some Christians by forms of meditation associated with some eastern religions and their particular methods of prayer is a significant sign of this need for spiritual recollection and a deep contact with the divine mystery. Nevertheless, faced with this phenomenon, many feel the need for sure criteria of a doctrinal and pastoral character which might allow them to instruct others in prayer, in its numerous manifestations, while remaining faithful to the truth revealed in Jesus, by means of the genuine Tradition of the Church. This present letter seeks to reply to this urgent need, so that in the various particular Churches the many different forms of prayer, including new ones, may never lose their correct personal and communitarian nature.

These indications are addressed in the first place to the Bishops, to be considered in that spirit of pastoral solicitude for the Churches entrusted to them, so that the entire people of God–priests, religious and laity–may again be called to pray, with renewed vigor, to the Father through the Spirit of Christ our Lord.

Common errors of Centering Prayer practitioners

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Centering Prayer practitioners are often very sincere people who are seeking a closer relationship with God. For some, a Centering Prayer group at church was their first introduction to the idea of cultivating a deep prayer life. Others have read the saints’ works about prayer, but have not understood them. Both groups are vulnerable to false teachings about prayer.

Unfortunately for them, they are taught a skewed interpretation of the saints, the fathers, and even the Catechism. Theses errors take root. People become emotionally attached to their method of prayer. It is very difficult to convince them that the practice is not in line with Catholic tradition.

Today I’d like to address a few of common misunderstandings I meet in discussions about Centering Prayer. My hope is that even for those of us who would never practice Centering Prayer, this discussion will lead to a greater understanding about the nature of prayer.

The Place of silence

I have written a whole series about silence in prayer. Today I want to attack this question from a different angle. Centering prayer practitioners fall prey to fallacious reasoning that goes like this:

  1. Silence is necessary for contemplation.
  2. Centering Prayer helps one cultivate silence.
  3. Therefore, Centering Prayer leads to contemplation.

Do you see the error here? Silence is necessary for contemplation, yes. The first statement is more or less correct (though inexact and potentially misleading).

Even if we grant number 1, that does not mean silence causes contemplation. And if silence does not cause contemplation, cultivating silence does not necessarily lead to or even pave the way for contemplation.

I would suggest that the orthodox view is rather different:

  1. God alone makes a person a contemplative.
  2. Silence accompanies the gift of infused contemplation, but is not a cause of it.
  3. The one who seeks God in prayer to the exclusion of all else is drawn more and more towards sitting silently in His presence.
  4. Seeking God above and beyond all things prepares the heart for contemplation.
  5. God will grant the gift–when He sees fit–to the heart that has prepared itself.

See the difference?

The place of detachment

Centering Prayer makes a similar error regarding detachment. It goes like this:

  1. Detachment is necessary for contemplation.
  2. If I follow my own thoughts and feelings or inspirations during prayer, I am attached to them.
  3. I must set aside all thoughts, feelings, and inspirations in prayer.
  4. Doing so creates a void that God will fill with Himself.

But the saints would say:

  1. Detachment is necessary for contemplation.
  2. God loves me beyond my wildest dreams and is incomparably greater than any created thing.
  3. It is foolish to hold onto created things and lose God.
  4. If I understand God’s love and greatness, I will desire only Him.
  5. I should seek to understand and experience God’s love and greatness by meditating upon them in prayer.
  6. Doing so will help me set aside created things and make room in my heart for God.
  7. If I make room in my heart out of love for God, He will come to me–in His own timing.

Centering Prayer practitioners often insist that if we do not set aside all our thoughts and feelings during prayer, we are attached to them. But detachment is not a matter of setting aside any one thing–except sin. Detachment is a matter of love. Detachment manifests itself in seeking God’s will alone.

The irony of practicing Centering Prayer is that one becomes attached to a forced silence of the mind and heart. Practitioners are told that even if God speaks to them or appears to them during prayer, they are to set that experience aside and return to silence. But what is prayer for? It is for union with God. Why then should an authentic experience of God in prayer take second place to the Centering Prayer method (that is, to unnatural silence of the mind)?

Acquired recollection

One final error I run into continually. This one is a bit more complicated. It stems from a misreading of the saints and fathers.

Since the earliest years of Christianity, Catholics have recognized that prayer develops in stages. At first, one prays vocal prayers, such as the Our Father or Hail Mary. Then one begins praying in one’s own words (mental prayer). As one practices mental prayer, it becomes simpler. Slowly, one uses fewer words, sometimes lingering in God’s presence for a few minutes without thinking or saying words, simply loving Him.

This simplified stage of mental prayer is called acquired recollection. It is not infused contemplation, but it can sometimes blend into infused recollection, when God sees fit to grant such a gift.

Now, when the saints and fathers wrote about prayer, they did not always write about the earliest stages of prayer. If an abbot or a hermit or a foundress such as Teresa of Avila was writing about prayer, he or she would often assume that readers already knew about these early stages. After all, friars, hermits, and nuns have dedicated their lives to God. They seek Him in prayer daily.

They do not need anyone to teach them the Our Father. They need instruction about more simplified prayer forms. Should their prayer be tending towards simpler expressions? Is it normal and good to experience moments of sitting quietly in God’s presence? What should one do when one feels drawn to God beyond words?

The saints and fathers seek to answer these questions. They tell their readers how to act when they experience acquired recollection, or even the early stages of infused contemplation. They recommend that their readers simply and gently say a word or phrase now and then to help sustain their experience of being in God’s presence.

Now, Centering Prayer advocates read these works and say, “Aha! So we should sit silently in God’s presence and if our minds start to wander, we should say a ‘sacred word.’”

Well, sort of…

But only if you are already practiced in mental prayer. Only if you feel drawn to sit quietly in God’s presence. Only as a means of expressing your longing for God, not as a tool for setting aside thoughts as though that instead of communing with God was the purpose of your prayer.

In other words, you do not just sit down one day and decide to start practicing prayer by trying not to think anything and saying a “sacred word” every time a thought comes into your head. That is not prayer. That is New Age meditation.

Prayer is about drawing close to Jesus. And we begin drawing close to Jesus by praying over the Scriptures, pondering them, expressing our thoughts and feelings to God. And as we naturally begin to desire to listen to Him more and speak less, we use fewer and fewer words.

Do you understand the difference?

Please let me know in the comments box if you’d like me to clarify this further.

Otherwise, happy praying!

This post originally appeared at Contemplative Homescshool.

Did Teresa of Avila teach Centering Prayer?

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Teresabernini
The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini (Wikimedia Commons).

Last winter on social media, I came across another Catholic author who was promoting yoga. Not as an exercise program, but for spiritual growth. I was shocked. I asked her why she wasn’t promoting prayer instead. She answered, “Meditation is prayer!”

Nope.

Two months ago, my brother forwarded an email from a colleague, asking about Centering Prayer. A friend was pushing it relentlessly. I looked at the website of the Catholic group that promotes Centering Prayer and found this in the FAQs:

This form of prayer was first practiced and taught by the Desert Fathers of Egypt … the Carmelites St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux…

Nonsense.

The other day a new reader asked in the comments about meditating on Sacred Scripture. “Is this the same as the method of Fr. John Main, who has adapted an Eastern mantra method for Christian meditation?”

Uh-uh.

Let’s start with Teresa of Avila.

Teresa of Avila’s method of prayer

Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross are Doctors of the Church. They are THE experts on Christian prayer. So what method of prayer did Teresa teach? Are you ready to be surprised?

None.

Now that you’ve picked yourself off the floor, let me clarify that a bit. A passage in Teresa’s Foundations does explain briefly how her nuns should practice meditation. But you won’t find a word about this in her classics on prayer Interior Castle or Way of Perfection. Why not? Teresa was not concerned with methods of prayer, but with stages of prayer. She never taught that meditation was a necessary prerequisite to contemplation, let alone the same thing as it.

She had good reasons. In Way of Perfection she mentions a nun who was unable to meditate, but became holy by praying the Our Father slowly and reverently. Teresa herself spent years unable to pray unless she had a book to read, because constant distractions plagued her.

In other words, she knew that everyone was different and that one method of mental prayer would not suit all souls.

Don’t just take my word for it. Here are what others have said:

What we find in Ss. Teresa and John and in Scripture is a very different message… as far as I can find, not a single sentence … speaks of methodology as a means to deep communion with the God of revelation.” (Fr. Thomas Dubay, Fire Within, 111)

A few paragraphs later Fr. Dubay says:

While St. Teresa was well acquainted with methods of meditation and wished her young nuns to be instructed in them, she emphatically insisted that the primary need for beginners is not to find the ideal method but to do God’s will from moment to moment throughout the day.”

Pere Marie Eugene, OCD, writes in I Want to See God:

For Saint Teresa, mental prayer–the door of the castle and the way of perfection–is less a particular exercise than the very practice of the spiritual life…” (53 in the combined 2-volume work with I Am a Daughter of the Church)

Here are the words of Teresa herself:

Mental prayer, in my view, is nothing but friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse with Him Who we know loves us.” (Way of Perfection)

Shortly after quoting this definition, Pere Marie Eugene explains further:

According to temperaments, the intercourse of friendship will assume an intellectual form, or an affective, or even sensitive one. The child will put its love for Jesus in a kiss, a smile sent to the tabernacle, a caress for the infant Jesus, an expression of sadness before the crucifix. The youth will sing his love for Christ and will encourage its growth by using expressions and images that strike his imagination and his senses, while waiting until his intellect can provide strong thoughts to form a more spiritual and more nourishing prayer.” (55)

Prayer is accessible to all

Do you see how important this is? If true mental prayer, the necessary preparation for the gift of contemplation, requires an elaborate method, it is elitist. Such a way bars the ignorant, children, and those of certain temperaments or psychological weaknesses from being contemplatives. It bars them from intimacy with Christ. It makes holiness the possession of the few who know enough and who have the right natural gifts. This is not the Gospel!

Children can become saints. Some have. For St. Therese of Lisieux, spiritual childhood was the way to reach the heights of holiness very quickly. And we are supposed to believe that she taught a form of prayer that was reserved for the few?

On the contrary, the essential element is not a method, but the loving friendship between the person praying and God.

St. Therese’s method of prayer

St. Therese speaks in a similar way as her patron saint and spiritual mother:

With me prayer is a lifting up of the heart, a look towards Heaven, a cry of gratitude and love uttered equally in sorrow and in joy; in a word, something noble, supernatural, which enlarges my soul and unites it to God…. Except for the Divine Office, which in spite of my unworthiness is a daily joy, I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers…. I do as a child who has not learned to read, I just tell our Lord all that I want and he understands.” (Story of a Soul, Ch. 11)

Do you see any indication there of a method we should all follow? In contrast to this, those who want to learn Centering Prayer are encouraged to attend a retreat or workshop or take an online course. But the proponents of Centering Prayer still insist it’s not a technique! It doesn’t take a workshop or a class to learn to speak to God from the heart. Moses spoke to God “as a man speaks to his friend.” That is mental prayer.

Are methods useless?

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t practice any method of prayer. Methods help us stay on track. They help us not sit idly in our prayer time. Some methods are better than others. But the key is this: no one method of prayer is required to prepare us for contemplation. And no method at all can make us contemplatives.

Contemplation is the goal. And contemplation is not an altered state of consciousness. It is not peaceful feelings. It is a supernatural gift. It is God drawing the soul to Himself on His own initiative. It is a progressive union with Him.

Well, some are

So, why do I say that meditation is not prayer? Prayer can be practiced in many legitimate ways. One of them is meditation. But not Buddhist/Hindu/yoga meditation. Those have a different goal. They are not prayer at all! Christian meditation always centers on Christ. There are many traditional means of Christian meditation. Here is one example.

Do not look for God in pagan religious practices. The Church gives us all we need and more, without the dangers of dabbling in foreign religions.

As for Fr. John Main, the criticisms I have read of his method are very similar to criticisms of Centering Prayer. It too originated in pagan religions, trying to make their practices Catholic, and failing. Christ, not a mantra, is the focus of our prayer. Fr. Main’s organization has been accused of syncretism. He apparently learned his method of “prayer” from a Hindu Swami.

This post originally appeared at Contemplative Homeschool.