Concerning Gospel Contemplation -- The First Of Three Sections

Concerning Gospel Contemplation
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Some Technical Language

        In literature about prayer, the word 'contemplation' continues to be used with a variety of meanings. Therefore, at the outset, I describe some different ways this word can be used. After this, I specify how I am using this word in this chapter.
        First of all, the term 'contemplation' in spiritual literature can refer to a stage in one's inward journey. One has reached this stage when, during the time of prayer, there are few images, little reflection and very little fluctuation of one's affectivity. At the same time there is total involvement with God. This is called the stage of contemplation by writers following the traditions that stress the transcendence and unknowability of God.⁽¹⁾ At this stage, a person is so in union with God through stillness that it becomes disharmonious to attempt to be with God in any other way. God has put one there in spite of one's own activity. In other words, it is not just momentary experiences during prayer where there is such an absence of one's activities (many experience moments like this); it is a prayer state in which a person finds oneself this way most of the time.
        Then there is the phrase, the Contemplative Attitude. One can have the Contemplative Attitude without being in the stage of contemplation as above. A person with a Contemplative Attitude has an openness toward life, a sense of wonder, a capacity to experience life as mystery. By this phrase, I mean that one has the ability to allow God into one's interior reactions in prayer. The phrase itself has nothing to do with any one method of prayer. It simply has to do with one's attitude or ability to listen in prayer. One allows God's word to penetrate and affect one's hidden self -- God's mystery is allowed to touch one's own mystery. In one translation of the letter to the Hebrews, the author speaks of God's word as being alive and active like a two-edged sword, revealing the secret emotions of the heart.⁽²⁾ This is the Contemplative Attitude. There is a certain free-flow between a person and God. Since discernment, in the strict sense of the word, is dependent on noticing one's own interior reactions, one must have the Contemplative Attitude in order, first of all to allow, and secondly to notice, one's key interior reactions.
        The word 'contemplative' can be used as a noun. Thus, a contemplative is a person who belongs to a contemplative religious congregation such as the Carthusians or Carmelites. It does not mean that the members of these respective congregations have reached the stage of contemplation or even have the Contemplative Attitude. It simply means that they are "removed from the world" and are leading a life devoted explicitly and regularly to prayer. But this noun, contemplative, is also used to identify any person who is approaching or has reached the stage of contemplation as described above.
        'Contemplative' can also be used as an adjective. Many writers use it this way today as Ignatius of Loyola did. For example, today, when a spiritual guide comments to his directee, "Judy, I think that your prayer is becoming contemplative," he means that Judy's prayer is becoming affective and she is approaching, or has reached, what we referred to above as the Contemplative Attitude. Ignatius even used the term in this way for those reflective moments that become affective. In notation [64], he instructs a directee to return to those points where one's reflectivity has become "contemplative."
        The word 'contemplation' can also refer to a variety of Contemplative Prayer Forms such as the Jesus Prayer, Centering Prayer, and the Christian Meditation made popular through the teachings of John Main. Such Contemplative Prayer Forms show some similarities to the characteristics of the prayer of one in the stage of contemplation -- little fluctuation of feelings, thinking, or imaging during the time of private prayer. With these Contemplative Prayer Forms, a person is just there with God, in faith. Therefore, like one who is in the stage of contemplation, a person who is practised in the Contemplative Prayer Forms may come out of the prayer experience with little or no awareness of the fluctuation of feelings or thinking or imaging. There may be some thinking or images at the beginning of the prayer time to get oneself settled into the prayer, and some fluctuations of images, feelings and thoughts as one is coming out of this prayer experience. But once the breathing of the Jesus Prayer or the repetitive mantra of Christian Meditation takes over, one enters into a kind of being with God in deep faith. I believe that after the reception of the eucharist such as in the Lutheran, Anglican, and Roman Catholic traditions, many people experience moments of this. Contemplative Prayer Forms are just that -- prayer forms. They do not necessarily mean that a person is in the stage of contemplation because such ways of praying and some of the consequent experiences can be achieved more or less by a person's own efforts.⁽³⁾ That is why the older authors on prayer tend to call these Contemplative Prayer Forms 'acquired contemplation.'
        Then there is the technical Latin phrase, Contemplatio, used to describe the normal outcome of the traditional method known as Lectio Divina.⁽⁴⁾ The first phase of this method, Lectio, sometimes referred to as meditative reading or listening with the heart, leads one by a natural process to Meditatio (reflection with one's heart), leading one to Oratio (responding from one's heart), moving one toward Contemplatio which implies, at least, those special quiet moments or still points described in the above paragraph. Most traditions advocate the use of Lectio Divina, and they indicate that the practice of Lectio Divina may ultimately dispose one for the gift of contemplation as a stage of growth.
        Finally, and this is what we are dealing with during the Exercises, there is Gospel Contemplation.⁽⁵⁾ I use this term to denote what Ignatius names simply as 'contemplation' in the Second Week and what many people refer to as Ignatian contemplation. In the Carmelite tradition of spirituality, Gospel Contemplation is considered to be a form of meditation, for like Meditatio which is the second phase flowing out of the Lectio of Lectio Divina, it is simply another human way of pondering that follows automatically from any form of listening to God's word. If one listens to God's word with love, one automatically reflects with one's heart through one's cognitive powers which include imaging and remembering.
Gospel Contemplation And Our Power Of Imagination
        How then does Gospel Contemplation differ from the Meditation Using the Three Powers of the Soul (often called 'meditation') featured in the prayer exercises of the First Week? It differs primarily in the point of departure.⁽⁶⁾ In meditation, the point of departure is the activity of pondering and reflection with the heart. Ignatius understood meditation to be more in the nature of pondering a love letter and thus developing the understanding of the heart. Much of the material that Ignatius proposed in the so-called Ignatian 'key' meditations of the Exercises is made up of images, archetypes, and parables. He did not intend the meditation technique to be the work of a disembodied, focused intellect found in the meditation manuals of the first half of this century.⁽⁷⁾ For Ignatius, 'meditation' was never intended to be an analytical, discursive exercise.
        The point of departure in Gospel Contemplation is the imagination. With this method, one primarily uses the active imagination upon a particular event in Jesus' life. The gospel story is the guided imagery context for the imagination. Gospel Contemplation differs from our present-day, psychological, guided imagery techniques in that the person at prayer actively keeps oneself more or less within the gospel framework. In Gospel Contemplation, a directee does not let her imagination roam as freely as she might do with guided imagery techniques.⁽⁸⁾
        Secondly, Gospel Contemplation differs from Contemplative Prayer Forms precisely because it involves images, feelings, and thoughts. Therefore, a rule of thumb is this: To the extent that images, feelings, and thoughts are absent, the prayer more closely approximates the Contemplative Prayer Forms explained above than it does Gospel Contemplation. Certainly as one makes use of Gospel Contemplation, as with many other methods, one is frequently led into moments of prolonged imageless, wordless, faith-filled experiences of God.
Importance Of Imagination
        Since the point of departure in Gospel Contemplation is the imagination, it is important to consider the difference between the words imaginary and imagination. When we use the word imaginary about anything, we generally mean that it is not real, not true, and that there is no objectivity in it. In our Western culture people tend to confuse these two words and so they consider the work and activity of imagination with suspicion. Nineteenth-century rationalism and our twentieth-century scientific method with its penchant for attempting to achieve objective knowledge contributed to a separation between the work of imagination and the work of reason. As a result, we often fail to appreciate that imagination is very "rational," though not necessarily analytical. Great inventions of human history and discoveries of science owe their initial inspiration to the work of imagination.
        Without imagination, we would not be able to understand what another person is saying to us. For instance, if I asked you to list and describe for me the things that you did during the past two weeks and you began to tell me, the key way you would be able to access them from your memory bank would be through the function of your imagination. Furthermore, the only way I could truly appreciate and adequately take in your descriptions would be through the function of my imagination. Imagination, just as much as analytical thinking, is rational. Even though imagination primarily functions through narrative discourse with a logic different from analytical logic, it deals with the understanding and communication of meaning. Let me give this working description of the word imagination:
        Imagination is that power within each of us which equips us to make present what is not present. Imagination is intimately connected with our senses which take in the data coming to us from our environment. Imagination is linked intimately also with our memory by helping the memory access data from within us. Enmeshed with our cognitive powers, imagination is essential to our grasp of meaning and to the communication of the same.⁽⁹⁾ With our power of memory, imagination can be a gateway to the unconscious and to deep feelings. The imagination is key to our ability to use and to create symbols that are so important to us as rational beings.
Some material for your study, discussion and reflection .....
        Below is a quotation from the book, Vita Christi, written by the fourteenth-century Carthusian monk, Ludolph of Saxony.⁽¹⁰⁾ Ignatius based his use of imagination in Gospel Contemplation on this book. Read the quotation and note how this medieval text takes for granted that the imagination is interwoven with other cognitive powers:
If you want to draw fruit from these scenes (of the mysteries of Christ's life), you must offer yourself as present to what was said or done through our Lord Jesus Christ with the whole affective power of your mind, with loving care, with lingering delight; thus laying aside all other worries and cares. (Hear and see) these things being narrated, as though you were hearing with your own ears and seeing with your own eyes, for these things are most sweet to him who thinks on them with desire (cogitanti ex desiderio), and even more so to him who tastes them (gustanti). And though many of these are narrated as past events, you must meditate (mediteris) them all as though they were happening in the present moment; because in this way you will certainly taste a greater sweetness (suavitatem gustabis). Read (lege) then of what has been done as though they were happening now. Bring before your eyes past actions as though they were present. Then you will feel (senties) how full of wisdom and delight they are.
Later, after you have finished reading the rest this chapter, you might want to return to this quotation and compare it with my explanation of Gospel Contemplation.
Different Kinds Of Imagination
        Every person has an imagination. It is through the function of the imagination that we can remember, take in, describe, think about the events of our lives. If a directee says, "I can't use Gospel Contemplation because I do not have an imagination," don't believe her! She might mean that she does not have a visual imagination; that is, she is not able to make pictures in her mind, or if she can, she does not see these pictures as clearly as she would in a photograph. But this, I suspect, is true of most of us. Studies in educational and neurolinguistic psychology⁽¹¹⁾ indicate that we have at least three major ways of accessing data through our imagination:

Kinesthetic imagination, through feelings, and inner sensations

Visual imagination, through seeing pictures, through composing pictures from a variety of symbols in the psyche;

Auditory imagination, through hearing sounds.

        It is unfortunate that the word imagination comes from the word image, the root word of which represents only one aspect of our imaginations. Even though a directee may make use of only one or two of these aspects, what is essential is presence. Whether a directee becomes present by way of seeing or by way of feeling or by way of hearing, what is important is presence.⁽¹²⁾ Thus when one reads a novel and loses oneself in the story and relives what the author is describing, that experience takes place with any one mode of the above or with any combination of them.
        Some people may fall asleep during a long lecture because their auditory imagination is not their dominant mode of processing information and the energy it takes to process what is being heard is too draining. They either cannot use their power of auditory imagination well or have not sufficiently trained it. Mozart had such auditory powers that he could hear and compose, through his imagination, the full score for a symphony without the use of any musical instrument. Joan of Arc heard voices and discerned through them because she had auditory imagination. When her interrogators asked whether she heard voices, she answered in the affirmative. When they probed further and asked her how, she replied, "Through my imagination, of course!"
        Some people's imagination is predominantly kinesthetic. Because their kinesthetic imagination is dominant, they feel and enter into the activity of a past event as they remember it.⁽¹³⁾ Such persons, without using visual imagination, will access a past incident and have no trouble describing it. Such a person might say, "Wow, you should have been there for the baseball game. It was euphoric and the large crowd jumped up and down continuously as they supported their team!" But for you, the listener, as you listen to these words:

If you have a dominant visual imagination, you may actually see a large crowd jumping up and down and perhaps visualize the ball players throwing their hats in the air, under a brilliant sunny sky;

If you have a dominant auditory imagination, you may hear the crowd yelling, the baseball players slapping each other on the back, the ball being hit for the final run, and even the whirring blades of a helicopter hovering above the field.

When proposing Gospel Contemplation, Ignatius suggests that we use one, two, or three 'points':

See the different persons [106],

Listen to what those persons are saying [107],

Consider what the persons are doing [108].

Let me suggest the following three phrases to replace his 'points' and express what he probably means:

See -- look at the persons (visual),

Listen -- hear what they are saying (auditory);

Feel -- enter their actions (kinesthetic)!

I wonder if this third phrase reflects more accurately what Ignatius intends in notation [108] when he writes, "Consider what the persons are doing." It certainly reflects more accurately what happens when a person, less skilled in the use of visual and auditory imagination, is immersed in the event of the gospel story through his imaginative powers.⁽¹⁴⁾
When The Imagination Does Not Seem To Work
        When a directee says, "I can't pray with my imagination because I don't have an imagination," what she might mean is that she is afraid to use her imagination. Every time she does use it, strange things emerge or there are distractions or she cannot settle down. Such experiences may point out a need for her to be open to God in some area of her life, an area that she perhaps does not want to face, an area tied into something that is threatening and that the less-than-conscious part of her psyche is blocking.
        Here is a good example of a directee who had been unable to pray for years. She tried to use her imagination on a directed retreat by imagining herself in Bethlehem near the place where Jesus was born. She found herself blocked. She could not enter the cave. Feelings of unworthiness and of not being welcome blocked her fantasy in her imagination at that point. With the help of her prayer guide, she interpreted this not as an inability to make the Gospel Contemplation but as a sign that she was praying. In her Repetitions of the Gospel Contemplation, she continued to imagine herself barred at the entrance to the cave. After about eight periods of prayer during which resentments and hopes of her whole past life welled up within her, she reported that she was invited to go into the cave. The use of imagination on the story of Jesus' birth, with the blockage and its resolution, was the carrier for a deep, personal encounter with God and meant the turning point of her spiritual life.⁽¹⁵⁾
        The so-called inability to use the imagination in prayer can mean different things but never that a directee does not have an imagination. For instance, it can mean that she:

Is being challenged in her life and that when she uses her imagination, a resistance to this challenge emerges.

Has a faulty understanding of what it means to use her imagination because she:

Is expecting to be so totally immersed in the story with her imagination that no reflection at all should take place. For a directee using Gospel Contemplation properly, this total immersion may or may not take place.

Believes that the use imagination in prayer is not as good as the use of analytical thinking.

Believes she has too many distractions or that she should have no struggles.

Is afraid to use her imagination because it may be connected to unwanted rage, sexual imagery, or uncomfortable past memories. Such a directee may not be able to use her imagination easily unless she is helped to become conscious of her need for control and come to appreciate whether it is now time to let go of this control.

Has a false assumption about what she receives in prayer. Often a directee will say something like, "I am not sure whether Jesus really sat with me and said such-and-such or whether it was my imagination!" -- the false assumption being that what is received in prayer has to come directly from God and cannot come from her own psyche.

        Many directees express this false assumption. What they do not appreciate is that most of our religious experiences come from both ourselves and God; namely, from God's influences and from our conscious and less-than-conscious self at the same time. These would come under the category of Consolation With Cause described in notation [331] -- our psyche, our own imagination, our history, our culture, our memory, some event that influences us, etc., all being part of the cause.⁽¹⁶⁾ Sometimes we receive a more direct Consolation Without Cause, an influence from God which is out of proportion to the causes involved [330].
        Closely connected to this assumption is the belief that our ability to induce or deduce trends of reflection with our analytical powers is more trustworthy than our ability to develop trends of reflection through our powers of imagination. I have often listened to directees discount the trustworthiness of prayer which developed through their powers of imagination with a comment such as this: "I don't know if I should trust what I heard Jesus say to me in those Gospel Contemplations." On the other hand, I have hardly ever heard directees say the same about their analytically reflective prayer. If we can trust our analytical rationality, why can we not trust our "imaginal" or narrative rationality!
Another reason for the inability to use this method may be a call to pray more passively as one is being led towards the stage of contemplation. There are three signs which indicate this invitation of God:

The person lacks the desire to use the imagination.

The intellect, imagination, and senses no longer have the energy to deal with specific things. Thinking or imaging in prayer has become rather burdensome. It's like the woman who has been praying the rosary for years. One day she says to you, "I don't know what is wrong, but I can't get past the first decade and a whole hour has slipped by!"

The person desires to remain still, directed towards God alone. One desires inner peace, quiet and repose; and no longer feels the need to use one's human "faculties." One simply craves to remain alone and motionless and silent, empty of thought, with one's loving God.

Imagination Is A Gateway To The Less-Than-Conscious Psyche
        As you can see from the earlier example of the directee blocked at the entrance to the cave, the imagination is connected to our affective experiences much more so than is our logical thinking. The imagination touches off many less-than-conscious parts of ourselves,
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Figure 5: Memory And Imagination -- Doors To The Deeper Self

such as memories linked to past experiences, and makes them available to God. Inner motivations are revealed, both the false and the true self become known, our real desires surface, capacity for change occurs, and our personal relationship with Jesus is nurtured.
        Spiritual growth, like so many other aspects of the maturing process, takes place primarily when our human affectivity is engaged. The science or art of psychology has brought to light this principle: There is no real growth or change in human behaviour unless there is a shift in one's deeper emotions and feelings. We see this in teaching and in counselling. A person is not ready to grow, change or learn unless there is a felt-need. For example, you hear it expressed of an alcoholic that she will first have to hit the bottom of the barrel before she will admit to alcoholism.
        For the most part, these deeper levels can be reached only through metaphor, image and symbol -- the work of the imagination. People express love and their deeper selves through symbols. If one is unable to deal with symbols, one can not relate intimately to others or to self or to God. Narrative discourse, which depends on the work of

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the imagination, is essential for a person to be affected effectively.
        Both analytical discourse, such as in a scientific statement, and narrative discourse, such as in a drama, are vehicles of communication. Each approach can communicates truth. A researcher's scientific account of the "historical" Macbeth for the most part makes use of the logic of analytical discourse only. The story of Macbeth, as a play, communicates as much or more truth than an analytic presentation of the same material.⁽¹⁷⁾ Abstract expression of some truth affects only a small part of the person whereas a dramatic expression of that same truth touches the whole person. Drama works through the imagination evoking the less-than-conscious, the intuitive, and the affective parts of a person. This leads to a deep-felt understanding. Because of its use of narrative discourse which primarily uses the imagination, Gospel Contemplation puts one in a position of being more totally affected.

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Endnotes

1. 1. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, both of the 16th century, represent this tradition. They were outstanding members of the Roman Catholic religious order called the Order of Carmel.
2. 2. Heb 4:12-13, from the first English translation of the Jerusalem Bible.
3. 3. This is certainly true with the disciplines that belong under the category of transcendental meditation. The altered states of consciousness that are achieved in these disciplines have characteristics similar to what happens in those using some Contemplative Prayer Forms. However, transcendental meditation has little to do with the personal relationship with a personal God which is fundamental to Contemplative Prayer Forms.
4. 4. Lectio Divina (Latin, lek-see-o de-vee-na) is the one method of prayer fostered by all traditions of Christian spirituality. Sometimes this method is translated as 'meditative reading' or as 'spiritual reading.' This method would better be called 'Prayer of the Listening Heart' because many people, including the monks who first used this method in early Christian times, could not read! The Lectio of Lectio Divina is a listening with the heart, as one does quite naturally and spontaneously while appreciating a sunset, or when pondering with fondness any touching human experience. One also listens with the heart when one reads slowly, with pauses, and relishes or drinks in the words of scripture or any other special writing. Thus, by listening with the heart, one is led automatically to reflection upon the experience, or writing, or event. From this reflection, one is led automatically to respond, and in time, one becomes more and more open to the influence of God's Spirit.
When you do Lectio Divina while reading, read the material slowly, pausing periodically to allow the words and phrases to enter your heart. When a thought resonates deeply, stay with it, allowing the fullness of it to penetrate your being. Relish the word received. Respond authentically and spontaneously as in a dialogue.
When you do Lectio Divina while remembering a special event, recall the experience and stay with it before God. Let the feelings and thoughts associated with the experience well up in your heart as you ponder to find deeper meaning or understanding or a different way of seeing things. Respond authentically and spontaneously as in a dialogue.
5. 5. In the 1970s, I began to use the phrase "method of contemplation" in order to distinguish this method from the classical use of the word contemplation. I have always disliked the phrase "Ignatian contemplation" because it may give some people the idea that Ignatius did not believe in or know about the classical meaning of contemplation. However, the phrase, "method of contemplation," never caught on. Hopefully, the phrase, Gospel Contemplation, may have more chance of being used to denote what Ignatius means.
6. 6. A long time ago, during one of our team meetings in Guelph, 7. 7. Consult John Wickham, S.J., The Communal Spiritual Exercises, Volume B, Directory (Montreal: The Ignatian Centre, 1988), p.21ff.
8. 8. The relationship between passivity and the active keeping of oneself within the ambience of the gospel event is sometimes confusing for directees who are just beginning to learn Gospel Contemplation.
9. 9. I am grateful to Marc Muldoon, Ph.D., for many conversations around how our powers of imagination are enmeshed with our powers of intellect.
10. 10. The quotation is taken from Godfrey O'Donnell, "Contemplation," The Way Supplement 27 (Spring 1976), p.28.
11. 11. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, The Structure Of Magic, Vol. 2 (Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books Inc., 1976), "Part 1 -- Representational Systems," pp.3-26.
12. 12. I am grateful to John English, S.J., for this insight.
13. 13. Thus, metaphorically or by analogy, they may be thought of as "seeing" the event.
14. 14. All this -- seeing, hearing, feeling -- coincides with the experiences flowing from the guided imagery techniques used in many psychological approaches such as Gestalt, Jungian Dream Therapy, Psychosynthesis, etc.
15. 15. This story is adapted slightly from Robert Ochs, S.J., God Is More Present Than You Think: Experiments For Closing The Gap In Prayer (New York: Paulist Press, 1970), p.62.
16. 16. Hence the need for the 17. 17. Historians finally admit that every rendition of history, however scientific, is an interpretation, and thus, dependent on the cooperation of the imagination.
18. 18. Sorry, but I cannot remember the source of this story.
19. 19. Consult John English, S.J., Spiritual Freedom (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), pp.135-137.
20. 20. Ignatius had a medieval worldview. In that culture, "three" as a number, was used frequently in expressing a series of examples. Even in our present culture when people tell each other jokes and give examples, we often do so with units of three. Note the importance that Ignatius gives to the Triple Colloquies [63], [147], [156], [159], [168].
21. 21. This is adapted from an article entitled "Prayer Of Christ's Memories" by David Hassel, S.J., from Sisters Today (October 1977) where the article first appeared. It appeared later, in a very summary form, in Catholic Digest. Later again, this article appeared in David Hassel's Radical Prayer (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p.38ff.
22. 22. This interpretation of the Composition -- the Second Prelude of Gospel Contemplation -- comes from the late William Peters, S.J., who introduced this in the 1960s.
23. 23. For years, particularly in the nineteenth and the first half of this century when the classicist worldview was present, this literal, rationalistic interpretation was in vogue.
24. 24. As corroborative evidence for this statement, consider how, in the Third and the Fourth Weeks, the suggestion is that a prayer guide could omit the Application of Senses for various reasons [209], [226]. Why are these directives consistent with the suggestion that the Application of Senses represents a normal outcome of Repetition?
Also note the last sentences of the directives in notation [227] which concern the Application of Senses. The instructions given are very similar to those for making a Repetition [2], [63].

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