The Catholic Standard and Times

Sacred sanity:
The contemplative lifestyle

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

The secular lifestyle is not nearly as wholesome and glamorous as it appears on television. All those seemingly happy people with their big-ticket SUVs are probably working demanding jobs, raising families, juggling enormous debts and eating enough processed food to be having major health issues at ever younger ages — in spite of all those hours at L.A. Fitness.

Even worse is what’s going on beneath the surface, where the flight from God has left us with malnourished souls and our nation steeped in a moral decline filled with sexual diseases, addictions, and broken homes.

What’s the remedy? Acquiring a superior state of mind, the kind that can only be found by a genuine return to God, and the creation of a lifestyle where we can live a little less in the world and a lot more in heaven.

Theologians call it “the contemplative life,” but in the modern world, it sounds more like “sacred sanity.”

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., explains that lifestyle in his book, “Union with God According to St. John of the Cross.”

“The contemplative life is not to be confused with contemplation,” he writes. “By the contemplative life is meant that form of Christian life that directly seeks intimacy with God. … The means best adapted to deepening this intimacy with God in the soul are principally two, and the whole of tradition indicates them as prayer and mortification.”

Prayer
A life of prayer doesn’t necessarily mean spending all day on our knees. Although daily prayer is essential, there’s a kind of prayerfulness that becomes a lifestyle. Father Gabriel calls it “a sense of God.”

That comes about when we begin to understand that God is not the “man upstairs,” but a Person who comes to dwell in us at the moment of our baptism and continues as long as we remain in a state of grace. That supernatural presence of God is called the “divine indwelling.”

“With this indwelling, the three divine Persons become present in a new manner,” Father Gabriel writes, “with whom the soul can enter into communication. For that reason, it is said that with this presence, God comes to keep company with the soul and invites it to keep company with Him.”

We can enter into a much more intimate relationship with God because we were given all the necessary “equipment” at baptism, namely, the three theological virtues. Faith enables us to know that the Trinity is really dwelling in us; hope allows us to know that the One we seek is seeking us even more, and charity tells us we were created to love Him in an intimate way.

Developing this everyday sense of God’s presence within us is a kind of natural prayer. We begin to share things with Him throughout the day, not just during prayer time. He becomes a companion, a confidant. We don’t feel so alone anymore.

Before long, we’ve begun to love this dear Companion of ours, and out of that love is born true contemplation — which is not a kind of rapturous prayer experience, but a particular way of knowing God, namely through love.

“Thus, by means of love, the soul arrives at a certain experience of God,” Father Gabriel explains, “even though it’s almost impossible to describe in words, because we don’t have any real, solid ideas or concepts. It’s just a ‘sense.’”

We so enjoy His presence that when it comes time for prayer, we’re only too happy to withdraw from the world and enjoy some time alone with our Love. This is where renunciation becomes important.

Renunciation
The right kind and amount of mortification in our daily lives detaches us from slavery to created things, and frees our souls to love both God and our neighbor in a much more healthy way.

“Prayer which consists essentially in an affectionate colloquy with God, kindles divine love in the heart, where mortification has prepared the place,” Father Gabriel explains. “If we detach our heart from created things, it is not simply to place it in a void, but to fill it with love.”

The kind of renunciation necessary for a closer walk with God does not consist of walking around in hair shirts, or fasting for days on end. It is a much simpler and more basic kind of renunciation. It takes the “me, myself and I” attitude out of all of our relationships and allows us to love others — and especially God — in a more healthy and genuine way.

For instance, renunciation of self in our prayer life helps us to overcome the tendency to put “Give us this day our daily bread” before “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Yes — God wants us to ask Him to take care of all our needs, but always in subjection to His will.

That practice of mortification is especially important in our human relationships. Although many people confuse the call to love God above all as a directive to love our families less, it actually means the opposite.

“It is a matter of suppressing all excessive and useless attachments, which are too exclusively human, and therefore not according to God,” Father Gabriel explains.

Getting rid of those excessive attachments helps us to love others in a much more healthy way.

When love is full of excessive attachments, it tends to be stifling and self-centered. Unfortunately, as Father Gabriel points out, this kind of love “can be found, and is often found, in the most legitimate affections.”

He offers the example of parents who oppose a genuine priestly vocation in their son because they want grandchildren, or want to be taken care of in their old age. Or maybe someone loves to “find God in nature” — and won’t forgo a weekend trip even when his family needs him.

There are few among us who don’t have an interior life that is peppered with too many human preoccupations, personal agendas and a horde of tendencies, passions and impulses that need to be tamed.

Breaking those chains can be tough, and will require much patience, prayer and perseverance before they can be overcome, but the results are priceless.

We will have achieved not only a superior state of mind, but a superior state of being.

Even if we aren’t quite making it into this form of higher life, we can at least tend toward it, and away from the secularism that surrounds us. As Father Gabriel says, “As long as we possess divine grace, we can legitimately hope that by maturing this grace within us … we will at last arrive there.”

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615.