Whoa, Alan - you sound pretty defensive, and have not really understood my meaning — after all these posts and threads?
I appreciate so much that you and many others obtain much benefit from CP, as you have understood and been taught it. I bless all of your spiritual fruitfulness, and pray it continues.
Where do any of Contemplative Outreach people make such claims? Only anti-CP people and unauthorized teachers from what I’ve heard.
I don’t know what claims you are referring to by Contemplative Outreach. My inclination is to believe they do much good with their website. The only thing I noted as I referenced
Contemplative’s post, was that the site referenced the three religious as their source.
Where has Keating or anyone else who knows what they’re talking about, asserted that CP is the right practice for everyone, or that it will have any results for anyone in particular?
Not having read the complete works of Keating, I cannot speak for him, but I do have Pennington’s book, and that is where I saw the problem. He was delighted in one paragraph that a woman had written to him stating that her 3-year old daughter was practicing CP along with her.
In another chapter, he was quite pleased that it was being taught to children in grade school. As you know, this is where I draw the line as to spiritual readiness!
Keating and the other monks have practiced prayer for years - it is their whole life, as it was for St. Teresa and others called to the contemplative vocation. They are right in what they espouse, but my lament is the wide circulation to whom this is being taught, that’s all. There are so many dangers, as you and I have discussed in the other thread which the author of the Cloud has addressed in his book. I thought we had agreed on the principles.
Or do you disagree that prayer life “should” go beyond verbal and into prayer – such as contemplative prayer – that brings true unity? If you disagree with that then you need to help explain why the CCC says what it does about prayer.
Not at all, and I alluded to that several posts ago, where St. Teresa taught a similar method, by another name, to her Sisters. The only difference, once again, is that these Sisters are called by God, vocationally, to the contemplative life. She was very right to teach it to them.
My sincere hope is that many will grow from vocal prayer to deeper forms of it. But one just cannot start at contemplative efforts without a preparation period of getting to know and love God first, and I will stand firm on that opinion. Not only because it is mine, but because I have read and come to believe the saints who left their treasures of wisdom to the Church in writing. I admit there may be exceptions, and you are possibly one of them who jumped in with both feet without any growth previously. But it is not the norm, Alan, not the norm.
You may know that I am called by vocation to contemplative prayer, also, and was for a time Mistress of Formation in my Carmelite Order. NEVER did I teach a novice to attain immediately to contemplative prayer. We always teach according to the Carmelite Masters, using their very writings, beginning at the basics, as it should be.
It’s time for those making the claims against Keating et al to quit using “sounbite” editing like liberal news media to do discredit conservatives. Every article makes nearly the same lame distinctions between CP and the Cloud, which are based on false interpretations of CP teachings, such that these misconceptions have taken a life of their own.
Alan, I don’t believe you can show me one thread where I discredit Keating. I only regret that his method, which tried and true, is being taught by others who benefitted from it and wanted to spread the good word to everyone else, as humans will do. It just is inappropriate, IMO, and the “teachers” are oblivious to the harm it does.
As for Pennington, yes I will openly disagree with him, based on his own words in his book pertaining to what I wrote above.
Peace, my friend,
Carole
Carole
