Curious about contemplative prayer

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Bookcat said:
Readers can read the various links provided by the Catholic Answers Apologists above on the subject. They include such as archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9711fea1.asp ] (I give them as a sampling of what the post there…not that I have read them all per se or thus personally necessarily agree with everything that may be there)

As for myself while in my early youth I promoted it even-- I now do not.

Rather I do not recommend such works (rather the contrary) and I advise others towards such as the works I posted here forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9310412&postcount=17
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Bookcat said:
Originally Posted by Bookcat
Readers can read the various links provided by the Catholic Answers Apologists above on the subject. They include such as archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9711fea1.asp ] (I give them as a sampling of what the post there…not that I have read them all per se or thus personally necessarily agree with everything that may be there)

As for myself while in my early youth I promoted it even-- I now do not.

Rather I do not recommend such works (rather the contrary) and I advise others towards such as the works I posted here forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost…2&postcount=17
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Banned topic. That’s supposed to work both ways.
 
The “this rock” article was it.
This is what I read years ago and turned me off…What is the difference between an “indwelling” of the Spirit and what this article describes? How do you discern self from the Spirit? A Priest once told me that discernment of Spirits is a higher gift. Seems loaded with mines…
 
Samson01 said:
archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9711fea1.asp
This is what I read years ago and turned me off…What is the difference between an “indwelling” of the Spirit and what this article describes? How do you discern self from the Spirit? A Priest once told me that discernment of Spirits is a higher gift. Seems loaded with mines…
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Sigh. I wish I could explain…

Those of us who have done CP contend the articles that are written against it have problems in the way they represent it. I’d like to talk to you more about it if you want to know the differences. I’m not pushing anything except an honest critique based on facts. Let me know by PM and we can go to email or a forum I run to discuss it – in fact, I started the forum six years ago in part because we couldn’t discuss CP here.

Alan
 
Bookcat said:
I do not think it was a woman. It has though been attributed to Walter Hilton and to perhaps an English Carthusian etc.
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As we know from Underhill’s introduction, along with why these attributions are unlikely. Going into a back and forth about why I, and others, believe this will take this thread far off-topic. And no one will ever be able to prove anything of the authorship one way or another unless some 14th century documents are found somewhere that the author has left. Seems unlikely.

Most importantly here is to know that this book, along with the techniques described, are a sure guide to a contemplative practice. Even simply meditating on the phrase “nowhere bodily is everywhere ghostly” is enlightening for us. I also do not believe any of the “warnings” the author gives is about any danger to faith or worry about having to be experienced. I believe she was most concerned not to cast pearls before swine.

And even though you posted it twice, (or three times now?) I don’t think we need Cardin Ratzinger’s letter to be able to sit quietly with the Lord yearning only for closeness with Him as Martha did. In our weakness His power is perfected.
 
Julia_Mae said:
And even though you posted it twice, (or three times now?) I don’t think we need Cardin Ratzinger’s letter to be able to sit quietly with the Lord …
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Three I believe.

And it is very important letter from the Holy See on this topic…

and very valuable --for sitting quietly with the Lord is not simply with various persons etc propose and what they propose needs to be correctly evaluated.
 
Julia_Mae said:
As she should since she was, and still is by many, considered to be the world’s foremost authority on mysticism.
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Sure there are those who may have considered her such but that does not make her so though.
 
Bookcat said:
Three I believe.

And it is very important letter from the Holy See on this topic…

and very valuable --for sitting quietly with the Lord is not simply with various persons etc propose and what they propose needs to be correctly evaluated.
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Cloud of Unknowing does. As do all the works by Church contemplatives.
 
Bookcat said:
Some may have considered her such but that does not make her so though.
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It wasn’t “some” it’s pretty much every other scholar in the field. I see you have some sort of problem with her, though. Perhaps you should start a thread critiquing Mysticism before we get too far off-topic here.
 
Bookcat said:
There is more to the Cloud than that.
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Yes, I posted a sentence from the more. But that’s pretty much all there is to the prayer practice, except she advises repeating the name of the Lord or the thought of Love - I never did that part, but some may find it useful.
 
Julia_Mae said:
It wasn’t “some” it’s pretty much every other scholar in the field. I see you have some sort of problem with her, though.
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I am not saying she was not known…but just that I would not say she is the foremost authority on mysticism or contemplative prayer. She was certainly a known Anglican writer on the subject.
 
Bookcat said:
I am not saying she was not known…but just that I would not say she is the foremost authority on mysticism or contemplative prayer. She was certainly a known Anglican writer on the subject.
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Well, as I said, we are veering off-topic. Perhaps you would describe how you practice contemplation, I’m sure it would be useful for the OP and others.
 
The Cloud actually gets referenced in the CDF document I quoted above:

"With the present diffusion of eastern methods of meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt, which is not free from dangers and errors, to fuse Christian meditation with that which is non-Christian. Proposals in this direction are numerous and radical to a greater or lesser extent. Some use eastern methods solely as a psycho-physical preparation for a truly Christian contemplation; others go further and, using different techniques, try to generate spiritual experiences similar to those described in the writings of certain Catholic mystics.13 "
  1. See, for example, The Cloud of Unknowing, a spiritual work by an anonymous English writer of the fourteenth century.
But the whole document needs to be read. Much there in those few pages.

(PS I am not by the way knocking the Cloud…nor is the Church saying the Cloud of Unknowing it bad)
 
Bookcat said:
The Cloud actually gets referenced in the CDF document I quoted above:

"With the present diffusion of eastern methods of meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt, which is not free from dangers and errors, to fuse Christian meditation with that which is non-Christian. Proposals in this direction are numerous and radical to a greater or lesser extent. Some use eastern methods solely as a psycho-physical preparation for a truly Christian contemplation; others go further and, using different techniques, try to generate spiritual experiences similar to those described in the writings of certain Catholic mystics.13 "
  1. See, for example, The Cloud of Unknowing, a spiritual work by an anonymous English writer of the fourteenth century.
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Well, it’s hardly a criticism of Cloud, as Ratzinger describes the author as a Catholic mystic. The comment simply says some use other techniques to TRY and “generate experiences.”

You cannot generate contemplation. No one can.
 
Julia_Mae said:
Well, it’s hardly a criticism of Cloud, as Ratzinger describes the author as a Catholic mystic. The comment simply says some use other techniques to TRY and generate experiences.

You cannot generate contemplation. No one can.
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Right… one cannot generate infused contemplation.

As I noted above (maybe added it after you read it) the CDF was not there knocking the Cloud per se. Nor am I (I have a few copies of the work)
 
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