How Do You Work Through Ascesis?

[Arrowood]

Ascesis is the word used for the “hard work” or labor of training our minds and bodies to focus on God in prayer. It is most common in the beginning stags of spirituality.

Whether you have been through ascesis or are going through it now, I am wondering what you did to work through it. Did you come up with any strategies that could help others?

Full disclosure: I’m creating a non-academic spiritual growth e-course for my Catholic adult education apostolate and I’m looking for ideas to help people at the beginning stages of spirituality to establish the habit of prayer and work through ascesis. So thank you for your help!

 

[spedteacherita]

This is a very cool concept and I love the fact you’re developing an e-course. Will anyone be able to be a part of your course? I’d love to be able to develop my prayer life.

 

[Dorothy]

Ascesis is the word used for the “hard work” or labor of training our minds and bodies to focus on God in prayer. It is most common in the beginning stags of spirituality.

Whether you have been through ascesis or are going through it now, I am wondering what you did to work through it. Did you come up with any strategies that could help others?

Full disclosure: I’m creating a non-academic spiritual growth e-course for my Catholic adult education apostolate and I’m looking for ideas to help people at the beginning stages of spirituality to establish the habit of prayer and work through ascesis. So thank you for your help!

Perhaps this site can help?

advancedchristianity.com/

I have found Father Venard Poslusney, O.Carm. to be very helpful. There are MP3s on this site. Just scroll down about 3/4 of an inch, and you will see a paragraph about him, and a list of the topics available which includes: St. John of the Cross/Spiritual Canticle
St. John of the Cross/Dark Night
Becoming a Mature Christian

There are other topics as well; I hope that will help.

 

[Arrowood]

This is a very cool concept and I love the fact you’re developing an e-course. Will anyone be able to be a part of your course? I’d love to be able to develop my prayer life.

Absolutely! This is a program for Catholics who want to grow in their faith. Just go to fromtheabbey.com and register for any of the free offerings. That will put you on my email list and I’ll let you know when each course becomes available. I offer a lot of free training (with more to come) too. The courses will be for sale so I get Catholics who are willing to invest in their faith and make the learning/discipleship community as active as possible.

 

[Arrowood]

Perhaps this site can help?

advancedchristianity.com/

I have found Father Venard Poslusney, O.Carm. to be very helpful. There are MP3s on this site. Just scroll down about 3/4 of an inch, and you will see a paragraph about him, and a list of the topics available which includes: St. John of the Cross/Spiritual Canticle
St. John of the Cross/Dark Night
Becoming a Mature Christian

There are other topics as well; I hope that will help.

Thank you! That’s a great resource to be aware of.

 

[DBT]

Another very good resource is St. John of the Cross’ teaching on the purification of memory in Book 3, Chapters 1-15 of The Ascent of Mount Carmel:

catholictreasury.info/books/ascent/asc49.php

What you describe goes to the heart of what St. John teaches in these chapters. Also, there have been some very good threads on this forum regarding the role of memory in our spiritual lives with many good, practical tips. This one in particular comes to mind:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=894914

Hope this helps!

Dave

 

[Arrowood]

That’s where I learned about ascesis, Dave! St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.

What I’m looking for now are some practical strategies that people use to work through it. Personal experiences to flesh out the spiritual theology.

 

[spedteacherita]

Absolutely! This is a program for Catholics who want to grow in their faith. Just go to fromtheabbey.com and register for any of the free offerings. That will put you on my email list and I’ll let you know when each course becomes available. I offer a lot of free training (with more to come) too. The courses will be for sale so I get Catholics who are willing to invest in their faith and make the learning/discipleship community as active as possible.

What about seriously minded Protestants? I worship at LCMS Churches.

God bless!
Rita

 

[Arrowood]

Rita,

You sure could join us and we’d love to have you. You just need to know that the spirituality and theology taught is unabashedly Catholic. If you’re OK with that, come and sign up!

I actually have a Baptist group using my articles in their Bible study.

Within the courses we are all in it together to deepen our relationship with Jesus.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Ascesis is the word used for the “hard work” or labor of training our minds and bodies to focus on God in prayer. It is most common in the beginning stags of spirituality.

Whether you have been through ascesis or are going through it now, I am wondering what you did to work through it. Did you come up with any strategies that could help others?

Full disclosure: I’m creating a non-academic spiritual growth e-course for my Catholic adult education apostolate and I’m looking for ideas to help people at the beginning stages of spirituality to establish the habit of prayer and work through ascesis. So thank you for your help!

I recommend reading St. Therese and St. Teresa.

Also, The Fulfillment of All Desire by Ralph Martin is a must-read book.

 

[Arrowood]

Thank you Randy, but I think I need to clarify my question. I am not looking to learn about ascesis. I am creating a course based on these works (which I have read or am in the process of reading) and I’m looking for concrete examples of how people today are working through ascesis.

 

[DBT]

I’m looking for concrete examples of how people today are working through ascesis.

Ok, you’re looking for “how-to” and personal testimony.

Please look to talks #7 and #8 from this link:

meditationsfromcarmel.com/content/formation-talks

These are a series of talks I gave to my Carmelite community based on my own personal experience. What you speak of in this thread is very near and dear to my heart … the focal point of my own spiritual journey.

I hope something in these talks help!

Blessings in Christ,
Dave

 

[Arrowood]

Perfect Dave! Thank you for sharing that! I will look forward to listening to your talks.

 

[myway]

When I first started to pray the more I prayed the more faith I had in the outcome. I learned to see how God is working through me know matter what my strengths and weaknesses are. To be holy we do not have to do our best but grow to love God. Prayer trained my mind the way God wants me to see things. I can look at any experience in my life, without the thought of why this God. It just doesn’t matter to me what could have been because I’ve learned to love God. I don’t think of myself as training my soul. The holyspirit has cleansed me of all that kept me from coming to know God.

 

[myway]

When I first started to pray the more I prayed the more faith I had in the outcome. Later in life I learned to see how God was working through me even though I failed to see it at the time. To be holy we do not have to do our best but grow to love God. Through prayer I received god’s healing to be prepared for whatever obstacles I had in life. Through prayer God is the voice within us that teaches to be holy.

I can look at any experience in my life, without the thought of why this God. It just doesn’t matter to me what could have been because I’ve learned to love God. I don’t think of myself as training my soul. The holyspirit has cleansed me of all that kept me from coming to know God. Experiences cannot be seen as mistakes. We must see weakness as a opportunity to become holy.

I hope this is what you were looking for.

 

[Dorothy]

Ok, you’re looking for “how-to” and personal testimony.

Please look to talks #7 and #8 from this link:

meditationsfromcarmel.com/content/formation-talks

These are a series of talks I gave to my Carmelite community based on my own personal experience. What you speak of in this thread is very near and dear to my heart … the focal point of my own spiritual journey.

I hope something in these talks help!

Blessings in Christ,
Dave

Dave,

Thank you for pointing out your talks! They are very helpful.

The O.Carm. community I am in is now doing a study of Father Marc Foley’s book “The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Reflections.”

Peace in Carmel,

Dorothy

 

[DBT]

The O.Carm. community I am in is now doing a study of Father Marc Foley’s book “The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Reflections.”

That’s a wonderful book! Father makes St. John of the Cross very accessible … one of the best commentaries I’ve ever come across. And in keeping with the theme of this thread, his chapters on the purification of memory helped me very much!

Blessings and peace in Carmel,
Dave

 

[3DOCTORS]

I’m glad I stumbled across this thread and will be checking it regularly and maybe even signing up for your course. Right now I feel as if I could be used as an example for what not to do. One of my big spiritual obstacles is sloth, and when I start to feel life’s stresses weigh heavily on me as they have quite a bit this year, I can sometimes do the right thing and run to prayer and spiritual practices - or I can give in to the temptation to go “Meh, I’m tired, I’ll pray later.” Well, I know that’s a dead end street.

And once prayer goes, the strength to actually do any ascetical practice, or develop my Faith through Scripture or spiritual reading or devotions goes right with it. Sacrificing pleasures? Enduring hardships without complaining? Not when I’m in this blah, weakened state. I feel a need to go to Confession this afternoon and make a fresh start, but I feel so unsure of what that fresh start needs to consist of. I suppose I should just ask Father where to start and not even try to come up with my own ideas.

 

[Arrowood]

3DOCTORS,

You’re describing a very common problem - and exactly what I address in the program. We don’t want to treat prayer like a technique rather than a relationship, but many of us need some practical strategies for overcoming the “meh” temptation. This is a matter of training our mind and body to have the right disposition toward prayer. That’s what St John of the Cross & St. Teresa of Avila describe and what the spiritual tradition calls ascesis.

I’ve been there. I’m hoping others have too and can share how they came out of it.

 

[3DOCTORS]

3DOCTORS,

You’re describing a very common problem - and exactly what I address in the program. We don’t want to treat prayer like a technique rather than a relationship, but many of us need some practical strategies for overcoming the “meh” temptation. This is a matter of training our mind and body to have the right disposition toward prayer. That’s what St John of the Cross & St. Teresa of Avila describe and what the spiritual tradition calls ascesis.

I’ve been there. I’m hoping others have too and can share how they came out of it.

Wonderful - looking forward to hearing more about it! I went to Confession this past Saturday and laid it all out - though I still haven’t gotten the prayer routine completely back.

This may sound weird, but for me this year, there’s been a couple of ways I slide. One is a slow, chronic slide - this is definitely more the sloth thing. It starts slowly but progresses to less prayer, less desire for prayer, more focus on worldly things, etc.

Then the devil just bides his time until what I think of as the acute phase. A time when in my own life and the lives of those I’m close to, and even in the world, so much is happening that’s evil, sad, and troubling, that I just feel like curling into a ball. Don’t know if there’s anger at God, maybe a helpless feeling. I know it’s up to us to do and to pray. But when you have a child in your extended family with a dangerous illness, friends whose lives are crumbling in every imaginable way - wayward children breaking their hearts, and so on . . . when you are also overwhelmed by the world - you think of the people fleeing ISIS, you think of human trafficking and terrible things . . . and your mind’s just so weary of it all you can hardly think, much less pray . . . :bighanky: Even though you know that’s when you should be praying harder, you don’t feel like you can.