From The Catholic Encyclopedia, Our Sunday Visitor Edition;
Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can not have the
relational gift of Jesus Christ.
I agree with you up to this point.
To pray as we should, regardless of the method, is an act of turning toward God, who is with us. Interior prayer, can only be done from within.
This is where you’re deviating from Catholic teaching. The method by which people turn to God matters a great deal. If it’s blood sacrifice of another human that we use to try to turn toward God, that’s evil. If we use a mantra and hypnotize ourselves to turn inward into ourselves and the God-in-us, generating our perceived experience of God through human techniques as opposed to waiting for the God who comes to us of his own accord, we are falling into Eastern meditation, a dark method used to try to try to achieve a good result (finding the Holy Spirit).
Methods matter a lot.
When we turn within to pray, it is not ourselves we are seeking, but the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us.
I know that, but that doesn’t mean that that is what you find.
Also, there is confusion on the concepts of contemplative prayer, with regards to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Some seem to be suggesting that prayer is only directed outward, and can only be achieved in the sacraments.
Prayer is rightly directed outward, because to direct it inward toward the God in your heart is to risk hearing oneself and in practice, if not in ideology, deifying oneself. As the Book of Jeremiah says, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse - who can understand it?” That is where your attention is focusing, because that is the particular place of God that you have chosen to pray toward. It would be wiser and safer, however, rather than delving inward to reach God in our own deceptive hearts, to pray toward the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is wholly pure and is enthroned in heaven. As the Psalmist says: “Heaven is my throne, Earth is my footstool.”
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone here say that the experience of God can only be received through the sacraments. Some have said that the sacraments are the greatest means of experiencing God, and I personally wouldn’t challenge that statement.
The reason I opened this thread up in the first place, is because I have seen many people on this forum, who have been expressing difficulties in prayer. They have expressed that they do not feel God is hearing them. They feel like they’re just repeating words over and over, and have no sense of purpose. Some have even confused this for the Dark Night of the Soul, which it is not. It has more to do with a mis-understanding of prayer.
I think that your goal of leading people toward a more interactive experience of God is very, very admirable. It is, in fact, the same goal I’ve had for years. All my Christian life I’ve been telling people about experiences people can have with God so that they’ll stop believing prayer is all one way and being messed with by all kinds of questions and doubts as a result of their non-experience. So I highly, highly approve of your goal. It’s just that the methods truly matter a great deal, and I’d hate to lead people into danger while trying to lead them into light.
That’s one of the things I’ve been very, very sensitive to in the last few months. I’m taking a stand on key issues and am beginning to fight, but if one is a warrior, it’s absolutely essential that one fight for the right cause. So I want to feel absolutely certain that I’m in the right before taking my most vigorous stand. So I’m being careful and am focused in prayer, and the Lord has told me to be strong in his heart, and he will soon give me all I need. So I wait on him, his timing, his chosen method of communication, and I listen.
If you understand that God dwells within, and is present there, your prayer will be and act of love, and will be relational, not something so abstract it has no meaning.
Jim
I agree that a prayer so abstract it’s meaningless is not God’s optimal will for a believer. But there are many ways to experience God’s presence during prayer without using techniques to achieve it.
One of the greatest constants of my strongest experiences with God is that they always have come completely by surprise. Well, almost always. I was rather expecting God in Confession and Eucharist over the last few weeks, and I found him extremely dramatically, but up to the last few weeks, the presence of God has always been a joyous shock!
That is a basic of our faith. Can you show me where someone said this?
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