Hello, Jen,
The prayer of quiet comes from God, right? I must bring the water to the well until God takes over. Then and only then can I sit at the feet at Jesus and listen. Am I close?
My insensitivity, sorry. I took for granted that you were familiar with descriptions she gave of the different ways of drawing water (prayer) in the writing of her
Life.
She advised, that since we are not angels who contemplate God continually, we must do the labor of meditation. Sometimes after lowering the bucket we bring up only a few drops, which nevertheless quenches our thirst. Other times, the water flows quite abundantly and we carry a sweet nosegay of remembrance with us throughout the day.
Yes, the Prayer of Quiet is supernatural prayer, and God may bestow it while we are meditating, praying, or simply being attentive to Him. St. Teresa said there were times when she was actively engaged in some work and received this gift, whereby she was able to become both Mary and Martha — meaning, that being in prayer is not always the condition for His bestowing this grace.
You mentioned “And then can I sit at the feet of Jesus and listen?”
When this gift is granted, you just love and delight in Him. You don’t “listen” for that is not the time for it. Listening is a part of meditation, which is has now ceased, for the goal of meditating – to know and love the Lord – is now in your spirit, and the Lord is
experienced and tasted, so to speak.
The difficulty I have, and which St. Teresa wrote about, is that some believe (wrongly) that if they just empty their minds and put away any aids to prayer, it will bring them to contemplation. Somewhere in her writings, I can’t remember the place, she said that her mistake was to go about for days in this “state of absorption” expecting to receive visitation from God. When she received this grace during employment of her duties, she said she saw how little this had to do with it.
The Centering Prayer promoters cite the writings of St. John of the Cross as sound proof for their spiritual methodology. How very wrong they are!!! St. John specifically states three conditions to those who are well-advanced in prayer, before they can safely
abandon the work of meditation and begin the work of contemplation. All three are necessary. If one of them ceases (habitual attentiveness to God), he suggests they begin meditation again to regain it, but only temporarily.
On the other hand, he greatly laments the wrong advice given by inept spiritual advisors who don’t recognize when this readiness for contemplation is being granted by God, and they pound away telling the conferee to stay with meditation.
So you see, it is important for those in charge of souls to know where they are spiritually. There is no formula that fits everyone exactly, but it must be discerned. This is a problem I found when I attended a C.P. workshop many years ago. Not recognizing the differences in spiritual advancement for those in attendance, the presenter gave blanket encouragement to
empty the mind to eveyone in the room, which included those who were spiritual babes! They will wreak havoc in their advancement to God, if anyone of these follows their format.
