"The Cloud of Unkowing"

[ready]

Keep in mind that transformation comes through the transforming grace given to us by God. We can only be open to God’s grace, and we can’t force ourselves to become more loving or more holy, for that would be in opposition to love and usually just a desire of our own ego.

Openness to God means submitting to his will, in all things and detaching ourselves from anything but God.

This is the heart of contemplative prayer.

Jim

Yes, I understand. Thanks, Jim.

 

[centurionguard]

Self-Emptying (The Emptying of Self)

For Jesus, God, to live in us, we must empty ourselves of who we discursively think we are. That is, we must deny ourselves. (Mark 8:34) Not until we lose our conscious ego “can we wholly (be) in union with God.” What is equally true is that if we empty ourselves “by a calculated personal effort, even for the highest motives, this could be a subtler form of unregenerate human nature having its own way.” In the same regard, an "obsession with doctrinal formulas, juridical order and ritual exactitude has often (invited) people to forget that the heart of Catholicism is a living experience of unity in Christ which far transcends all (discursive, adult) conceptual formulations.

Accordingly, we realize as did The Desert Fathers, orthodox.cn/patristics/apostolicfathers/mystic.htm that “now is the judgment of the world.” Those of us who do not experience the reality behind the idea remain in illusion. Those of us who do experience the reality behind the idea simply live our (Zen-like) ordinary life.

We remain in delusion, likewise, if we recognize eschatology (the study of “last things”) as something realizable in a future. We empty. We recognize that everything is occurring this very moment now. We acknowledge that there is no time – our past-present-future. Time is but our creation, resulting from our measurement of the movement of the stars (sidereal), sun (solar), moon (lunar), and the galaxy (galactic), if not the universe (universal) itself. We awaken from our delusion, emptying ourselves of our social conditioning as "beings in time.

As we empty ourselves, we attain wisdom. It is to assert without a moment’s hesitation: “The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me.” Only when we have surrendered our attachment to our self (ego: my thought-feeling construct/matrix of me) can God act. When God acts purely in Himself without the obstacle of my ego, when I am free of myself and my conditioning, do I at last recover my 'true self. We answer Christ’s prayer: “Father, may they be one, as you and I are one, that they may be in us.” (John 17:21))

Hence do we experience what the early fathers of the Church meant when they spoke of “the divinization of the human race through Christ.” We experience directly what Saint Augustine reflected upon: “God became human so that each human might become God.” Once done, we have become like little children and enter the kingdom of heaven – from which we realize we had never left.

 

[centurionguard]

There are some Catholic contemplatives and mystics like Saint John of the Cross, Saint Theresa of Avila, and Saint Ignatius hold up the possibility of unity with God in our minds and hearts. They tell us that we are coming close to this unity when we empty ourselves of all the labels we paste onto others and our own experience. St. John of the Cross tells us that this emptying is a kind of “darkening” (Dark Night of the Soul) whereby we entrust our soul to become naked before God and with God.

Paradoxically, it is a darkening that brings Light. In this dark night of the mind the invisible God of love transforms us, freeing us from our cocoons of fear, anxiety and blame. John’s contemporary, St. Ignatius of Loyola, called this Christian practice Indiferencia or “holy indifference”. In this view, one stops trying to control God. One trains one’s mind to seek God in all things evenly, to have no personal preference for where God will show up.

This practice of emptying is quite radical for some contemplatives like St. John of the Cross. Whom counsel us to let go of our “religious” and “spiritual” thoughts about God. Sometimes we must learn to let go of God (Empty Ourseselves), for God’s sake. Similar to a mound of clay that has no distinct form. This way we humbly submit our emptied soul and allow God to fashion us completely into His form of making. Our “Kenosis” must be like that of Christ who Emptied Himself.

 

[ready]

Dear John,

Regarding “forcing” love, which I am not in favor of.

I know that love is a decision, an act of the will. And I know that loving God entails living conformed to his holy will; I see we must make decisions that keep us in accordance with his holy will, decisions to actively love, in order for us to be truly considered God’s lovers. I know that God infuses love within us, but I know that love, being an act of the will, also requires us to actively love God and neighbor - not just experience it passively. I know we can not “force” ourselves to love God and neighbor, but I see we must cooperate with God’s grace and make definite decisions, or acts of the will, to love God and neighbor at every moment of our day. Stretching out to God requires an act of the will, and in my love for God I will seek to stretch out to him in love. What I am saying is that I know I have my own part to do (to will) in loving God, though he is the one who gives me this love. Peace!

 

[ready]

Thanks, centurianguard, for the link and for your posts. I read the link on the Church Fathers and Contemplation and enjoyed it very much.

Thanks, John, too.