The History of Contemplative Prayer
 in the Christian Tradition

The word contemplation is an ambiguous term because over the centuries it has acquired several different meanings. To emphasize the experiential knowledge of God, the Greek Bible used the word gnosis to translate the Hebrew da'ath, a much stronger term that implies an intimate kind of knowledge involving the whole person, not just the mind.

St. Paul used the word gnosis in his Epistles to refer to the knowledge of God proper to those who love Him. He constantly asked for this intimate knowledge for his disciples and prayed for it as if it were an indispensable element for the full development of Christian life.

The Greek Fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, borrowed from the Neoplatonists the term theoria. This originally meant the intellectual vision of truth, which the Greek philosophers regarded as the supreme activity of the person of wisdom. To this technical term the Fathers added the meaning of the Hebrew da'ath, that is, the kind of experiential knowledge that comes through love. It was with this expanded understanding of the term that theoria was translated into the Latin contemplatio and handed down to us in the Christian tradition.

This tradition was summed up by Gregory the Great at the end of the Sixth Century when he described contemplation as the knowledge of God that is impregnated with love. For Gregory, contemplation is the fruit of reflection on the word of God in scripture and at the same time a gift of God. It is a resting in God. In this resting or stillness the mind and heart are not actively seeking Him but are beginning to experience, to taste, what they have been seeking. This places them in a state of tranquility and profound interior peace. This state is not the suspension of all action, but the mingling of a few simple acts of will to sustain one's attention to God with the loving experience of God's presence.

This meaning of contemplation as the knowledge of God based on the intimate experience of His presence remained the same until the end of the Middle Ages. Ascetical disciplines were always directed toward contemplation as the proper goal of every spiritual practice.

The method of prayer proposed for lay persons and monastics alike in the first Christian centuries was called lectio divina, literally, "divine reading", a practice that involved reading scripture, or more exactly, listening to it. Monastics would repeat the words of the sacred text with their lips so that the body itself entered into the process. They sought to cultivate through lectio divina the capacity to listen at ever deeper levels of inward attention. Prayer was their response to the God to whom they were listening in scripture and giving praise in the liturgy.

The reflective part, pondering upon the words of the sacred text, was called meditatio, "meditation". The spontaneous movement of the will in response to these reflections was called oratio, "affective prayer". As these reflections and acts of will simplified, one moved on to a state of resting in the presence of God, and that is what was meant by cantemplatio, "contemplation."

These three acts--discursive meditation, affective prayer and contemplation--might all take place during the same period of prayer. They were interwoven one into the other. Like the angels ascending and descending on Jacob's ladder, one's attention was expected to go up and down the ladder of consciousness. Sometimes one would praise the Lord with one's lips, sometimes with one's thoughts, sometimes with acts of will, and sometimes with the rapt attention of contemplation. Contemplation was regarded as the normal development of listening to the word of God. The approach to God was not compartmentalized into discursive meditation, affective prayer and contemplation. The term mental prayer, with its distinct categories, did not exist in Christian tradition prior to the Sixteenth Century.

Around the Twelfth Century a marked development in religious thought took place. The great schools of theology were founded. It was the birth of precise analysis in regard to concepts, division into genera and species, and definitions and classifications. This growing capacity for analysis was a significant development of the human mind. Unfortunately this passion for analysis in theology was later to be transferred to the practice of prayer and bring to an end the simple, spontaneous prayer of the Middle Ages based on lectio divina with its, opening to contemplation. Spiritual masters of the Twelfth Century, like Bemard of Clairvaux, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, and William of St. Thierry, were developing a theological understanding of prayer and contemplation. In the Thirteenth Century methods of meditation based on their teaching were popularized by the Franciscans.

During the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War decimated cities, towns and religious communities while nominalism and the Great Schism brought on a general decadence in morals and spirituality. A movement of renewal, called Devotio Moderna, arose in the Low Countries around 1380 and spread to Italy, France and Spain in response to the widespread need for reform. In an age when institutions and structures of all kinds were crumbling, the movement of Devotio Moderna sought to utilize the moral power issuing from prayer as a means of self-discipline. By the end of the Fifteenth Century, methods of mental prayer, properly so-called, were elaborated, becoming more and more complicated and systematized as time went on. But even while this proliferation of systematic methods of prayer was taking place, contemplation was still presented as the ultimate goal of spiritual practice.

As the Sixteenth Century progressed, mental prayer came to be divided into discursive meditation if thoughts predominated; affective prayer if the emphasis was on acts of the will; and contemplation if graces infused by God were predominant. Discursive meditation, affective prayer, and contemplation were no longer different acts found in a single period of prayer, but distinct forms of prayer, each with its own proper aim, method and purpose. This division of the development of prayer into compartmentalized units entirely separate from one another helped to further the incorrect notion that contemplation was an extraordinary grace reserved to the few. The possibility of prayer opening out into contemplation tended to be regarded as very unlikely. The organic development of prayer toward contemplation did not fit into the approved categories and was therefore discouraged.

At the same time that the living tradition of Christian contemplation was diminishing, the Renaissance brought new challenges for the spiritual life. No longer were the social milieu and religious institutions supportive of the individual. There was the need to reconquer the world for Christ in the face of the pagan elements that were taking over Christendom. It was not surprising that new forms of prayer should appear that were ordered to an apostolic ministry The new emphasis on apostolic life required a transformation of the forms of spirituality hitherto transmitted by monastics and mendicants. The genius and contemplative experience of Ignatius of Layola led him to channel the contemplative tradition, which was in danger of being lost, into a form appropriate to the new age.

[Taken from History of Contemplative Prayer - part one, by Father Thomas Keating.]

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The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, composed between 1522 and 1526, is extremely important in order to understand the present state of spirituality in the Roman Catholic Church. Three methods of prayer are proposed in the Spiritual Exercises. The discursive meditations prescribed for the first week are made according to the method of the three powers: memory, intellect and will. The memory is to recall the point chosen beforehand as the subject of the discursive meditation. The intellect is to reflect on the lessons one wants to draw from that point. The will is to make resolutions based on that point in order to put the lessons into practice. Thus, one is led to reformation of life.

The word contemplation, as it is used in the Spiritual Exercises, has a meaning different from the traditional one. It consists of gazing upon a concrete object of the imagination: seeing the persons in the Gospel as if they were present, hearing what they are saying, relating and responding to their words and actions. This method, prescribed for the second week, is aimed at developing affective prayer.

The third method of prayer in the Spiritual Exercises is called the application of the five senses. It consists of successively applying in spirit the five senses to the subject of the meditation. This method is designed to dispose beginners to contemplation in the traditional sense of the term and to develop the spiritual senses in those who are already advanced in prayer.

Thus, Ignatius did not propose only one method of prayer The unfortunate tendency to reduce the Spiritual Exercises to a method of discursive meditation seems to stem from the Jesuits themselves. In 1574 Everaud Mercurian, the Father General of the Jesuits, in a directive to the Spanish province of the Society, forbade the practice of affective prayer and the application of the five senses. This prohibition was repeated in 1578. The spiritual life of a significant portion of the Society of Jesus was thus limited to a single method of prayer, namely, discursive meditation according to the three powers. The predominantly intellectual character of this meditation continued to grow in importance throughout the Society during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most manuals of spirituality until well into this century limited instruction to schemas of discursive meditation.

To comprehend the impact of this development on the recent history of Roman Catholic spirituality, we should keep in mind the pervasive influence that the Jesuits exercised as the outstanding representatives of the Counter-Reformation. Many religious congregations founded in the centuries following this period adopted the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. They received at the same time the spirituality taught and practiced by the Society Hence they also received the limitations imposed not by Ignatius, but by his less enlightened successors.

Ignatius wished to provide a spiritual formation that was an appropriate antidote to the new secular and individualist spirit of the Renaissance and a form of contemplative prayer adapted to the apostolic needs of his time. The Spiritual Exercises were designed to form contemplatives in action. Considering the immense influence of the Society for good, if it's members had been allowed to follow the Spiritual Exercises according to Ignatius' original intent, or if they had given more prominence to their own contemplative masters like Fathers Lallemant, Surin, Grou and de Caussade, the present state of spirituality among Roman Catholics might be quite different.

Other events contributed to the hesitation of Roman Catholic authorities to encourage contemplative prayer. One of these was the controversy regarding Quietism, a set of spiritual teachings condemned in 1687 as a species of false mysticism by Innocent XII. The condemned teachings were ingenious. They consisted of making once and for all an act of love for God by which one gave oneself entirely to Him with the intention never to recall this surrender. As long as one never withdrew the intention to belong entirely to God, divine union was assured and no further need for effort either in prayer or outside of it was required. The important distinction between making a one-time intention (however generous) and establishing it as a permanent disposition seems to have passed unnoticed. A milder form of this doctrine flourished in France in the latter part of the seventeenth century and became known as Semi-Quietism. Bishop Boussuet, chaplain to the court of Louis XIV, was one of the chief enemies of this attenuated form of Quietism and succeeded in having it condemned in France. How much he exaggerated the teaching is difficult to ascertain. In any case, the controversy brought traditional mysticism into disrepute. From then on, reading about mysticism was frowned upon in seminaries and religious communities. According to Henri Bremond in his book The Literary History of Religious Thought in France, no mystical writing of any significance occurred during the next several hundred years. The mystical writers of the past were ignored. Even passages from John of the Cross were thought to be suggestive of Quietism, forcing his editors to tone down or expunge certain statements lest they be misunderstood and condemned. The unexpurgated text of his writings appeared only in our own century, four hundred years after its writing.

A further set-back for Christian spirituality was the heresy of Jansenism, which gained momentum during the seventeenth century Although it, too, was eventually condemned, it left behind a pervasive anti-human attitude that perdured throughout the nineteenth century and into our own time. Jansenism questions the universality of Jesus' saving action as well as the intrinsic goodness of human nature. The pessimistic form of piety which it fostered spread with the emigrés from the French Revolution to English-speaking regions including Ireland and the United States. Since it is largely from French and Irish stock that priests and religious in this country have come, Jansenistic narrowness, together with its distorted asceticism, has deeply affected the psychological climate of our seminaries and religious orders. Priests and religious are still shaking off the last remnants of the negative attitudes that they absorbed in the course of their ascetical formation.

Another unhealthy trend in the modem Church was the excessive emphasis on private devotions, apparitions, and private revelations. This led to the devaluation of the liturgy together with the communitarian values and sense of transcendent mystery which good liturgy engenders. The popular mind continued to regard contemplatives as saints, wonder workers, or at the very least, exceptional people. The true nature of contemplation remained obscure or confused with phenomena such as levitation, locutions, stigmata, and visions, which are strictly accidental to it.

During the nineteenth century there were many saints, but few spoke or wrote about contemplative prayer. There was a renewal of spirituality in Eastern Orthodoxy, but the mainstream of Roman Catholic development was legalistic in character, with a kind of nostalgia for the Middle Ages and for the political influence that the Church exercised at that time. Abbot Cuthbert Butler sums up the generally accepted ascetical teaching during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in his book Western Mysticism.

    Except for very unusual vocations, the normal prayer for everyone including contemplative monks and nuns, bishops, priests and laypersons was systematic meditation following a fixed method, which could be one of four: the meditation according to the three powers as laid down in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, the method of St. Alphonsus (which was a slight reworking of the Spiritual Exercises), the method described by St. Francis de Sales in An Introduction to the Devout Life, or the method of St. Sulpice.

These are all methods of discursive meditation. Contemplation was identified with extraordinary phenomena; and was regarded as both miraculous and dangerous, to be admired from a safe distance by the average layperson, priest or religious.

The final nail hammered into the coffin of the traditional teaching was that it would be arrogant to aspire to contemplative prayer. Novices and seminarians were thus presented with a highly truncated view of the spiritual life, one that did not accord with scripture, tradition and the normal experience of growth in prayer. If one attempts to persevere in discursive meditation after the Holy Spirit has called one beyond it, as the Spirit or ordinarily does, one is bound to wind up in a state of utter frustration. It is normal for the mind to move through many reflections on the same theme to a single comprehensive view of the whole, then to rest with a simple gaze upon the truth. As devout people moved spontaneously into this development in their prayer, they were up against this negative attitude toward contemplation. They hesitated to go beyond discursive meditation to affective prayer because of the warnings they had been given about the dangers of contemplation. In the end they either gave up mental prayer altogether as something for which they were evidently unsuited, or, through the mercy of God, found some way of persevering in spite of what seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

In any case, the post-Reformation teaching opposed to contemplation was the direct opposite of the earlier tradition. That tradition, taught uninterruptedly for the first fifteen centuries, held that contemplation is the normal evolution of a genuine spiritual life and hence is open to all Christians. These historical factors may help to explain how the traditional spirituality of the West came to be lost in recent centuries and why Vatican II had to address itself to the acute problem of spiritual renewal.

[Taken from History of Contemplative Prayer - part two, by Father Thomas Keating.]

See Contemplative Outreach Ltd (centeringprayer.com)