In praise of acquired contemplation

Spiritual Life, Fall 1998 by Paulits, Walter J

MANY PEOPLE DEVOTED TO PRAYER NEVER PASS into infused contemplation although they have advanced from discursive meditation to almost wordless prayer and have remained there. These people have seldom or never experienced mystical phenomena nor have they ever had the sense of their prayer's being instigated and sustained by any other force than their own selves. They are, of course, aware of the necessity of grace in their prayer. They may know that God draws them and is with them as they pray, but they never (or almost never) experience in their psychological structure the sense of that help.

They believe it is there, but they do not feel it. So, they continue to pray wordlessly, to "place" themselves in the presence of God, to try to stay aware of that presence but are perpetually in a darkness that never responds. In a word, they are never favored with infused contemplation. Their experiences of prayer are not those of others who report being "seized" by God, of being taken over by him, or of being "one-ed" with him by his favor.

Types of Contemplation

The distinction between acquired and infused contemplation, while not universally agreed upon by mystical theologians, is widely accepted. The common element is, of course, contemplation itself. Contemplation is not discursive reasoning; that is meditation. Contemplation is, rather,

a consideration and delight in truth already grasped; not directed towards practical living, but a speculative, disinterested, and delightful gaze upon truth itself.1

I believe that this description is valid, but it is also very broad. Truth may be radically univocal, but its manifold manifestations do not destroy their claim to be called "truth" also. A mathematical formula, for instance, may be "contemplated" for its elegance and inclusiveness. The truth that manifests itself as beauty can be appreciated in what is called the "aesthetic experience." In that experience, the beholder stands in rapt attention to each note of Beethoven's Ninth, or each inch of Picasso's "Guernica," or each trope in Keats "Ode to a Nightingale." The aesthetic experience captures the gazer in a continuing state of timeless enjoyment. The truth that is goodness evokes a similar enchantment. To gaze on goodness and be captured by it, sometimes to tears, is what happens when we see a couple, who are celebrating their sixtieth anniversary, kiss, or when we hear of the neighborhood Samaritan who anonymously finances indigent students through college.

Contemplation indeed does gaze on truth with delight. When the truth is the God of revelation, the gaze is similar to, but goes beyond, the delight in created manifestations of him. To call God "Father" needs a gift from him: adoption. To enter into his family, we need his invitation and his help. When we gaze on him (or on whatever both hides and reveals him), we need the gift of faith in his reality, of hope in his promises, and of a love that draws us to himself. These gifts are given to us, infused into us. By means of them we turn our attention to him and rest peacefully in his presence in delight and joy. Acquired contemplation and infused contemplation both rest on the infused virtues of faith, hope, and love, but the two contemplations differ in the roles God and we play in them.

Infused contemplation can be described as follows: "Infused contemplation begins when God raises the operation above the level of human nature, and its normal terminus is mystical marriage,"2 or, "Mystical activity is the work of God, who can lead souls as he wills."3 Infused contemplation is, by its very name, a gift given by God. A gift so overwhelming that at times it renders the receiver passive under its power and subject to experiences of being carried by God into paths no human ever walks on his or her own. It is an experience similar to Paul's being carried to the "third heaven."4 In other words, infused contemplation is given by God in perceptible, unexpected ways. The pray-er is moved; she or he is not the mover.

The person who practices acquired contemplation, however, does not have that sense of being carried by God or seized by him or of God's powerful direction in the prayer. Acquired contemplation is dark; it is a patient waiting in the darkness; it is attention to a presence, but an attention that, psychologically at least, receives only the faintest of responses from that presence. Acquired contemplation knows it is at prayer because the prayer is begun by the pray-er, sustained by him or her (again, as far as the person's perceptions go), and subject to the vagaries of wanderings from the pure attention it aspires to. What the author of The Cloud of Unknowing calls the "work" of prayer, the person in acquired contemplation knows by experience. It is work, and he is the worker. He perceives himself to be the actor, not God, but he is wrong. God is at work, but not in a way the pray-er feels.

Signs of Acquired Contemplation

What are the signs of acquired contemplation? A usable description is, "a loving gaze upon God, the absence of discursus (conversation), and the absence of any intervention by other lower faculties."5 The gaze upon God is precisely what the pray-er strives to achieve. I would prefer to say, however, that the gaze is not upon God, nor can it be, because looking upon God is reserved for the Beatific Vision. What the pray-er is really doing is gazing upon the darkness that both hides and reveals God. The pray-er is intent on the presence of God as manifested in a sign, more than upon seeing him.