← [[session-11-f2a|The Impediments and Harm Caused by Different Apprehensions]] | [[formation-II-a-handbook|Table of Contents]] | [[special-session-f2a|Special Session: Called to Holiness — The Definitive Promise]] → # Meditation to Contemplation — Recognizing the Signs of Contemplation Required Reading: Ascent, Book Two, 12-15; Ascent Reflections The Passive Night of the Sense, pg. 97-100 Explanatory note: John’s understanding is that meditation is the work of the sense faculties since it is a discursive act built on forms, figures, and images — imagined and fashioned by the senses. For example: imagining Christ crucified or some other scene (see A.2.12:3). John is not advising turning away from Christ; rather, he stresses communion in loving faith more than discursive reflection; a simple gaze of faith and personal communion rather than imaginative representation (see footnote 2 of A.2.12:3). This is the Carmelite charism of prayer. Meditation: Its purpose is to acquire some knowledge and love of God. It is helpful for learning how to follow and imitate Christ. As the acts and knowledge of love of God increase, a habit of knowing and loving God is begotten in the one meditating, and the activity of meditation simplifies into a loving attention. In this simplification of meditation, one begins to perceive the three signs of readiness to move beyond discursive meditation (see Glossary Terms, pg. 772). “In all our necessities, trials, and difficulties, no better or safer aid exists for us than prayer and hope that God will provide for us by the means He desires.… ‘When means are lacking and reason cannot find a way... we have only to raise our eyes to You that You may provide in the manner that pleases You.’” (A.2.21:5, 2 Chron. 20:12) **Essential Points to Discuss:** • “These considerations, forms, and methods of meditation are necessary to beginners… They are suitable as the remote means to union with God” (A.2.12:5). John’s observation is that many spiritual persons err greatly by holding on to the former ways of approaching God through images, forms, etc., and fail to allow God to lead them to more spiritual, interior, and invisible graces (see A.2.12:6). • “Once the faculties reach the end of their journey, they cease to work, just as we cease to walk when we reach the end of our journey. If everything consisted in going, one would never arrive; and everywhere we found means, when and where could we enjoy the end and goal?” (A.2.12:6). • “Since these individuals do not understand the mystery of this new experience, they imagine themselves to be idle and doing nothing. Thus, in their struggle with …discursive meditations they disturb their quietude…, and they drag the soul further away from spiritual space” (A.2.12:7). • This withdrawal of sensible consolation results in a twofold crisis that John calls the “passive night of sense.” First, it is a crisis of choice. Will the soul continue to pray and practice virtue without the support of consolation, or will it give up? Second, it is a crisis 34 of confusion. This is because many beginners have the erroneous belief that God’s presence in their lives is the intensity of consolation that they experience. Therefore, when consolation is absent, they think that God has withdrawn from them, and they do not know why (see Ascent Reflections, pg.97). Note: Even though the aspect of the passive night of sense that John focuses on is the transition from discursive meditation to the beginnings of contemplative prayer, we need to keep in mind that the passive night of sense involves every aspect of one’s daily life. A common analogy for the passive night of sense is the period in a marriage when the honeymoon wanes and the couple begin to grow in love together by means of daily sacrifices (see Ascent Reflections, pg. 100). Also see St. Therese of Lisieux’s “Christmas Story” (Appendix D). • “The proper advice for these individuals is that they must learn to abide in the quietude with a loving attentiveness to God and pay no heed to the imagination and its work. At this stage, the faculties are at rest and do not work actively but passively, by receiving what God is effecting in them” (A.2.12:8). Side note: In chapter 13, John explains the signs for recognizing in spiritual persons when they should discontinue discursive meditation and pass on to the state of contemplation. And in chapter 14, he explains why the presence of these signs are necessary for one to advance. These two chapters should be read in their entirety to better understand the progression of prayer. • “The first [sign] is the realization that one cannot make discursive meditation or receive satisfaction from it as before” (A.2.13:2). • “The second sign is an awareness of a disinclination to fix the imagination or sense faculties on other particular objects, exterior or interior” (A.2.12:3). • “The third and surest sign is that person likes to remain alone in loving awareness of God, without particular considerations, in interior peace and quiet and repose, and without the acts and exercises of the intellect, memory and will. Such a one prefers to remain only in the general loving awareness and knowledge we mentioned, without any particular knowledge or understanding” (A.2.13:4). Note: John’s observation is that spiritual persons must observe within themselves all three signs together (see A.2.13:5). Contemplation, as the general loving knowledge of God, is the decisive element in this new situation (see footnote 2 of A.2.13:2). If the third sign is missing, the person is more likely to be experiencing a period of lukewarmness rather than readiness for infused contemplation. • “…the more habituated persons become to this calm, the more their experience of this general loving knowledge of God will increase. This knowledge is more enjoyable than all other things because without the soul’s labor it affords peace, rest, savor, and delight” (A.2.13:7). • John’s understanding is that: “what the soul therefore was gradually acquiring through the labor of meditation on particular ideas and forms has now been converted into habitual and substantial and general loving knowledge... Accordingly, the moment prayer begins, the soul, as one with a store of water, drinks peaceably without labor” (A.2.14:2). John further observes that this union with pure knowledge is independent of time. “This is the short prayer that, it is said, pierces the heavens” (A.2.14:11). “For a little of this pure love is more precious to God and the soul and more beneficial to the Church, even though it seems one is doing nothing, than all these works put together” (SC. 29:2). • John further observes that in this new experience, some spiritual persons (at least at the beginning), become disturbed with the thought of backsliding and going astray. They are indeed getting lost, but not in the way they imagine, for they are losing the exercise of their own senses and first mode of experience. This loss indicates that the spirit being imparted to them, in which the less they understand the further they penetrate into the night of the spirit. They must pass through this night to union with God beyond all knowing (see A.2.14:4). • The supernatural knowledge and light shines so purely and simply in the intellect that it frees it from all intelligible forms. This causes darkness because it dispossesses the intellect of its customary light (see A.2.14:10). This is an important teaching of John’s understanding of the term, “darkness.” It is truly a “sheer grace” to pass through the senses to spirit “in darkness and concealment,” and to experience the “loving knowledge of God” in contemplation. —ah, the sheer grace!— in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. At the end of this year of formation, the candidate should have a basic grasp of the following concepts: • John’s doctrine on the “appetites” • The harm disordered desires inflict on the soul • Behavioral patterns are tendencies more than choice, and they need a deeper healing rather than just behavioral improvement. Hence, Jesus says: “Come to me...I will refresh you” (I will heal you) (Matthew 11:29). • Transformation and union with God are not about the individual only. God gives His gifts to individuals for the good of the Church and the World. • For Seculars, union with God through participation is lived amid life’s daily challenges and informs their attitudes and actions. • The virtue of self-denial is a form of love and union with God. Love is the very essence of detachment and self-denial. “Fired with love’s urgent longings” — “a more intense enkindling of another, better love is necessary for the denial of all inordinate pleasures” (A.1.14:2). • Genuine love is not a romantic, self-gratifying experience. Rather, it involves a process of conversion, of transcending one’s ego, of giving one’s life for the Beloved. Love is a self-disciplined process. “To love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God” (A.2:5-6). • The fruits of detachment and self-denial: o Increased knowledge of God and of self; o Growth in humility and in understanding and empathy toward others; o Freedom from slavery to desires and attachments, and the experience of a sense of God’s mercy; o A single-minded, single-hearted choice for love of God and the habit of seeing everything as secondary to the quest for God’s love. “All the world’s wisdom and human ability compared to the infinite wisdom of God is pure and utter ignorance” (A.1:4.4). • Faith as contemplation does not communicate facts about God; it is an experience of God’s self-communication. Faith communicates God Himself to the soul. And progress with the following spiritual attitudes appropriate to this level of formation: • A single-hearted desire to embrace the theological virtues of faith, hope and love as the living expression of union. • An increased desire to cast out everything that interferes with the inflowing God. • Detachment not only from possessions and unruly desires, but also from “spiritual goods” (spiritual sweet tooth). • No expectation of or desire for extraordinary experiences such as locutions, visions, or ecstasies. Note: More important than a candidate’s intellectual knowledge is the internalization of St. John’s teachings. The purpose of all formation is to prepare the person to live the OCDS vocation. There is to be no sort of final exam or test. Councils may evaluate how well the candidate is progressing by observing the person’s behavior in community life, by listening to the person’s participation in the formation discussions, and by regular “check-ins” to talk informally with the candidate about how things are going. Ratio 66. Signs of a vocation to Carmel, at the level of the Teresian charism: • a taste for prayer and • a desire to establish a personal and friendly relationship with God • a contemplative and active spirit. [“This is the reason for prayer, my daughters, the purpose of this spiritual marriage: the birth always of good works, good works” (IC, VII.4:6.)] • a love for the Church • a desire to familiarize oneself with Carmelite spirituality. Note: It is recommended that candidates continue reading the rest of the Ascent for their spiritual enrichment and understanding of the purification process of the intellect, memory, and will according to the teaching of St. John of the Cross. BOOK TWO OF THE ASCENT (Chapter 1-32) ACTIVE NIGHT OF THE SPIRIT -PURIFICATION OF INTELLECT BY THE PRACTICE OF FAITH BOOK THREE OF ASCENT (Chapters 1-15) ACTIVE NIGHT OF THE SPIRIT — PURIFICATION OF THE MEMORY BY THE PRACTICE OF HOPE BOOK THREE OF ASCENT (Chapters 16-45) ACTIVE NIGHT OF THE SPIRIT — PURIFICATION OF THE WILL BY THE PRACTICE OF CHARITY Note to Formators: In his letter to the Secular Carmelites (March 28, 2020), Superior General Fr. Saverio Cannistrà, OCD, reminded the Secular Carmelites of the need to participate in the mission and apostolate of the Church and the Order as an integral part of the OCDS identity. “Unfortunately, with regard to this, there are still misunderstandings and many people think that it is enough to attend community meetings for some practices of devotions, reflection or conferences, but without a real and concrete commitment of service in the activities of the Order or the Church in which one finds oneself. Perhaps this is due to weak formation which does not take into account what the Constitutions recommend: ‘In the last three years of initial formation there will be a deeper study of Scripture, the documents of the Church, the Saints of the Order, prayer, and how to participate in the apostolate of the Order... ’” (emphasis added) (n. 36 d). Following from Father General’s letter, formators are requested to introduce the candidates to the following article and selected paragraphs of the Church documents: Fr. Deeney’s article, New Vision — Apostolate of Our Charism, Welcome to the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites pg. 38. Vatican documents: Christifideles Laici, and Evangelii Gaudium — The Gospel of Joy. OCDS Constitutions Serving God’s Plan 25-28 39 01.24 1-24-2024 OCDS Formation II, Year --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation II Year A: The Ascent of Mount Carmel* (US National Formation Program, 2024).