THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE: THE SIX QUESTIONS THAT HAVE ALTERED HOW I THINK ABOUT THE DIVINE NATURE OF GOD

In my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) today, I thought about how powerful energy must be to create what we know as the known universe (multiple universes is another discussion). These are just the thoughts of a broken-down, old temple of the Holy Spirit that has been blessed to be accepted as a Lay Cistercian by the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), Conyers, Georgia. Here is what comes to mind when I think of the energy powerful enough to create all that is.

The Art of Contemplative Practice

The Art of Contemplative Practice is taking the pulse of the universe, the throbbing of pure energy as time destroys the present reality, rendering it past but not forgotten, and, like a grand train on which reality rides from beginning to end, each of us hopping on for a ride of some seventy or eighty years, if we are strong.

The Art of Contemplative Practice is my awareness of this grand journey as I observe it with human nature, conscious of my human reasoning, and make choices that affect this journey with my free will to choose what is good for me.

The Art of Contemplative Practice is my moving from my false self, relying on their false words and meaning, replacing it with what God shows us is our center. The meaning of life in the World is good but not good enough to propel me to my next universe of evolution, the spiritual universe.

The Art of Contemplative Practice happens because I set myself up to sit in the presence of pure energy and then wait. I use Cistercian constructs or practices to achieve the charisms that come from such an encounter with the Sacred, i.e., humility, obedience to the will of God as personified by the Abbot, Abbess, or Lay Cistercian council members. That I even have to use such help shows me that I am still imperfect and in need of more and more transformation from me to Christ, but that is what I must use while I still live in the World, even though I began my journey to the Kingdom of Heaven at Baptism.

The Art of Contemplative Practice does not just happen by itself, by chance. It is the result of the pure energy of God overshadowing the Church Universal since its birth at Pentecost with the Second Advocate (Holy Spirit)sent by Christ to provide us with the pure energy we need to sustain that Baptismal commitment to be sons and daughters of the Father. Everything in the Kingdom of Heaven depends upon our being present in humility and true hearts to whatever God brings our way each day. Some days are better, but the Lord’s fidelity enables us to be faithful in the long run.

Part of what it means to address reality in all the simplicity of its complexity is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, Savior is our taking the time to place ourselves in the presence of that life-giving energy. John 20:30-31. We do that through reading God’s transforming Word in Scripture and being present to Christ in the Eucharist as he again gives fitting praise and glory to the Father in union with the pure energy of the Holy Spirit. That we even participate in such a mind-blowing event is astonishing, but that is how much God loves us, to reach down to humanity and lift us up each time Jesus, the only one who can approach the Father, takes us with him as friends. This pure energy is not to show others how powerful God is (one of the three temptations in the desert) but to extend to every human who ever lived the invitation to become one with He who has no beginning and no end. We need only to say, “Here I am, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and be baptized with water and the Holy Spirit.

All these thoughts led me to meditate that God overshadows various stages of reality with his presence, the pure energy that brings life to all it overshadows. The form that emerged from all this thinking led me to conclude that there are six questions that each human must ask and then seek answers to in whatever time he or she has remained while they live. They are:

THE SIX QUESTIONS AND MY ANSWERS

FIRST QUESTION: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE, ALL REALITY?

MY ANSWER: All matter, time, space itself, and energy, everything that exists, was overshadowed by a source of energy so powerful that we humans can’t fit into what we currently know of the physical universe with the mental universe. That which has no beginning or end created that which has a beginning and end with a Word. What was that Word? Yes! Nothing created everything, but not the nothingness we know from our human experience; this is the nothingness of a Being that does not exist in space or time as we do, nor does it have a language we can even understand. A physical universe is governed by the laws of nature (laws that exist whether humans exist or not). All life exists in this universe, its energy is astounding, and the distances of just our universe are mind-bending. All life lives in this physical universe, and even humans live in it, with one exception. We can reason and choose what we have reasoned. No other living thing has that ability except humans. Why is that? This is what I call the mental universe where only humans live, while our base is still the physical universe. The purpose of life must come from the one who created it. God’s DNA permeates all reality, drawing that which has a beginning toward an end somewhere in the future. In my view of what is real, divine nature is the only thing powerful enough to create both physical and human nature. The center of that divine nature is Love. Having realized that I can realize what Love is, I ask the question, what is the center of all that I can grasp? The answer comes from the Scriptures in two memorable quotes that link all reality into one purpose. Deuteronomy 6:5, the center of the Old Testament, and Matthew 22:36, the center of the New Testament, and thus, Christ’s own center.

SECOND QUESTION: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE?

MY ANSWER: What is the purpose of your life within that purpose of life? The underlying question I ask is: What is the one center of my life that would make all other questions meaningless if I took it away?

Wait a minute! Why can I identify the most extraordinary power in the universe, the hypernova, which can obliterate matter and change its form, but it can’t know how powerful it is? Why can I know it, but it can’t know me? Who is more powerful? Is there a more profound reality out there, not instead of but in addition to the physical universe? What is the purpose of all life? My conclusion for me: Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36ff. It has taken me a lifetime of discerning Cistercian charisms and practices (silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community) and various thinkers such as Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Merton, OCSO, Joel Barker, Martin Buber, Aidan Kavanaugh, O.S.B., St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, Carl Rogers, Carl Sagan, Steven Hawking, Enrico Fermi, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, to name only a few that have shaped how I look at what is, with what was, to peek at what is to come.

But there is a more profound step. Why do humans have human reasoning (in addition to their animal instincts) and the ability to live beyond the bounds of all other animals, using free choice? Within the purpose of life in question one, granted that I have aligned my dissonance with the resonance of God’s purpose, then what is my purpose for my time on earth? I get to use my gifts of human reasoning and choice to choose what I want as my personal center, one that determines who I am and what I want to do with the time I have to discover meaning. My choice is Philippians 2:5. “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” My approach to the Art of Contemplative Practice involves trying to seek God daily with that center. I must use the Cistercian practices and charisms to help me try and try again to reach my chosen purpose. The problem for me is Original Sin, which means my center is revolving, never staying in one place long enough for me to focus on it. As I use it, the Art of Contemplative Practice provides me with the tools to slow down my life enough to sit on a park bench in the dead of winter and wait for my heart to listen profoundly to pure Love sitting next to me. It has taken me a long time to achieve even a tiny growth from false self to true self. The problem is each day begins anew, starting from scratch.

I like the approach that Erich Fromm has to human Love. He says it is an acquired habit and demands focus and attention to achieve. I apply that to acquiring divine Love in me and find that pure Love from Christ is the only source that allows me to grow from my false self to my true self. This is where the Art of Contemplative Practice comes in. Practice does not just mean I must do it over and over to achieve a skill, but rather it is a process that becomes part of who and whatever I am. My center, my North on the Compass of Reality, gives me purpose as a human to know why I am here and where I am going.

My Lay Cistercian spirituality, rooted in the Rule of St. Benedict and practiced down through the centuries by Benedictine monks and nuns, Cistercian monks and nuns, and Carthusian hermits, and now by members of Oblates and Lay Cistercians, is how I practice my contemplative approach to life.

THIRD QUESTION: WHAT DOES REALITY LOOK LIKE?

MY ANSWER: I based my notion of reality on three universes, and I reasoned to these with the Holy Spirit’s help. The Rule of Threes, or one reality containing three distinct, separate functions or universes, is the template I use to look at reality. Does this sound familiar? It works for me because of the assumption I have made. What are those assumptions? Read questions one and two. All of these questions build on the one before it. My reflections on the Art of Contemplative Practice use the Trinitarian template.

One of the characteristics of the Art of Contemplative Practice is the unity and diversity theme. Everything fits together, not because I think it is so, but because it is so, I must adjust my assumptions to achieve resonance in all that is rather than dissonance. Here is a brief synopsis of the Rule of Threes that I wrote in a blog:

FOURTH QUESTION: How does everything fit together?

It is impossible to fit the square peg of scientific inquiry into the round hole of The Christ Principle. The assumptions of both universes are valid as they pertain to them but do not answer each other logically. I ask you to remember that this is just my perspective on reality.

These six questions must be answered in turn and have the correct key. This key happens after you know the correct answers to the first three questions. There can be many keys to unlocking The Divine Equation. Like is about trying to answer these six questions, and then the authentic key to unlocking the mysteries of Faith comes with the correct answers. I have unlocked my questions about human evolution (intelligent progression): “What does it mean to be fully human?”

The key I used was The Christ Principle. The first person I discovered to unlock these questions about what it means to be human was Mary, Christ’s mother. Think about it. In her case, the Holy Spirit overshadowed her to move her from human dissonance to the resonance of being fully human. She was the person who said YES to the invitation to be an adopted son or daughter for us. She was the person whom God favored, with being the first human in the new testament to be what nature intended. The rest of us must work for our bread (Remember the consequences of original sin in Genesis 1-2?) Mary went to the head of the line in those that would become the Church Universal. Mary is not God, but the Mother of God (Jesus). We honor her and ask her help (intercession) to allow it to be done to us as it was done to her by the Holy Spirit, just as I would pray to my mom and dad to put in a good word for me, a sinner.

Christ is The Christ Principle, the key, the mediator between humans and divinity, our advocate (with the Holy Spirit) to the Father. No one can see the Father but the Son, but we see Jesus when we use contemplative prayer and communal prayers of the Eucharist (food) and Reconciliation (making all things new in Christ).

Answering this question successfully opened up to me a rich meaning of Christ’s command to us: Love one another as I have loved you. Love is energy. The energy of God is the constant across each of the three universes (physical, mental, and spiritual).

As humans, it is my contention that our hearts search for the resonance that the dissonance of original sin caused all of us to inherit when we pass over from animality to rationality, whenever that was. St. Augustine’s famous quote (often what people remember most about his astonishing writings) of “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee” describes the longing of the heart to sit side by side with God and just be who nature intended. The best photo I have ever seen about this longing and one which I admit is my favorite response to “Why I am a Catholic?” and, “What does it mean for me to me to be fully human and achieve completion as my nature intended?” is this icon of Saint Charles de Foucauld. Here it is. Just look at it for five minutes and ask yourself, “If this is Christ and me, what do I feel?”

FIFTH: QUESTION I ASKED: How can I love fiercely?

I am grateful to Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving) for pointing out that to love in the physical and mental universes, I must put Love where there has been no love before. Love is an art to be mastered. We must learn what we learn by learning the hard way. Knowledge is not infused. Knowledge is tied up with free choice because we choose what we think is good for us, even if it is not. Love is like that, too. I don’t automatically learn how to love except by trying out things and getting banged up when they don’t work. St. Paul offers a list of those things that lead to our spiritual bruising. (Galatians 5)

As one with adoption by the Father as one who inherits the kingdom of heaven, I am counseled to seek God every day. This is why Christ came to help humanity reach a level where it was able to fulfill the intention of our race, to be fully human. Like the observations of Erich Fromm on Love, spiritual Love must be acquired through dying to our natural inclinations of what Love is to make room for what Jesus tells us Love is. Love others as I have loved you is the only command coming from the Old Testament prescriptions of the Law. “Love is doing these rituals, much like the much-misinformed notion of doing good works, without having to expand it to include the heart.” Prayer is lifting your heart and mind to God with all your strength.

Here is what Love means to me. I refer to the Love that comes when I am in the presence of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Love is the insatiable urge to think of Jesus when I look at anything in reality. The connection is there. When I look at nature, I can see God. Not only that, I am energized to look there automatically without thinking.
• Love is sitting on a park bench in the dead of winter and waiting for God to show up, with the realization that God is there waiting for me to show up.
• Love is dying to self each day and offering my most precious gift, my will to be that of what Christ wants of me.
• Love expands my notion of how I am present to Christ each day (capacitas dei) through the Cistercian practices and my charisms.
• Love is the thrill of anticipation to be in the presence of Christ where I am and as I am, right now.
• Love means my heaven begins as I try to become more like Christ and less like my false self.
• Love means the struggle of the martyrdom of the ordinary routine of the World is part of my gift to the Father through Christ.
• Love is simplicity and stillness in the presence of Christ.
• Love is the Hope that the words of Christ are true.
• Love is not judging others and their motives but that in all things (good and bad) God is glorified.
• Love is having mercy on others and seeking it for myself each day.

SIXTH QUESTION I ASKED: You know you will die, now what?

The sixth question is itself a question. If I know that I will die, and all matter in what we know in the physical and mental universes corrupts (dies), then somehow that is part of a pattern in which I must participate. I live in those two universes. But is that all there is for humanity, particularly for me? I must die, but using the Christ Principle, something wonderful happens. I am made an adopted son (daughter) of the Father at Baptism. I am baptized with the Holy Spirit, nourished on my journey of life with the Eucharist since I am not immune to the attacks of going off track for following false gods, and restored to new life each time I rechoose The Christ Principle as the center of my life, and provided with Viaticum when I approach the death of the body. All this is because of Jesus’ Love for each person. All of this is just for me so that I can continue beyond the death of the physical body to the inheritance that is the fulfillment of what nature intended humanity to be– eternal knowledge, eternal Love, and eternal service.

There is one catch, one rooted in the very fabric of what it means to be human. I am given reason for a reason and the ability to choose what I have reasoned. One of those quirky side effects of being human is that if I choose the Christ Principle as my center, it begins to slide off center as soon as I choose it. These are the effects of the corruption of matter and mind. This is the World in which I find myself. This phenomenon is called the effects of living in the World of corruption. Like every other thing, our destiny in the physical and mental universe is to die. We don’t control it. No human has the power to stop it.

But……. that is not God’s destiny for those who love Him (and love others as Christ loved us). God tells us through Christ that another option exists for those who choose it. As crazy as it sounds, you can fulfill your true destiny as a human by making a choice, by saying YES to something that your reason says can’t be true. By adopting us, God tells us, “Why don’t you come and live with me… in my house? I have lots of room and you will find rest from the worries and turmoil of the World.”

God says, “One thing you must do is get rid of your reliance on what the World says is a treasure (money, power, greed, jealousy, hatred of others) and instead fill your heart with me, of course as you have the capacity to hold me. Here is my pledge to you. I will send my son, Jesus, to show you how to move to this next level of your intelligent progression (evolution). What he will show you is the opposite of what your senses tell you is true. He will be the Christ Principle in each age so that you will have the opportunity to know that is true and then have the way of life that leads you to me. One thing. Like Christ, you must endure this World and its allurements of Satan until your natural death. As a way for you to begin preparing to live with me, I call you son (daughter) and share with you Jesus in the Eucharist and offer you healing for your soul in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Like Christ, you must die to your human self and rise to your adopted self. This is an act of your free will to do what I tell you, even though it is difficult now. Do you want to join me now?”

I answer the NOW WHAT part of this sixth question with my way of life as a Lay Cistercian. Each Lay Cistercian, like each human, approaches the Father only through, with, and in Christ, using the power (energy) of the Holy Spirit. My focus is on the answer to Question One above. Question Two is “there is nothing more important to me than to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” Each day. I do this by creating for myself a schedule (not one of the laws to complete but opportunities to place myself by choice in the presence of Christ on a park bench in the middle of winter and be near the heart of Christ.)

Here are sixteen practices I try to make habits in my life. They are also the challenge that I have to write a book and add PowerPoint slides so that I can create a YouTube for each of these sixteen. How do you know that these sixteen are the correct ones? I don’t. My purpose is fourfold:

Have a parental legacy for my daughter, who is, as yet, unable to receive how to love Christ using these sixteen. I write all these ideas so that, hopefully, someday, she might read them and know the supreme joy that I have in being a Lay Cistercian.

Have some of my ideas as an inheritance to the Lay Cistercian community of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist).

Have some of my ideas written down for the Tallahassee Lay Cistercian group (in the formation process).

Have some of my ideas passed on to the prisoners of the Florida Prison System.

THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE BLOG ON HOW TO INSTALL CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES IN YOUR HEART, IN YOUR PARISH, IN YOUR COMMUNITY

THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

One of the concepts that help me to grow in the capacity of Christ in my heart is that of the Church. I used to think of the Church as a body of rules and prescriptions I had to believe to make it to Heaven. Now, I see that as a kickoff point for what is an exceptionally sophisticated and ingenious way for Christ to take his command, “to love one another as I have loved you,” and make that accurate in each age for all races, for all genders, for all nationalities. What follows is an excerpt from my new book on The Art of Contemplative Practice: A Lay Cistercian reflects on a compendium of skills needed to move from self to God.

THE RANDOMNESS OF GOD IS GREATER THAN ALL THE INTENTIONS THAT HUMANS COULD CONCEIVE

During his lifetime, the era of Christ is characterized by God becoming human in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Humans were not going in the right direction in the Old Testament. They needed to be re-directed toward a more catholic approach to salvation, including everyone using the lessons found in the Christ Principle. Jesus came to save us from going in the wrong direction and gave us the WHAT about how to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father and inherit the kingdom prepared for us from before the physical universe existed. If Jesus is the WHAT, then the extension of his presence in the physical and mental universes is the HOW, or the practice of those Christ Principles, every day. The minefield through which all humans must pass is called Original Sin or how to control the human condition in each of us to rise to our potential as adopted sons and daughters of the Father and not descend into our animality past, which is not our nature. In this context, Christ founded his Church, the gathering of those who try to make the Christ Principle the center of their lives, to DO those activities that will enable them to fulfill their human potential. The unbroken link with Christ is the Church Triumphant (those who have died in the peace of Christ and now enjoy the Heaven that they have discovered on earth), the Church Militant (those still living and struggling to have in them the mind of Christ Jesus each day with the energy of the Holy Spirit as Advocate), and finally, those who get a second chance at redemption or anyone God chooses to give another shot at loving others as Christ loved us, the Church Purgative or Penitential. The Church Universal is only made up of living human beings, ones who have varying degrees of awareness of how to love God with all their minds, with all their hearts, and with all their souls, and their neighbor as themselves. This multi-dimensional Church has three bodies but only one head, consistent with the Holy Trinity’s template (one divine nature with three distinct persons). This template is one that I use to look at one reality from three distinct universes of conditions, the physical universe, the mental universe (only humans were raised to this level of existence), and the spiritual universe (God raises only those Baptized with water and the Holy Spirit to be humans who God adopts to live forever.)

As an individual human being, far-fetched as it may sound, you are the center of all reality. Don’t think of this center as the center of a bull’s eye on a target, but rather the purpose of all reality from when time began to when you were born in original sin. Everything that is, the physical universe, the fact that humans can reason and make free choices, the insertion of God into the human situation to help us with WHAT we should do to be with God in Heaven, and finally, the foundation of the Church as a mother to nourish me and protect me from the violence of the human condition, gives me a chance to live and fulfill my destiny as a human being.

As Erick Fromm writes succinctly in his book, The Art of Loving, humans are not born with Love; they must acquire it. Not all notions about Love lead to authenticity. Some lead to the corruption of the human person. We must not only master human Love, the purpose of being human but also master the art of loving others as Christ has loved us. Christ did not just come down and say, “Do this or that, then die, leaving us orphans. He showed us how to conquer our temptations and seek God each day. He also told his followers and those who would gather together to DO what he said that He would be with us as we journey on our particular and unique paths to that final gathering in Heaven. The Art of Contemplative Practice means doing those activities and behaviors that allow God’s presence to influence how we treat others and respect ourselves. The Cistercian way is how I have chosen to express this desire to be in the presence of Christ through Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Annoting of the Sick. I use this approach to spirituality because it is one with which I am most familiar.

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE IS ALL ABOUT JESUS BEING THE CENTER OF ALL REALITY. THE CHURCH IS ALL ABOUT WHAT CHRIST CAN DO FOR YOU NOW AS YOU SEEK GOD IN YOUR DAILY LIFE.

The Church is the occasion for the Holy Spirit to overshadow you with Faith, hope, and Love if you know what is going on. Liturgy is a collective way that the Body of Christ approaches God the Father through, with, and in Christ in unity with the Holy Spirit. The Church is “doing” what Christ left us to practice. The Church is there joined together with God’s DNA that contains the building blocks of contemplative practice moving through each successive age just for me to be able to say, “Jesus is Lord.”

As I try to live my purpose in life to seek God each day (Philippians 2:5), I use the following six questions as a focal point to help me stretch beyond what is comfortable so that I can find deeper meaning in three areas where it takes skill to move forward. These six questions form the core or bedrock of my contemplative practice.

THE SIX QUESTIONS EACH PERSON MUST ASK AND ANSWER BEFORE THEY DIE

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is your purpose in life within that purpose?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• How do you love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die; now what?

MASTERY NOW AND FOREVER

Your journey to Forever is just beginning when God accepts you as an adopted son or daughter. Like everything we do as human beings, it takes work. When you ratify your Faith, you begin to pack your bag for life with God forever. Love in the spiritual universe is not automatic; you must learn to love others as Christ loved us. The Church becomes the school of charity to help each and gatherings of individuals to love. I have chosen to express or make this Love real while I live with the Rule of St. Benedict, specifically with the Cistercian approach to contemplative practice. This book assumes that contemplative practices and skills don’t automatically appear magically from some invisible force like Love, contemplative practices, and skills. There is an art to contemplative practice that demands discipline and mastery. This mastery will never be fully reached in this lifetime of trying to love God with our whole minds, heart, and strength. It is the time that we take each day to seek God as life unfolds, using, in my case, Cistercian practices and charisms to make sense of reality. 

One of my concerns about conversion is the “one time is enough” syndrome. The blood of Christ saves us in His sacrifice on the cross, so we get on the conveyor belt to behave, do what we want, then get off in Heaven. What is lacking in this approach is an appreciation of Original Sin and of humility and obedience needed to take up our cross daily and follow Christ as we meet Him each day. Being a follower of the Master is work, a daily battle against the ever-encroaching effects of Original Sin on our belief. Another of my concerns is that we don’t teach our members how to move from self to God each day, only an intellectual encounter with keeping the rules and obeying what the Church says is true. Don’t mistake that last statement as abandoning the role of the Church through the ages. “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.” I am saying that Christ gives us the WHAT and WHY to have in us the mind of Christ Jesus, but show us HOW. The Church should be the instrument or help us with good works to move from self to God. Refer to St. Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 4. https://christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-4-the-tools-for-good-works/ Don’t forget these good works are not ends in themselves but are only tools that lead us to increase Christ in our hearts. Christ is the terminus of all that we do, not the Church. Our reformation must be to increase God’s capacity (capacitas dei) in us by using the help and prayers not just of me but in union with all those gathered together in one Faith, one Lord, one baptism. The local Church becomes the occasion where I meet Christ. The Church is a gathering of believers who help me and, together with me, move more and more towards the Love Christ expressed for us by dying on the cross for our sins.

The context in which we all practice these sixteen skills we call The Church. I love the analogy of the Church Universal as Mother. A mother protects her children from harm and ensures that they are fed, and their wounds and bruises are soothed. A mother knows the failures and faults of her children but is always there with them as they get up from their foibles and fallacies. A mother is a moral compass for their children to admonish them when they need it, expressing unconditional Love. The Church Universal is about sustaining how to love Christ through our heritage and authority from the Apostles. As an individual who has a limited lifetime to learn how to love as Christ loved us, I am the Church particular to transform first myself and then, through me, to those I meet in my brief lifetime. The Church can be compared to a mother who patiently nourishes me (and all of us that ever lived) with how to love fiercely and make sense out of the spiritual universe, which is the opposite of what the World has an assumption about purpose of life. Each of us can reason and the choice to do whatever we choose. Some of these choices are authentic, and some are destructive. The purpose of the Church Universal is to help me get to Heaven. (Baltimore Catechism, Question Number Six)

The Art of Contemplation is a way to look at the reality that uses help from God to nudge us in the right direction so we can open our hearts to the heart of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

ASSUMPTIONS DRIVE THE BUS

Behind anything we believe are multiple assumptions about what is true. Both you and I will have a different take on reality because we are unique. I like the saying:

• I am not you;
• you are not me;
• God is not you,
• and you, most certainly, are not God. –Michael Conrad

Some assumptions I have in writing about The Art of Contemplative Practice.

I wrote all of my books as love letters from me to you, the result of my Lectio Divina meditations and contemplative thoughts that came from the Holy Spirit to me. I don’t speak for the Holy Spirit; I only listen to his television channel and watch whatever is presented. In that sense, I am a Scribe.

• I don’t represent any viewpoint other than my own. I don’t speak for the Church Universal, The Catholic Church, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Cistercian Order, or any Lay Cistercian organization. My writing is what I have been instructed to write, even if it does not make sense to me right now. These ideas are how I look at reality and answer the six core questions of what it means to be human. How I look at reality has been conditioned by my choices. I choose to have the Christ Principle at the center of all I am. Don’t follow anything I do or say. Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)
• My Faith and belief have been informed by loving others as Christ loved us, as promoted and sustained by the Roman Catholic Church. Some days are better than others.
• I use contemplation from Cistercian practices and chrisms, as I understand them and practice seeking God each day in the context of whatever comes my way. I seek to transform myself from my false self to my true self by growing the capacity for God (capacitas dei) within me. To do that requires that I die to a false self each day to rise to new life. The challenge is to sustain that Lay Cistercian promise I made in the daily struggle to move from my false self to my true self in Christ Jesus.
• The Art of Contemplation is about creating silence and solitude so that you can sit on a park bench in the dead of winter and wait for your heart to listen with “the ear of the heart,” as St. Benedict advises in his Prologue to the Rule. I don’t do the Cistercian practices and charisms just to be doing them because I am bored and tired of the secular World’s false promises, but because it is how I can love as Christ loved us. I long to wait for the Lord until He comes again in glory.

The Art of Contemplation is about my knowing what to choose to love as Christ loved us and practicing and receiving the charisms to place myself in the presence of God through Christ using the energy of the Holy Spirit to help me. All this is not about me but how I can make room for Christ in my heart.

I offer you sixteen skills I use to move from self to God. These skills allow me to sit on a park bench in the dead of winter and approach God by keeping my mouth shut (God always approaches me, although I don’t always feel His presence). I don’t always practice them perfectly, but I do practice them daily in some form.

THREE LEVELS OF MAKING ROOM FOR GOD

There are three levels of awareness of what it means to love that I wish to master before I die. It will take me a lifetime of trying to approach God by having in me the mind of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5) Trying is a prayer in itself.

LEVEL ONE: Mastery of what it means to love in the Secular World (RE: Erick Fromm’s, The Art of Loving. https://amzn.to/2XiMonP) Physical and Mental Universes

LEVEL TWO: Mastery of what it means to love others as Christ loves us. (RE: Learning to Love https://amzn.to/385zlfw) Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Universes aid in the Formation of Contemplative Practice. Continue to practice the sixteen skills of the Art of Contemplative Practice until you die.

LEVEL THREE: Mastery of the School of Love (RE: Developing A School of Love, https://amzn.to/3pOblUj) Spiritual Transformation from Self to God daily. We are becoming what we read in Scripture.

I use the following sixteen skills to help me master the three levels of spiritual awareness. As a Lay Cistercian, spiritual awareness in contemplative practice means I try to grow in my capacity to have Christ in me. It is seeking God daily, with no reservations, with no agendas, with no expectations. With Christ as my center and the Christ Principle in my life, I don’t have to worry about what I am to eat or drink, what I am to wear, or what situations happen to me that day. Christ is there. It is time I take to make room for Christ in my most meaningful heart, not just its attainment.

ASSUMPTIONS FOR THESE CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE SKILLS

• My answers to these six questions come from working through them individually.
• Each skill depends on the other and builds on the ones that precede them.
• It takes a lifetime to master these skills because we begin each day from the beginning. Each day is a lifetime. That is why we must seek God daily in whatever comes our way.
• Mastery becomes possible when you realize that you will never fully master the skills needed to live forever without the help of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no attainment or finality to any of these skills. They are only tools to allow you to approach the presence of Christ, who, alone, can stand in the presence of God and give fitting honor and glory, forever and ever.
• Mastery does not mean you either know it all or can do it by a specific time. The Art of Contemplative Practice realizes that each day begins a new challenge, a new opportunity for you to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). Each day I seek God is a lifetime and a beginning and end unto itself.
• The struggle to love is the same as longing to have Christ grow in me while I decrease each day. It takes serious concentration. The four “S’s” of contemplative practice help as I prepare to face whatever comes my way: silence, solitude, stillness, sustainability, and seeking God each day as I am and where I am.
• The Art of Contemplative Practice is about loving Christ so much (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:36). I am passionate about transforming my usual human routine with Cistercian practices and their charisms using the five S’s above. What starts as a routine each day (as in the case of Liturgy of the Hours) becomes a chore, then moves to a habit when I make endless choices to seek God in the depths of the words of the Psalmist and win the struggle of wills with the Satan.
• The Art of Contemplative Practice has several stages. I found myself going through a period where I just wanted to do the prayers for the sake of the prayers. This is good, but it is only a step. The next phase was getting into daily Liturgy of the Hours of Lectio Divina. My object was to set a time and place and then meet it to say my prayers. The third phase was praying without noticing the words but instead how it made me feel in my relationship with God. Prayer is lifting the heart and mind to God. Sometimes the lifting is hefty, and I need help. I ask Christ to share my daily cross. Like Nicodemus, he is there for me each day.
• To move from my false self to my true self takes action or movement. This movement is to carve out pockets of time I spend with the one I love, not counting the inconvenience, the cost, the feeling in my stomach that all of this customary practice of Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharist, Rosary, daily Lectio Divina (multiple times) and reading Scripture is worth it. I must choose to pray with the habit of contemplative practice.
• Because of original sin, all of us must recommit to the Christ Principle each day. We only live in the moment of the NOW, not the past nor the future. Only God lives in a perpetual NOW in Heaven. We must transform our NOW choices while we live on earth to conform to God’s will.
• The sixteen skills are what I use to help me commit each day to having the mind of Christ Jesus in me.
• If the School of Love is our community of Faith, where we learn HOW to do WHAT Christ instructed us, these skills come from God to help us move from our false self to our true self.
• One of those quirky, pesky side effects of Original Sin is having to learn by working at it. We don’t have infused knowledge but must work for it. These skills must be acquired by learning how to know, Love, and serve God and be happy with Him in Heaven.
• The Art of Contemplative Practice is being present to Christ by using Cistercian contemplative practices to receive the Cistercian charisms that allow us to grow in the capacity of God (capacitas dei). I use my free will to place myself in a condition whereby I sit on a park bench in the dead of winter and wait for Christ to speak to me. These skills help me be in silence and solitude as I contemplate the Mystery of Faith daily.

SIXTEEN SESSIONS TO BEGIN THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

What follows is a cryptic outline of the blogs I will narrate for YouTube. Contemplate practice is repeating going into your inner room, locking the door, and waiting.

OUTLINE OF THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

I. FUNDAMENTAL CORE OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

SKILL ONE: What is the purpose of life? Learn how to discover the meaning of life. Skill: How to be aware of God’s purpose for humanity?

SKILL TWO: What is my purpose in life within that purpose? Learn how to discover the purpose of your life within God’s purpose. Skill: How to choose a personal center within what God intends for humanity?

SKILL THREE: What does reality look like? Learn how to approach one reality using the divine gift of eyeglasses so you can see three distinct universes. Skill: How to see Jesus in three universes yet one reality. How to view the spiritual universe with Pauline duality: The World and The Spirit?

SKILL FOUR: How does it all fit together? Learn how all reality is centered on six cosmic paradigm shifts that lead to you. Skill: What are six paradigm shifts that happened in the cosmos, and what does that have to do with my contemplative approach to moving from self to God?

SKILL FIVE: How do I love fiercely? Learn how to love in three universes, discovering resonance and not dissonance in reality. Skill: What tools for good works does St. Benedict recommends in his Prologue to the Rule? How can I become what I read?

SKILL SIX: I know I am going to die; now what? Learn how to use contemplative practices to place you in the presence of God, where you seek to love others each day as Christ loved us, and how Heaven or Hell begins now, on earth, and continues after you die. Skill: How do you combine all six questions as part of the Divine Equation? How to interpret the six elements of the Divine Equation as you grow from self to God?

II. FORMATION: THE CONTEMPLATIVE SKILLS AND PRACTICES TO ALLOW ME TO GROW IN THE CAPACITY FOR GOD (Capacitas Dei)

SKILL SEVEN: What are Christ’s tools to live in a corrosive reality? Learn how the Rule of St. Benedict is a guide, an ongoing movement process to help you sustain and toughen your Faith amid a secular society without God. Just because your rocky road doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path. SKILL: How to see Jesus in Scripture? How to use the Rule of St. Benedict to grow into what Scripture invites us to become? (John 20:30-31)

SKILL EIGHT: Real Food and Real Drink that is a person. Learn how to eat the food for the journey to sustain you in your current struggle to have the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). Skill: How to see Jesus in the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration and sit next to the heart of Christ in Love.

SKILL NINE: How to manage the effects of Original Sin. Learn the meaning of mercy and how to make all things new in your spiritual journey. Learn how to forgive others even if they don’t forgive you. Skill:  How to make all things new with Christ?

SKILL ELEVEN: Learn how to use the various ways to pray with Christ through His Church to be present to God now and in Heaven. Skill: Lectio Divina and Liturgy of the Hours as waiting for the coming of the Lord.

III. TRANSFORMATION: USING THE SKILLS YOU HAVE ACQUIRED TO MOVE FROM YOUR FALSE SELF TO YOUR TRUE SELF (Conversio morae)

SKILL TWELVE: How to see Jesus. Learn how to sit on a park bench in the middle of winter and listen to Jesus with the “ear of the heart.” Skill: How to move from your false self to your true self.

EXERCISE THIRTEEN: Prayer links “the moment” with the Christ Principle. Learn what and how to pack for the journey to Heaven. Skill: How to Link each day to the death and Resurrection of Christ using the Golden Thread.

SKILL FOURTEEN: Learn how to use the five unique gifts you received at Baptism from your Father in Heaven to allow you to thrive as an adopted son or daughter of the Father. Skills: How to activate the five gifts that Christ gave us to grow in the capacity of God (capacitas dei): Silence, Solitude, Prayer, Work, and Community.

SKILL FIFTEEN: Learn how to use silence and solitude in Lectio Divina to seek contemplation to help you survive as a pilgrim in a foreign land while you wait to claim your inheritance as a son or daughter of the Father. Skill: Learn how to enter the one place no one wants to look and find fulfillment as a human being using silence and solitude.

SKILL SIXTEEN: How to seek God each day by conversion of life. Learn to see what Heaven will be like while you live and be aware of what Hell is like. Skill: How to live each day using all of these skills to grow to “have the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

Next step: Narrate a ten to fifteen-minute YouTube on each skill.

The Center for Contemplative Practice is a HOW TO dimension of living a contemplative lifestyle in the chaos of the World.

CONCLUSION

There are sixteen skills that I propose as the core habits for acquiring what St. Benedict calls the Tools of Good Works (Chapter 4 of his Rule). Skills are about HOW to do contemplation. Contemplation is about using Meditation to move deeper into an abandonment of thoughts so that you focus on being present to Christ and listening with the “ear of the heart.” My new book will be a “How-to” book on contemplative practices that I use.

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