THE ART OF CONTEMPLATION: Outline of contemplative practices.

Contemplation, or what I know of it so far, is going to that one place inside you where no one wants to go, a place where you are vulnerable and frightened of what you might find, but one that, like a moth to a flame, draws you into its magnetic attraction.

From its earliest confrontations with how to move The Christ Principle from just a closed society of Jews to one where this opportunity to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father is open to all humans, who follow the teachings of the Master. The duality or actual dual between mind and heart is the pull that faces anyone who takes up their cross to follow Christ as THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE. Like the Art of Loving, set forth by Erich Fromm, and then adapted to include spirituality, humans are not born knowing how to love at all, much less authentically. At the core, and therefore central to the Genesis Principle, is the notion that humans must confront what is good for them or will ultimately be their undoing like the current environment clash. The Archetypal myth of Genesis goes to the heart of what it means to be human and where we must receive instructions on how to sustain ourselves in the midst of the effects of Original Sin, Each individual human, Baptized or not, must make constant choices of what is good for them or not. The Church uses the word “sin” to denote behaviors that, although they seem sweet to the taste (cotton candy) have no nourishment for what it means to move to that next level of our evolution, it.e., adoption by God that raises our fallen humanity up to what it should have been without the Fall from grace of Adam and Eve.

Scriptures tell us that the wages of sin are death, meaning, if you choose this way of thinking and that way of loving that is not from God, you can’t get there from here. The “there” there is to be what our normal reasoning and free choices can’t do by their own power. The Christ Principle lifts us up through Baptism and Confirmation to put on the armor that will protect us from the harsh, deathly rays of Original Sin, much like being exposed to radiation. The problem here is that we humans are slackards and like to take the easy way out rather than what is right, which may require work and even giving up or abandoning what we think is good to walk in the Way of the Cross.

The Church, if it is anything, is a way for us to receive grace or energy from Christ, our head so that we can endure the martyrdom of being human, even as we put on the cloak of spirituality, The Holy Spirit. In the midst of all of this seeming chaos and confusion of societal norms and what is seen as acceptable behavior (being in the world), it is only when we give that “limited thinking” up as abandonment to “have in us the mind of Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 2:5), that we reach up to Christ with hands outstretched to ask, “Lift me up, Lord, as you, yourself were lifted up by the Father to become what was intended before there was anything.”

Contemplation is the active act of love that seeks to dwell in the presence of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, with no agenda, no words that are necessary, and no human prayers that are possible. We sit there, on that park bench, in the dead of winter, and become more and more aware of the presence of Christ next to us, even trying to sync our heartbeat with His. In this simplicity of silence and solitude, we find movement from our false self to our true self as adopted son (daughter) of the Father. We wait and are open to the ontic possibility of the manifest ability of what comes each day, together with Christ transforming it from information through the formation to the ultimate state, transformation to become more like Christ (capactias dei).

These skills are habits that we must attempt to move from our heads to our hearts, as St. Benedict instructed us, calling it “listening with the ear of the heart.” All of these skills have but one purpose, to allow my heart to sit humbly next to the heart of Christ in silence and solitude, and just wait.

OUTLINE OF THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

I. THE FUNDAMENTAL CORE OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE–THE DIVINE EQUATION

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 that is 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 all 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 recommend 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 put together all six of these 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 the tools that Christ gives us 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 road is rocky 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 in you the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) Skill: How to see Jesus in the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration.

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

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 is linking “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)

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 now while you live and be aware of what Hell is like now. Skill: How to live each day using all of these skills to grow to “have the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

The context in which all of us 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 while 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 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 me’s 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 in life. Each of us can reason and choose 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 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 any thought or idea that you might hold 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 Contemplation

• I wrote all of my books as love letters to you, resulting from my Lectio Divina meditations and contemplative thoughts that came from the Holy Spirit to me.
• I write this book to clarify my thoughts about the meaning of contemplative practices. I write from the complexity of who I am based on my choices along the way; the good coming from God and the sinful is always mine to own. (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 4)
• 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. I just take dictation from the Holy Spirit. What is good is from the Holy Spirit. The typos are mine to own. Even if it does not make sense to me right now, I put these ideas in writing. These ideas are how I look at reality and answer the six core questions of being human. Don’t follow anything I do or say. Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)
• I don’t speak for the Holy Spirit in anything, and the Holy Spirit communicates with me in everything if I can only “listen with the ear of the heart.”
• Loving others as Christ loved us as promoted and sustained by the Roman Catholic Church has enriched me beyond my expectations.
• 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 desire 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.
• 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.
• The Art of Contemplation is about creating silence and solitude so that I can sit on a virtual park bench in the dead of winter and wait for my heart to listen with “the ear of the heart,” as St. Benedict advises in his Prologue to the Rule.
• The Art of Contemplation is about my knowing what to choose to love as Christ loved us and doing the practices 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 of this is not about me but about how I can make room for Christ in my heart.
• The Art of Contemplative Practice is my journey through life using Lay Cistercian charisms and practices as interpreted by the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.) at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), Conyers, Georgia. www.trappist.net
•  Doing these practices are only ways to put me in the presence of Christ and be aware of the Power of the Holy Spirit, they do not guarantee that, if I do these prayers, I automatically get what I want.

I offer you sixteen different skills that I use to move from self to God. These skills are those that allow me to sit on a park bench in the dead of winter and approach God by keeping my mouth shut (God always comes to 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 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: Erich 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: The Mystery of the Church

I use the following skills to help me master the three different levels of spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness in contemplative practice as a Lay Cistercian means that I try to grow in my capacity to have Christ in me. It is seeking God daily, with no reservations, 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. I take the time to try to make room for Christ in my heart which is important, not just its attainment.

ASSUMPTIONS FOR THESE CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE SKILLS

My answers to these six questions come as a result of working through them individually.

Each skill is dependent 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. That is why we must seek God each day in whatever comes our way. Each day is a lifetime.

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.

Mastery does not mean you either know it all or can do it all by a specific time. The Art of Contemplative Practice realizes that each day begins a new challenge, a unique 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 all 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 continuous choices to seek God in the depths of the words of the Psalmist and win the struggle of wills with 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 a routine of daily Liturgy of the Hours of Lectio Divina. My object was to set a time and place and then meet it in order to say my prayers. The third phase was praying without noticing the words but rather how it made me feel in my relationship with God. Prayer is lifting the heart and mind to God. Sometimes the lifting is very heavy 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. I must choose to pray with the habit of contemplative practice. This movement is to carve out pockets of time I spend with the one I love, not counting the inconvenience, the cost, and the feeling in my stomach that all of this habitual practice of Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharist, Rosary, daily Lectio Divina (multiple times) and reading Scripture is worth it.
• 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, or the future. Only God lives in a perpetual NOW in Heaven. We must transform our NOW choices while we live on earth to be in conformity with the will of God.
• The sixteen skills are what I use to help me commit each day to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus.
• 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. In the Old Testament, we anticipate the coming of a redeemer. In the New Testament Gospels and letters, the writers introduce us to WHAT the Messiah came to tell and show us. The period of Pentecost (from the Apostles’ reception of the Holy Spirit until the end of time) is the individual using the collective authority and traditions of all those who have tried to DO what Christ bid us do: to love each other as He loved us. Various types of ways have evolved about HOW to DO this. I use the Cistercian Way, which is based on the Rule of St. Benedict. To name just a few other ways, they are Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, Augustinian, and Basilian. Although these a slightly different approaches to HOW to love God, they all share the seven unities. Unity in the Body. I call it the Christ Principle.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ephesians/4

1“I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, a

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love,b

3 striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace:c

4 * one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call;d

5 one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;e

6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

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 each day.

uiodg