ADDING A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO YOUR SPIRITUAL PROGRESSION: Building the School of Love

I always take the easy path when I look at my choices and how I behave in most situations. In the movie about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Dumbledore frames a life lesson to Harry with this dilemma. He states that we can take the easy way or the right way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASqHWwMlKSs

Most people who try the contemplative approach to spirituality practiced by Cistercian monks and nuns tend to be impatient with prayer. We seem to be a people in our recent generations that demand instant answers to prayers. “If I am taking the time to pray to God for something I need, then God should give it to me now,” seems to be the expectation. They say a “written prayer” and think they automatically get what they want. After all, God told us he would give it to us if we asked anything in His name. Does God keep His Word? Do you smell the whiff of Adam and Eve in that approach to prayer? They use the “get in, get on, get over, and get out.” This type of prayer has none of the mystical dimensions of the Mystery of Faith (we say that prayer after the body and blood of Christ are made physically, mentally, and spiritually present in the Eucharistic by words of the priest.)

There must be a form of vocal prayer, i.e., structure, a beginning, an ending, and saying more prayers leads to holiness. While the repetition of prayer might be productive, and our collective, vocal prayers, e.g., Our Father, Hail Mary, might be at the core of our prayer life, the vital part of prayer is being in the presence of Christ and becoming what we pray. For example, I pray a part of St. Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 4, every day. I read the prayer privately, but I hope that I become what I pray. Read the Rule of St. Benedict from the monks at Christ in the Desert Monastery. There is a wonderful commentary on the Rule that you will find helpful.

Chapter 4: The Tools for Good Works

1 First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and all your strength, two and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27).

3 Then the following: You are not to kill,

4 not to commit adultery;

5 you are not to steal

6 nor to covet (Rom 13:9);

7 you are not to bear false witness (Matt 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20).

8 You must honor everyone (1 Pet 2:17),

9 and never do to another what you do not want to be done to yourself (Tob 4:16; Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).

10 Renounce yourself to follow Christ (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23);

11 discipline your body (1 Cor 9:27);

12. Do not pamper yourself,

13 but love fasting.

14 You must relieve the lot of the poor,

15 clothe the naked,

16 visit the sick (Matt 25:36),

17 and bury the dead.

18 Go to help the troubled

19 and console the sorrowing.

20 Your way of acting should be different from the World’s way;

21 The love of Christ must come before all else.

22 You are not to act in anger

23 or nurse a grudge.

24 Rid your heart of all deceit.

25 Never give a hollow greeting of peace

26 or turn away when someone needs your love.

27 Bind yourself to no oath lest it proves false,

28 but speak the truth with heart and tongue.

29 Do not repay one bad turn with another (1 Thess 5:15; 1 Pet 3:9).

30 Do not injure anyone but bear injuries patiently.

31 Love your enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27).

32 If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead.

33 Endure persecution for the sake of justice (Matt 5:10).

34 You must not be proud,

35 nor be given to wine (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).

36 Refrain from too much eating

37 or sleeping,

38 and from laziness (Rom 12:11).

39 Do not grumble

40 or speak ill of others.

41 Place your hope in God alone.

42 If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself,

43 but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.

44 Live in fear of judgment day

4546 Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire.

47 Day by day, remind yourself that you are going to die.

48 Hour by hour, keep careful watch over all you do,

49 aware that God’s gaze is upon you, wherever you may be.

50 As soon as wrongful thoughts come into your heart, dash them against Christ and disclose them to your spiritual Father. 51Guard your lips from harmful or deceptive speech.

52 Prefer moderation in speech

53 and speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter;

54 do not love immoderate or boisterous laughter.

55 Listen readily to holy reading,

56 and devote yourself often to prayer.

57 Every day with tears and sighs, confess your past sins to God in prayer

58 and change from these evil ways in the future.

59 Do not gratify the promptings of the flesh (Gal 5:16);

60 hate the urgings of self-will.

61 Obey the orders of the abbot unreservedly, even if his own conduct–which God forbid–be at odds with what he says. Remember the teaching of the Lord: Do what they say, not what they do (Matt 23:3).

62 Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first, be holy that you may more truly be called so.

63 Live by God’s commandments every day;

64 treasure chastity,

65 harbor neither hatred

66 nor jealousy of anyone,

67 and do nothing out of envy.

68 Do not love quarreling;

69 shun arrogance.

70 Respect the elders

71 and love the young.

72 Pray for your enemies out of love for Christ.

73 If you have a dispute with someone, make peace with him before the sun goes down.

74 And finally, never lose hope in God’s mercy.

75 These, then, are the tools of the spiritual craft. 76When we have used them without ceasing day and night and have returned them on judgment day; our wages will be the reward the Lord has promised: 77 What the eye has not seen nor the ear heard, God, has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).

78 The workshop where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks is the monastery’s enclosure and stability in the community. And have a great horror of Hell.

Read the commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict by Abbot Philip Lawrence, O.S.B. This website is one you should take some time to explore. Rather than quote these sources in this book, I encourage you to look up all of these URL sites and take some time to ponder their terrific message for your spiritual maturation. https://christdesert.org/rule-of-st-benedict/

Be conscious that merely saying the prayer is only the first level of awareness. When you read or listen to Chapter 4 (above) or any spiritual reading, there are five spiritual awareness levels at work. You want to be what you pray. That takes patience, time, Faith, grace, silence, solitude, work, and prayer in the context of community.

• Say the Word of God
• Pray the Word of God
• Share the Word of God
• Become what you say, pray, and share.
• There are no words needed to be present in the Word.

Five of the things I have learned from approaching Christ in contemplation are:

1. Learn to listen to what God says with “the ear of the heart.” (Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict) You should listen more and talk less. It takes time to learn how to love as Christ loves us.
2. Contemplative practice is not about consciously ensuring that you keep the five steps of the Lectio Divina process (Lectio, Oratio, Meditatio, Contemplatio, and Actio) perfectly. If you don’t realize you are going through the contemplative process, you have begun to arrive.
3. Contemplation is not about you; it is about sitting on a park bench in the dead of winter, waiting for Christ to come around the bend in the road and sit next to you, the awareness that you are in the presence of God.
4. Humility and emptying your false self are needed to approach the Sacred without frying your neurons. You cannot do so with any hidden agenda. None of us approach God except through, with, and in Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit.
5. Approaching the Mystery of Faith is the ultimate purpose for humans (Heaven). Approaching the Sacred to find meaning in your life makes sense when you use the Rule of Opposites. https://amzn.to/3uqpVnR

PARABLES I USE IN CONTEMPLATING THE LOVE CHRIST HAS FOR ME

Like weightlifters in the gym, we all need to warm up before approaching the Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, or reception of the Eucharist. This is preparing the mind and the heart with humility and obedience to the will of what God has in store for us. I encourage you to loosen your spiritual muscles and focus on being present to God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. I use three exercises to transition from my secular World to approaching the ark of the covenant, The Christ Principle in Eucharistic Adoration.

The Parable of the Banquet –

Once, a very wealthy man wanted to share his wealth with those around him and all who had been so good to him. He considered throwing an extensive banquet with the most sumptuous and delicious foods. He would spare no expense to find ten dishes that were the best food in all the World. Although he had many close friends, he decided to open the banquet to everyone who wanted to come. All they had to do was show up for the feast and eat what they wanted until they could eat no more. He chose the finest of wines recommended by the chief sommelier and dishes prepared by Iron Chefs. He would stand at the door of the large banquet hall and welcome guests that came in. He advertised in all the local newspapers and on television about his gift.

The day of the banquet finally arrived. One hundred and forty-four persons showed up at his estate and entered the lavishly decorated hall. The ten tables were long and contained enough room to seat everyone comfortably. The host sat at the head of the table and spoke of how much he wanted to be with everyone present because they took time to attend and that they should share that meal with those around them as he had shared his generosity with them. There was a puzzled look on the faces of most of the guests. They had no idea what dishes were being served or if they would taste good.

Ten courses were each brought in and set before all the guests. But then a strange thing happened that the host had foreseen but allowed to happen anyway. Each person got to eat their fill without comment from him. Some refused to eat seven of the ten courses, saying they did not taste good, even though they had not tasted them. Others did not eat the meal, stating that the food should have been shared with the poor and distributed to needy people. Still, others said they did not believe in how the host had achieved his fortune and would not eat anything on principle. Those who ate all ten menu items and had loads of food to take back home for their families. When it was over, the host told those in attendance that what they had eaten would be their reward for the rest of their lives. For those who had humility and obedience to the host’s will, their reward was the fullness of all the ten gifts of enlightenment and truth. For those who refused to eat seven of the ten gifts, their reward was only a portion of the fullness of what the host had to offer them; for those who did not eat anything, that was their reward. Everyone got want they wanted from the banquet, but not all were satisfied. Those who approached the host with humility and the willingness to do his will gained nourishment and eternal life, enjoying the gifts they received while on earth.

What is the meaning of this parable as you apply it to the notion of capacitas dei, making room in you for Christ?

This parable is one that I use to try to comprehend how many people can hold differing views of Christ, yet all are not what Christ intended, with varying degrees of truth.

The Parable of the Park Bench

Imagine yourself seated on a park bench in the dead of winter. Jesus has told you that He will pass by the bench soon. You sit yourself down and look down the path, straining to see Christ as he comes around the bend of the trees. You don’t know what he looks like, but you are invited to meet with him today, and all your senses are at their peak. You don’t want to miss him.

The first person to come to the trees is an older woman pushing a cart full of what looks like bottles and rags. You smile as she passes and wishes her a good day. She turns back to you and asks if you have a bottle of water. She says she has not had water in two days. You only have half a bottle of water left, but you give it to her, asking her to excuse your germs.  She shuffles away, smiling.

You look up, and there is what looks like a teenager. He asks if he can sit on the bench with you.  You do not know him and are reluctant to let him sit down, but he has only a thin T-shirt, and it is freezing outside. “Thanks,” he says. He talks about how he is homeless, and the Shelter kicks them out at 7:00 a.m., and he has no place to go. Again, you look to the pathway straining to see if Christ is coming. No Christ. The teenager says he is twenty-seven years old and out of a job with no family and nowhere to go. You get out your cell phone, call the local Catholic Charities, and speak to someone you know about helping the young man. You help out there once a month with packing food for the homeless, so you are familiar with their services. It happens that the City has a long-term shelter for people who need job skills

and a safe place to stay until they get a job. You give him the directions to the Shelter, about eight blocks away. He hugs you and limps away.

It has been going on for two hours now, and no Jesus. A dog comes up to you, a Weimaraner, tail wagging, happy to see you. “Hey girl,” you say. “Where is your Master?” It sits down and offers you one of her paws to shake. Friendly dog, you think, but who could be its owner?

It is going on for three hours now, and it seems to be getting colder. Just you and the dog are there, which you have named Michele. Just as you wonder once more if you have been stood up and inconvenienced, you notice an older man approach. He has a long, gray beard, somewhat matted together, and uses a cane to help him wobble down the path. His clothes are neat but certainly well-worn. His face has a gnarly look about him as if he had weathered many hardships, and they had taken their toll. He asked if he could sit down since he was tired. You say, “Of course, I am just waiting for a friend to come by here.” “You look cold,” he says. “Here, take this scarf that my mother knit for me; it will keep you warm.” The dog sits next to the man as if he was its owner. All the while, he kept stroking the dog’s head and petting it on the head. “Oh, by the way,” the old man says,” this is my dog. Thank you for finding it for me.” Two more hours went by, but you do not notice because the conversation is so warm and intimate. You tell the kind gentleman all about your trials and successes and how you just want to seek God wherever that might be and whoever it might be.  The gentleman tells you that He must go home to see his Father, to whom he owes everything. You think of how lucky the older man is to have such a loving Father. The older man gets up and smiles at you. “You are a good person,” he says, “and I look forward to seeing you again in the future,” his face just beaming with kindness. Turning to his dog, he says, “Coming?” The dog jumped up and down a few times, wagging his tail fiercely, and they both set off shuffling slowly away from the bench.

You look at your clock and see that five hours have passed but passed so quickly. You are a bit disappointed that Christ did not stop by.  You think maybe you got the time wrong and left to go home. You remember you have on you the scarf which the older man gave you as a gift as you are going. You are shocked by what you see. On the scarf is embroidered your name in the gold thread. You think to yourself; he said his mother made it for him.

One more thing you have noticed. You felt your heart burning within you as the older man talked to you on the bench? I wonder you think, …I wonder.

The only prayer you can think of comes into your mind. Praise to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. The God who is, who was, and who is to come at the end of the ages. Amen and Amen.

FILLING IN THE HOLES

In contemplative prayer, one characteristic is that you must deliberately slow down. Another reaction that I have found is in thinking that I have to do something with the time I meditate or it is not productive, I must fill in the hole of time that I just created with something, anything. After each of my meditative blogs on contemplative practices, I recommend that you consider reading them three times, each time growing deeper in awareness and time for the Holy Spirit to overshadow you with grace (energy of God). Another way to say this is by filling in the holes.

1. This book on the Art of Contemplative Practice is my reflection on reality as I see it in this stage of my life (most definitely the last stage). They are based on my Lectio Divina Meditations that lead to contemplation. Faith’s context is provided by the Roman Catholic Church, Ecumenical Councils, Benedictine, and Cistercian practices and charisms. Charisms are those elements that make up a particular point of view. In Cistercian spirituality, they are silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community. I am an individual, a professed Lay Cistercian with stability at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery, (Trappist) Conyers, Georgia. I don’t speak for, nor do I represent, any organization of Trappists, Lay Cistercians, or the Roman Catholic Church. I am and remain, a pilgrim in a foreign land seeking God anew each day and with bowed head continuously repeating, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me and those I have slighted.

2. Everything you read comes from the Holy Spirit, the topics, the development of ideas, the applications to Lay Cistercian spirituality; all of it is the result of me sitting on a park bench in the middle of winter and asking Jesus, “I am here, I come to do your will.” I just wait. The result of that waiting is the Holy Spirit gently shepherding me to go places I fear to enter my mind. Without even trying, I move from my Lectio statement (Philippians 2.5) to meditating on what the Holy Spirit spreads out on my table. Without ever noticing the movement, I wander through ideas until I begin to listen with the ear of the heart, as St. Benedict bids us do in his Prolog to the Rule, and transformation begins to happen. It has nothing to do with me or my capabilities; it has everything to do with my striving to love others as Christ loved all of us.

3. I don’t apologize for any of my thoughts. As the saying goes: “I am not you, you are not me; God is not you, and you, most certainly, are not God.” Also, I am not an apologist for my ideas. My life experiences inform who I am and what I have learned about what is right and what is sinful, keeping me from realizing my potential as an adopted son of the Father. I don’t recommend that you follow anything I do, for I am no expert in Cistercian contemplative practices, nor do I have extensive knowledge from a lifetime of study and contemplation on the Mystery of Faith. I share what I have on my plate, much like I would share my food with you if you visited me. Like the concept of Abbot’s Table of St. Benedict, hospitality means sharing my experiences with Christ and letting you eat from the table as you will.

THE ART  OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

My writings are based on my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) experiences. At some point, I have written so much that I find I must put it in some order which I have termed a compendium (collection) of books based on what I know and have experienced about contemplative practice.

I have tried to organize my writings and blogs around sixteen skills that I have found to penetrate deeper into reality and help me move from my false self to my true self. These contemplative practices don’t depend upon me but on how the Holy Spirit overshadows you and me to transform us from the World to the Spirit. My approach to contemplative practice is to place myself in the presence of Christ and let the Holy Spirit do the talking. All I have to do is keep my mind shut and my heart open. In his Prologue to the Rule, St. Benedict terms this “listen with the ear of your heart.”

https://christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-4-the-tools-for-good-works/

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 mere 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.

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 just 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 becoming adopted sons and daughters of the Father and inheriting the Kingdom prepared for us 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 up to our potential as adopted sons and daughters of the Father and not descend into our animality past, 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 being like the center of a bulls-eye on a target, but rather the purpose of all reality from the time that 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 Erich Fromm writes so 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, which is 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 through them those who would gather together to DO what he said that He would be with us as we journey in our particular and unique paths to that final gathering in Heaven. The Art of Contemplative Practice means doing those activities and behaviors that allow the presence of God to influence the way 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 happening. 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 say, “Jesus is Lord.”

Church is a gathering of those faithful in each age, in each generation, in each person, linked together in Faith that the words of Christ are true. My spirituality is the way that I approach life using the tools that Christ gave me to walk the minefields of original sin and come out the other side, battered and shell-shocked, yet with eyes of the prize, as St. Paul states. One aspect of the Sacrament of Reconciliation that has been my focus of late is how forgiveness of sin by Christ through the priest, not only takes away sin but also repairs the damage caused by it in my life. “For Behold, I make all things new.”

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 to 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 to love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die; now what?

MASTERY NOW AND FOREVER

When God accepts you as an adopted son or daughter, your journey to Forever is just beginning. Like everything we do as human beings, it takes work. When you ratify your Faith, you 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 individual 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, precisely the Cistercian approach to contemplative practice. I will never be able to master The Christ Principle. I do try to manage what I can during whatever time I have left. Spirituality, especially contemplative practices and charisms, is a process of becoming more like Christ and less like Adam. It doesn’t end until this body ends and life with Christ continues.

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. We will never completely master the art of contemplation in this lifetime of trying to love God with our whole minds, hearts, 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, 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 the Church, His living body, shows us HOW. The Church should be the instrument or help us move from self to God with good works. 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 that 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. The Church is our mother and always points us to Christ, telling us to “do what he tells you.”

 Our reformation must increase God’s capacity (capacitas dei) in us by using my help and prayers and in union with all those gathered together in one Faith, one Lord, and one Baptism. These bonds with Christ are called The Seven Unities and are found in Ephesians 4, Unity in the Body. These bonds link all those who confess that Jesus is Lord, the Church Universal. I have bolded these seven for emphasis.

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

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

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

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

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.

The local Church became one of the places where I met 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.

Seeking God each day means that I try to “have in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)  In discovering the Art of Contemplative Practice in my Lay Cistercian approach to the Sacred, I have identified sixteen skills to penetrate the cloak of Original Sin that surrounds all my activities. I ask you to consider some of them for your system of spiritual awareness. These sixteen ways to see Christ as you live out each day are cumulative. Although each day begins anew, the struggle you had to move from your false self to your true self means that you are just a bit more of Christ than before. Of course, all of this is because of God’s energy in you. I must allow God to enter my core using humility and asking for mercy.

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 leading 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 assemble all six questions into 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 contemplative 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 the base practices.

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 we all practice these sixteen skills we call The Church, The School of Love.  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 with 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 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 Contemplative Practice 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; 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 write these ideas. 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; 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, 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 daily in the context of whatever comes my way. I desire to transform myself from my false self to my true self by growing my capacity for God (capacitas dei). To do that requires that I die to a false self each day to rise to a 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 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 this is not about me but 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
• If The Christ Principle is the hub, then each human approaches Christ differently based on their unique life experiences.
  • Some get it right
  • Some don’t get it at all but think they do.
  • Others deny it exists.
  • The vast majority of humans are oblivious to how the presence of Christ can transform them from corruptible to incorruptible.
• I am not a comtemplative monk. I aspire to be a Lay Cistercian, using Cistercian practices and charisms. Just as I am not a monk, each individual Lay Cistercian approaches their individual lives with the accumulation of their life experiences. In this sense, my spirituality will not be your experience of the Sacred. However, what keeps us connected is Christ is the center of our existence. How that plays out is different for each monk and also each Lay Cistercian. One is not better than the other but all glorify God, as St. Benedict wisely points out.

I offer you sixteen different skills that 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 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: 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: The Mystery of the Church

https://amzn.to/3pOblUj)

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 from my life experiences and how I have abandoned my false self to put on the new garment of Christ.

Each skill depends on the other and builds on the ones preceding 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. I intended 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. 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, Carmelite, 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 to know, love, 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.

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