Ascent – Part III

Introduction

  1. Recall from Part II
    • John’s goal for all of us, without exception, is the transforming union, in which we reach the perfection of having our wills completely transformed to the will of God.
      • “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2).
    • This is a step-by-step process that begins with Christian meditation, that transitions, after some years, into the early stages of contemplation (fourth mansions), and eventually takes one, who is truly loves God into the transforming union (seventh mansions), in which one lives a life of heroic virtue (this is rare, but it shouldn’t be).
      • It is a passage through the two dark nights of sense and spirit.
    • The two nights of sense and spirit are dark nights because the journey through them consists of three primary elements:
      • Self-denial of gratifications, which are darkness to the senses and the will.
      • The road traveled, faith, which is belief in that which we cannot understand.
      • God, who is darkness to us because we cannot know His nature.
    • We started examining obstacles to growth, the appetites, which are the voluntary seeking of pleasure for its own sake.
      • Desire, appetite and attachment are essentially the same in John’s writings. These terms, thus, refer to the “willed clinging” to “inordinate and self-centered” desires (FW, 132-3, 6).
      • Attachment: “A clinging of the will to some created thing for its own sake” (Fr. Dubay).
  2. Concupiscence Is at the Heart of the Problem with Appetites
    • Regarding the appetites, John tells us that he “is not discussing a mere lack of things [for] this lack will not divest the soul” of its appetites. Since the things of the world cannot enter the soul, they present no harm to the soul” (Ascent I, 3, 4).
      • So it’s not that extra piece of pie that is the problem.
    • “Rather, it is the will and the appetite dwelling within [the soul] that causes the damage” (Ascent I, 3, 4).
    • “The appetite [voluntary sensual desire] . . . enkindles concupiscence and overwhelms the intellect so that it cannot see its light” (Ascent I, 8, 3). Consequently, the intellect’s judgments are impaired by these voluntary sensual desires.
      • The theological name for these voluntary sensual desires is concupiscence.
        • “Christian theology has given [concupiscence] a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of human reason” (CCC 2515).
      • St. Paul speaks of concupiscence in his Letter to the Romans:
        • “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members” (Rom 7:21-23; also see Gal 5:16, 17, 24 and Eph 2:3).
          • “Law of sin”: the law of concupiscence, which has original sin as its source.
      • When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he lost for himself and the human race integrity, which is the unified action of body and soul, both being directed to God, and he passed on to us a damaged human nature.
        • Having lost integrity, man also lost integrity’s four attendant freedoms, one of which is freedom from concupiscence.
        • The author of Genesis tells us that God didn’t make us with the competing desires of the appetites; they are the work of Adam:
          • “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25).
      • It is worth noting that one who is in the transforming union has regained for himself freedom from concupiscence.
      • The intellectual impairment brought about by concupiscence is something that occurs at the level of the soul rather than the body, for the intellect is a faculty of the soul.
        • It is analogous to the impairment that alcohol has on the brain’s ability to process information it receives from the senses, except that the impairment of alcohol is transitory, whereas the impairment due to the appetites continues to damage the soul until they are annihilated.
  3. How a Selfish Clinging (Appetite, Attachment) is Known to Be Such
    • What are the signs of a selfish clinging (appetite, attachment)? (FW, 135).
      • Diverting the use of something away from its intended purpose.
        • Using speech to communicate falsehood.
        • Using the sexual faculties in a manner outside of their unitive and procreative functions.
        • Using one’s position to take advantage of (enslave) subordinates.
      • Excess in our use of created things.
        • Possessing more than what is necessary.
        • Eating more than what is necessary.
        • Talking more than what is necessary.
      • Making means into ends; seeking created things for their own sake.
        • Travel for the sake of travel.
        • Eating for the sake of eating.
        • Entertainment for the sake of being entertained.
  4. Love: An Equivocal Word
    • John of the Cross’ definition of love: “To love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself, for God, of all that is not God” (Ascent II, 5, 7).
    • In order to be clear about what John of the Cross is saying in his writings, we need to note that the English word “love” can be understood in two different ways.
    • The typical understanding of “love” refers to a “pleasant, felt experience,” which is an experience rooted in one or more of the five senses.
      • For example, one who says he “loves” pizza is saying that pizza provides a pleasurable experience to the sense of taste.
      • Similarly:
        • One who “loves” music is saying that the sounds of music are a pleasurable experience to the sense of hearing.
        • One who “loves” the fragrance of roses is saying the fragrance is a pleasurable experience to the sense of smell.
        • One who “loves” a work of art is saying the work is a pleasurable experience to the sense of sight.
        • One who “loves” the feel of a particular fabric is saying the fabric is a pleasurable experience to the sense of touch.
      • Note that these things (e.g., the taste of pizza, the sounds of music, the fragrance of roses, the work of art, the feel of fabric) are not bad things in and of themselves.
      • In each of these examples, the pleasurable experience is an unwilled reaction to some sensory stimulus.
        • That is, we do not choose that our senses be attracted to the things that please them, nor can we turn off the attraction.
      • “Love,” in this sense (i.e., of the reaction of our senses to pleasant things) is properly termed emotional love. It is the reaction of the emotions, which are always unwilled (at their first level of movement), to a sensual stimulus. The concept of emotional love is better represented by the word “like.”
        • These emotions can enter a second level of movement in which they are willed, and when they do they are acts of selfishness.
      • Additional notes on emotional love
        • We can get an understanding of the concept of emotional love by considering our reaction to food. Generally speaking, we don’t choose to like the foods we like. Rather, we like them because of the pleasing sensory stimulation experienced by the brain when we taste them.
        • It follows that emotional love is always inwardly-directed from something external to us toward that which is internal to us. That is, emotional love is the result of an external object causing a pleasing physiological stimulation that is experienced internally.
        • As such, the “flow” of emotional love is always inward to the person who experiences the pleasing physiological stimulation.
        • Note that if this is how we “love” people, we place the burden of love on the other person.
          • In other words, we “love” the other person as long as that person pleases us.
    • The Scriptural understanding of “love,” is that of an “unpleasant, felt experience” that has its source in the human will when it is directed to the benefit of another person. This is the theological virtue of charity.
      • Scripture provides us with many examples:
        • “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
        • “We are . . . heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom 8:17).
        • “Jesus said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Lk 9:23).
        • “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).
        • “By your [patient] endurance you will gain your lives [i.e., save your souls]” (Lk 21:19).
        • “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
        • Immediately following the beatitudes in Luke 6, Jesus says: “I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Lk 6:27).
          • “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Lk 6:32).
            • Note that in this verse He is referring to emotional love, the unwilled response to a pleasant stimulus.
      • In each of the above verses we can see that the unpleasant experience (suffering), which is certainly felt, is the result of a willed action that is certainly unfelt, directed toward a moral good.
      • “Love,” in this sense, is properly termed volitional love (Latin, “voluntas”). It is the theological virtue of charity. It is a willed choice and, as such, it is entirely unfelt, for there is no sensory aspect to an act of the will, it is a spiritual “motion” rather than a physical motion.
      • Additional notes on volitional love
        • Volitional love is self-giving; hence, the “flow” of volitional love is always outward from the person who loves.
        • For this reason, there is always some loss on the part of the one who loves. Consequently, love is always accompanied with suffering. To love is to suffer; to love much is to suffer much.
        • There is no emotional component to volitional love (or any virtue), though it is possible for a virtuous act to cause some overflow into the emotions.
        • One has the capability of freely choosing to make an expression of volitional love or to withhold an expression of volitional love. Volitional love cannot be forced.
    • A second definition of love from John of the Cross:
      • “Seeking God . . . entails not only the desire of doing without . . . consolations for God’s sake, but also the inclination to choose for love of Christ all that is most distasteful whether in God or in the world – and such is the love of God (A II, 7, 5).
    • Now that we have some understanding of what love, the theological virtue of charity, really is, we have some motivation for the sacrifice that the spiritual life demands.
  5. The Appetites Are Darkness to God
    • John the Evangelist writes: “The light shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn 1:5 DR).
      • Note: John of the Cross reads the Latin version of Jn 1:5 as it is quoted above. Modern translations put a different twist on it.
    • Commenting on Jn 1:5, John writes: “All of man’s attachments [selfish clingings] to [created things] are pure darkness in God’s sight” (A I, 4, 1).
      • As we have seen, attachments, are selfish clingings, and selfishness is self-love; hence, there is nothing of love (i.e., charity) in selfishness.
      • Now, God is love (1 Jn 4:8) which is the contrary of self-love.
      • Hence, there is nothing of God in attachments.
      • Since there is nothing of God in our selfish clingings, they are “pure darkness” to Him, for “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn 1:5).
    • The attachments John speaks of could be mortally sinful, venially sinful, or merely imperfections in which there is no sin. But even as imperfections they are acts of selfish clinging, and darkness to God.
    • Of this, John writes: A man clothed in the darkness of these appetites “will be incapable of the enlightenment and dominating fullness of God’s pure and simple light, unless he rejects them” (A I, 4, 1).
      • “Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (Jn 8:12).

Our Reluctance to Change: Old Wine and New Wine

  1. Old Wine and New Wine
    • There is a principle we should be aware of that affects the way we receive John’s teaching. The principle is expressed in Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus responds to a challenge from the Pharisees regarding the lack of fasting of the part of His disciples:
      • “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, ‘The old is good’” (Lk 5:37-39).
      • At the time this parable was spoken by Jesus, the New Law had not been fully revealed. Hence, at the time, the Old Law (old wine) could be seen as essentially equivalent to the New Law (new wine), in one specific sense: both the Old Law and the New Law have God as their source.
      • With that in mind, one of the things this parable tells us is the principle that when there are two things that are essentially equivalent, we tend to regard more highly the one we are more familiar with.
        • Coke and Pepsi example: when habitually drinking either one, the other tastes inferior.
  2. A Thought Experiment
    • Now, let’s illustrate the principle with a thought experiment: consider life in this country as it was for most people two hundred years ago. It was rather crude by today’s standards.
      • Cars, washers and dryers, heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing, paved roads, medical care, electrical lighting, airplanes, cell phones, et al.
    • We would think it a hardship if we were transported back to 1820 for the rest of our lives.
    • On the other hand, if a person living in those days could have been transported to modern day America, it’s quite possible that he would have been sufficiently shocked at modern life that he would take the first time machine back to the early 1800’s.
    • So we have this interesting situation where a person from the 1800’s prefers the hard life of earlier times to all the opportunities and conveniences that modern life has to offer. And on the other hand, we have the modern man who would want to convince the old-timer that life is so much better today.
      • Life itself is really not better today; there are just fewer inconveniences and more entertainment to help us forget the remaining inconveniences.
    • I highlight this principle to give some perspective on John of the Cross’ comparison of the things of this world to the transforming union, in which we have the deepest experiences of God that are possible in this life.
      • From John’s perspective in the transforming union, he is like the modern man, and we, being a considerable distance from the transforming union, are like the old-timer.
      • Thus, he speaks as though our life, distant from the transforming union and very much under the influence of a wide variety of appetites, is something that is most undesirable.
      • We, on the other hand, are so comfortable with of our appetites that we tend to have little interest in advancing to the transforming union, and are inclined to think that his “radical” teaching is of no real importance.
        • “Most people strongly resist growing from ordinary to heroic sanctity” (Dubay, “Seeking Spiritual Direction,” p. 268).
  3. Another Principle: Love Effects a Likeness
    • Philosophy teaches that two contraries cannot exist in the same subject.
      • Hence, the light of divine union cannot exist in the darkness that is an attachment to creatures. “Consequently, the light of divine union cannot be established in the soul until these [appetites] are extinguished” (A I, 4, 2).
      • It should also be noted that “love effects a likeness between the lover and the object loved [In fact,] love not only equates, but even subjects the lover to the loved object” (A I 4, 3).
      • It is clear that ‘all the being of [finite] creatures compared with the infinite being of God is nothing, and that, therefore, a man attached to creatures is nothing in the sight of God, and even less than nothing, because love causes equality . . .and even brings the lover lower than the object of his love” (A I, 4, 4).
  4. John’s Compares the Good of Creatures to the Good of the Transforming Union
    • The Beauty of Creatures
      • “All the beauty of creatures compared with the infinite beauty of God is supreme ugliness” (A I, 4, 4). Hence the wise man writes:
        • “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain [worthless]” (Prv 31:30).
          • The wise man is speaking of beauty for its own sake. Beauty has a real value when one recognizes that it is a hint of the glory of God.
      • Hence, a person attached to the beauty of creatures is “extremely ugly in God’s sight . . . [and is] incapable of transformation into the beauty which is God, because ugliness does not attain to beauty” (A I, 4, 4).
    • The World’s Wisdom and Human Ability
      • “All of the world’s wisdom and human ability contrasted with the infinite wisdom of God is pure and utter ignorance” (A I, 4, 5). Hence, St. Paul writes:
        • “The wisdom of this world is folly with God.” (1 Cor 3:19).
      • “Accordingly, a man must advance to union with God by unknowing (i.e., faith) rather than by knowing” (A I, 4, 5)
    • The Will’s Delights and Satisfactions in Creatures
      • “All the delights and satisfactions of the will in the things of the world in contrast to all the delight that is God are intense suffering, torment, and bitterness.” He who is attached to these delights deserves “intense suffering, torment, and bitterness” in God’s eyes. Such a person will not be capable of “union with God, since he merits suffering and bitterness” (A I, 4, 7)
    • Note that John is not saying the creatures are a bad thing. Rather, he is contrasting the natural to the supernatural, the finite to the infinite, art to the Artist.
  5. Principal Motive of Spiritual Directors
    • The elimination of appetites, regardless of whether they are imperfections, venial sins, or mortal sins (A I, 4, 6), is the principal motive of the spiritual life, for they are what stand in the way of the transforming union.
    • For this reason John says: “The chief concern of spiritual directors with their penitents is the immediate mortification of every appetite . . . so as to liberate them from so much misery” (101-3).
    • In the way that modern man sees life in the 1800’s as misery, so does John see us with our attachments to the things of the world in a state of misery.
    • We see the rough road leading to the transforming union as misery (compared to the delights of the world), and are for that reason not attracted to the transforming union (which actually means we are not all that attracted to God).
    • John knows the transforming union from decades of lived experience, whereas we hardly know anything about it. He knows the misery we are in.

Harms of the Appetites: Privative and Positive

  1. Chapter 6: Appetites – Privative and Positive Harms: How They Weary the Soul
    • The harms the appetites engender in the soul, privative and positive. “They deprive [man] of God’s spirit [privative harm]; and they weary, torment, darken, defile, and weaken him [positive harm].”
      • “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13)
    • The Privative Effect: Resistance to God’s Spirit
      • “Love of God and attachment to creatures are contraries, they cannot coexist in the same will” (Ascent I, 6, 1).
      • “God accomplishes more in cleansing and purging a person of these contraries than He does in creating him from nothing. . . . For nothingness raises no opposition” (Ascent I, 6, 4).
        • “Do not give [to] dogs what is holy” (Mt 7:6).
      • “For the crumbs serve more to whet their appetite than to satisfy their hunger” (Ascent I, 6, 4).
      • “What, then, in common has the hunger caused by creatures with the fullness fostered by the Spirit of God? . . . Since hunger and fullness are contraries they cannot coexist in the same person” (Ascent I, 6, 3).
    • The Positive Effect: Kinds of Impairments wrought in the soul
      • Note: In each of the discussions on these five appetites, John ties them in with passages from the Old Testament.
      • First: “The appetites are wearisome and tiring for a man” (19-43 on 86-4).
        • They are like children always whining; like a man with a fever whose thirst increases by the moment; like water disturbed by the wind; like a lover frustrated (86-87).
        • “An appetite . . . is like a fire that blazes up when wood is thrown on it, but necessarily dies out when the wood is consumed [except that] in regard to the appetites, things are . . . worse. The fire dwindles as the wood is consumed, but the intensity of the appetite does not diminish when the appetite is satisfied, even though the object [of the appetite] is gone” (19-44 on 87-2).
      • Second: “Torment and affliction is the second kind of damage the appetites cause in an individual” (A I, 7, ).
        • Similar to the torture of the rack; like a man lying naked on thorns and nails; “They surrounded me like bees, they blazed like a fire of thorns” (Ps 118:12); as the peasant “goads and torments the ox that pulls the plow, so concupiscence, in order to attain the object of its longing, afflicts the man who lives under the yoke of his appetites” (19-46 on 88-1).
        • The torment is in proportion to the intensity of the appetite and the number of appetites. The appetites are like the manner of Samson having been blinded and chained to grind at the millstone (19-47 on 88-3).
        • “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). “The creature torments, the spirit of God refreshes” (19-48 on 88-5).
      • Third: “The third kind of harm the appetites bring upon a person is blindness and darkness” (19-49 on 89-2).
        • “A man’s intellect, clouded by the appetites, becomes dark and impedes the sun of either natural reason or supernatural wisdom from shining within and completely illumining it.” For this reason David says: “My iniquities have overtaken me, till I cannot see” (Ps 40:20) (19-50 on 89-2).
          • Von Balthasar: “Sin obscures sight.”
          • “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).
        • Because the intellect is darkened, “the will becomes weak and the memory dull and disordered in its proper operation” (19-51 on 89-3).
        • The appetite is blind for it has no intellect. Hence, if a man’s intellect is darkened so that he is led by his appetites, we have a blind appetite leading a blind man. Scripture says of this condition: “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit” (Mt 15:14) (19-52 on 89-4).
      • Fourth: “The fourth way the appetites harm the soul is by defiling and staining it.
        • “The Book of Sirach teaches: ‘Whoever touches pitch will be defiled’ (Sir 13:1). . . . Inordinate appetites for the things of the world [blackens] the beauty of the soul. . . . So great is the harm that if we try to express how ugly and dirty is the imprint the appetites leave in the soul we find nothing comparable to it – neither a place full of cobwebs and lizards, nor the unsightliness of a dead body, not the filthiest thing imaginable in this life” (Ascent I, 9, 1-3).
      • Fifth: “Weakness and tepidity is the fifth kind of harm the appetites produce in a man.”
        • “The desires are indeed like leeches, always sucking blood from one’s veins. . . . No illness makes walking as burdensome, or eating as distasteful, as do the appetites for creatures render the practice of virtue burdensome and saddening to a man” (Ascent I, 10, 1-4).

Signs for the Transition Stage

  1. Fourth Mansions: Transition Stage (Second Water; Seed on Good Soil, Prayer of Quiet)
    • Transition from the Human Mode to the Divine Mode
      • At this stage of prayer development, “‘the natural is united with the supernatural” and a great deal of harm can be done’ (FW 86-2).
        • There are those who, filled with themselves, “believe that the excitement they feel is the fire of love kindled in their breasts by the Holy Spirit. From this deception and the like spring evils of every kind . . . For this sort of pseudo-experience brings with it the false knowledge of the fiend’s school just as an authentic experience brings with it understanding of the truth taught by God. Believe me when I say that the devil has his contemplatives as surely as God has his” (Cloud of Unknowing, ch. 45).
      • In this transition stage, which can last “perhaps for two months, or perhaps for two years” (Dubay, CVS), there is a back and forth between meditation and the delicate and difficult to notice beginnings of infused prayer. The procedure to follow is that when [one] can meditate discursively, that is what . . . should [be done] (Dubay, CVS).
        • Recall the quotation from John of the Cross: “Many individuals think they are not praying, when, indeed, their prayer is intense. Others place high value on their prayer, while it is little more than nonexistent” (Ascent, Prologue, 6).
  2. The Three Signs of the Transition Stage (Dubay, CVS)
    • Since the beginnings of infused prayer are delicate and difficult to recognize, how does one know if he is at this stage of prayer growth? There are three signs:
      • First, you are no longer able to meditate discursively without forcing it unnaturally. If you force it, you will not get any appreciable benefit from it.
        • You will find a kind of attention to God either delightful or a dry yearning. It is not something you have produced, it is given by God.
        • This is the beginning of infused prayer and it is very delicate. Unless you are well instructed, you will probably not notice it is there. You will experience it, but you will think it is just about nothing, yet it is something very good and important.
        • You will also experience many distractions. After experiencing a distraction, you will notice God is drawing you back to wanting Himself.
      • Second, you feel within yourself, at prayer, an emptiness, a vast void. It seems that nothing much is there anymore.
        • The occasional inner glow which accompanies discursive meditation is not there anymore. The images and concepts are no longer there because you are getting a better knowledge of God which is beyond images and concepts (for this reason, they are referred to as being “dark”).
        • You are empty of human thoughts and ideas. Something much better than that is filling you, but you don’t feel that very much, if at all.
      • Third, an ill-defined concern that one is not giving God enough.
        • There is a desire to give God more, but one is unsure as to what else could be given, because it seems as though nothing is being held back from God, though there is much more to give Him.
      • When you have these three traits together, you are in the transitional stage. You are growing into infused prayer.
  3. The Back and Forth of the Transition State (Dubay, CVS)
    • In the transitional stage of prayer, one must be at peace. This is really good prayer.
      • The theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) are being purified of secondary supports.
      • You are being stripped of many imperfections, thus growing in the virtues of patience, humility, love etc., even when you are not thinking about the virtue.
      • When you are praying, even though you don’t feel like praying, you are doing God’s will, and that has to be growth.
    • Realize that there will be this transition time where sometimes you will be able to meditate and sometimes you will not. It is a time of mingling . . . When you can meditate discursively, that is what you should do.
  4. Characteristics of infused prayer at this stage (FW 87-2):
    • “Infused contemplation [i.e., mystical prayer] is a divinely given, general, nonconceptual, loving awareness of God.”
      • This loving awareness does not consist in feelings; rather, one notices an awareness of being attracted to God.
    • “There are no images, no concepts, no ideas, no visions.”
    • “Sometimes this awareness of God takes the form of a loving attention, sometimes of a dry desire, sometimes of a strong thirsting”
    • “[The infusion] can be delicate and brief, or in advanced stages burning, powerful, absorbing, prolonged.”
    • “Always it is transformative of the person, usually imperceptibly and gradually but on occasion obviously and suddenly”
  5. Prayer of Recollection
    • There are two kinds of infused prayer in fourth mansions, the prayer of recollection and the prayer of quiet.
    • While speaking of the Prayer of Quiet, Teresa describes the Prayer of Recollection, which precedes it:
      • “I want to mention another kind of prayer [infused recollection] that almost always begins before this one [i.e., spiritual delight – the prayer of quiet] . . . It is a recollection that also seems to me to be supernatural . . . since without first wanting to do so, one does close one’s eyes and desire solitude . . . Like a good shepherd, with a whistle so gentle that even they themselves almost fail to hear it, He makes them recognize His voice and stops them from going so far astray so that they will return to their dwelling place” (IC, IV:3, #1, 2).
    • “A person . . . is ‘almost invariably’ introduced to contemplative prayer in this manner” (FW 87-4).
    • “Let the soul enjoy [this recollection] without any endeavors other than some loving words, for even though we may not try in this prayer to go without thinking of anything, I know that often the intellect will be suspended, even though for only a very brief moment” (IC, IV:3, #7).
    • “Whatever activity is called for during the prayer in the fourth mansions, one should proceed ‘gently and noiselessly’” (FW 92-3).
      • “In the prayer of recollection, meditation, or the work of the intellect, must not be set aside” (IC, IV:3, #8). However, this is a simple form of meditation:
        • “One should . . . humbly say: ‘Lord, what am I capable of here? What has the servant to do with the Lord – or earth with heaven?’” (Life 15, 6).
    • “The beginner needs to be well instructed, or he is likely to miss what is given at this point, so gentle and delicate is it” (FW 87-4).

Signs for the Post-Transition Stage

  1. Fourth Mansions: Post-Transition (Second Water; Seed on Good Soil, Prayer of Quiet)
    • The Capturing of the Will in Fourth Mansions
      • As one grows in this stage of prayer, “God progressively takes over the will and then the intellect and imagination [but only briefly – see below]. He occupies and absorbs them by what He gives” (FW 86-3).
        • “Taking it upon oneself to stop and suspend thought is what I mean should not be done; nor should we cease to work with the intellect, because otherwise we would be left like cold simpletons and be doing neither one thing nor the other” (Life, 12, 5).
  2. The Three Signs That One Has Moved Beyond the Transition Stage (FW 164-2).
    • First, “there is an inability to meditate discursively (as in the transition stage’s first sign)”
      • One can form successive thoughts as is done in discursive meditation, but the process feels forced and “runs counter to one’s [inclination].”
      • If a person in this stage of prayer development tries to meditate “by force,” he “would find little or no profit and would forfeit inner peace.”
    • Second, “there is a [general] absence of ‘satisfaction or consolation’ in either things of heaven or of earth.”
      • “[One’s] prayer is dry and unsatisfying . . . [and] characterized by aridity [emptiness] and distraction.”
      • The emptiness at prayer, of the transition stage’s second sign, now extends to things in general.
    • “There is a concern for and an habitual turning to God, even though there may be little pleasurable taste for Him.”
      • A person in this state “is considerably detached from earthly things, and desires to give God everything.” Yet, such a person typically experiences emptiness at prayer.
      • The emptiness is the “apparent emptiness of purification . . . [rather than] the actual emptiness of mediocrity.”
      • “Though nothing seems to be happening, a great deal is going on, substantially more . . . than was occurring in the bustle of discursive meditation.”
  3. Prayer of Quiet
    • “Key to St. Teresa’s explanation of the fourth mansions is the occupation of the will with God. At the moment when this prayer is given, the soul is captive [i.e., the will] . . . and is not free to love anything but God” (FW 88-3).
    • The prayer of quiet “may last for a long while, even for a day or two. . . even though engaged in exterior activities that require the attention of the mind” (FW 88-5).
  4. Benefits of the Prayer of Quiet (FW 89-3)
    • “The virtues grow incomparably better than in the previous degree of prayer.”
    • “The person begins to lose the craving for worldly things”
    • “All servile fear disappears”
    • “A more lively faith begets a desire for penance and a diminution of fear of suffering”
    • “[The person] now sees earthly things as ‘mere refuse’”
  5. Program: How to Proceed in the Prayer of Quiet
    • One must learn receptivity (FW 90-2).
      • “When we notice the infused quiet, we leave aside discursive reasoning, but this does not mean that there is to be in the future no activity of the mind at all” (FW 91-2).
      • “God gave us our minds to be used in their own manner, ‘they must be allowed to perform their office until God gives them a better one’” (FW 91-2).
    • “The excessive multiplication of vocal prayers (even aside from times of mental prayer) can likewise impede growth” (FW 92-3).
      • “There are people who fail to recognize the presence of the delicate beginnings of the new peace and love and light. Thinking that nothing is happening, they proceed to recite vocal prayers or mental words that do nothing but snuff out what God is giving” (FW 93-1).
    • When not to meditate
      • When you are almost completely into infused prayer, that is, you have found out that, for the most part, almost always, you can’t meditate discursively, but God gives you that loving attention, or that dry yearning for Himself, when you run into a difficulty, a distraction or something, you do not go back to discursive prayer then (CVS).
      • The manner of proceeding at this state depends on the type of person one is. There are two types of individuals (CVS).
        • The first type, when quiet and gathered together, notices that loving attention to God or that dry yearning for God. It’s just given. You’ve got it. There is nothing else to do.
        • The second type, when at a quiet place for prayer, is not gathered together sufficiently and therefore, the Divine Presence isn’t noticed. This person might use a Scripture verse, or recall a mystery of God, something very simple, to be gathered together psychologically. When gathered together, the Divine Presence will be noticed.
    • Teresa’s three conditions for growth
      • Never give up the habitual practice of prayer (FW 93-3)
      • Strive to be further detached from everything (FW 93-4)
      • Seek a greater amount of solitude with the Beloved (FW 93-5)