Dom John Chapman: On Contemplative Prayer

 

Dom John Chapman: On Contemplative Prayer

 

I.                   St John of the Cross: the signs that one is being called to contemplative prayer:

A.     The reason is not simply ‘technical’ but because often these signs are interpreted

as signs of ‘failure’: Dom John suggest this test: say the Our Father and really try

to really try to think out what each phrase; if you can, you should; if you can’t you are

being praying another way.

B.     Does disinterest or dissatisfaction with meditation or prayer in general indicate that

that you are just lazy or weary or does it mean that you are being called to a form of

prayer which is simpler, more passive, devoid of mental effort?

1.       St. John insists on a failure of any sense of pleasure and a continual ‘painful care and worry about God’.

2.      But Dom John Chapman says there are only two things that matter: an inability to meditate and persistent sense of dryness.

3.      This does not mean that you are disinterested in God or that you should stop going to Mass or reading Scripture.

4.      For Chapman it is very simple: ‘affective’ prayer is replaced by something different: either the imagination works or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t there no point in trying to force the matter: ‘pray as you can, not as you can’t’.

 

II.                From this the recipients of his letters drew great relief, having inappropriately berated themselves for lack of spiritual fervor.

A.     Dom Chapman, unlike Joh of the Cross tells them exactly what to do.

B.     You can be praying while appearing to be nothing and wasting one’s time.

C.     Distractions are of two sorts:

1.       The kind that completely take over and stop you from talking with God and the harmless meandering of the mind.

2.      Expect to be distracted and do not sorry about it.

3.      Use some arrow prayer or bits of the Psalms or other Scripture not as the main focus of your prayer but as a ‘drone’ to keep the imagination occupied, while the intellect if left a blank directing its attention to nothing in particular.

4.      Distractions that are not willful don’t matter in the least.

D.    What matters is that we cling to God, which will more often than seem like a mindless and idiotic state.

 

III.             “Prayer, in the sense of union with God, is the most crucifying thing there is. One must do it for God's sake; but one will not get any satisfaction out of it, in the sense of feeling "I am good at prayer. I have an infallible method."

A.     That would be disastrous, since what we want to learn is precisely our own weakness, powerlessness, unworthiness.

B.     Nor should one to expect "a sense of the reality of the supernatural". 

C.     “And one should wish for no prayer, except precisely the prayer that God gives us -- probably very distracted and unsatisfactory in every way”.

D.    On the other hand, the only way to pray is to pray; and the way to pray well is to pray much.

1.       If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly, but the less one prays, the worse it goes.

2.      If circumstances do not permit even regularity, then one must put up with the fact that when one does try to pray, one can't pray -- and our prayer will probably consist of telling this to God.

E.     You simply have to begin wherever you find yourself;  make any acts you want to make and feel you ought to make, but do not force yourself into feelings of any kind.

F.     “You say very naturally that you do not know what to do if you have a quarter of an hour alone in church. Yes, I suspect the only thing to do is to shut out the church and everything else, and just give yourself to God and beg Him to have mercy on you, and offer Him all your distractions”.

 

IV.              The ‘blank’: At some stage there will be what Chapman calls the ‘blank’ –John of the Cross: ‘not being able to think of any particular thing’—which can give way to a conscious loving attentiveness to God.

 

V.                 You cannot decide that you want to pray contemplatively, although you can desire it, but it is something given (infused) by God.

 

 

VI.              None of this involves stopping the normal course of Christian Prayer, liturgical prayer, petition and intercession.: contemplative prayer says Dom Chapman makes one’s petitions more bold: we should ask God for everything and make up your mind that you will get it not because you deserve it but because God is good.