Fr. Centala Tape 3- Track 1

Fr. Centala Tape 3 - Track 2

This is a Draft Version. Final Revision Will be posted soon!

ELIJAH PROPHET OF CARMEL
Fr. Ted Centala, O.C.D.
(Tape #3)

Fr. Centala: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Audience: Amen.

Fr. Centala: Let's say this closing conference about contemplation. Elijah the Prophet has been challenging us for two years to listen and find God in the gentle breeze. And ah, he didn't explicitate that any more in the Book of Kings so we turn to his followers basically St. Teresa, and St. John of the Cross, and Little Terese to help us to understand that. This little handout, the first two pages are a summary of a twelve page article. Page three of course is page 312 of the collective work of St. John of the Cross, and the back panel is taken from a little book on Carmelite Spirituality by Mother Immaculata. Who is living now in Ohio, someplace.

St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila had defined in her life that prayer was a friendly converse with God. We know that our conversations with various people we are changed in the process of speaking with people. And of course if that person is God, it's understandable why we would be changed tremendously by prayer. She says anyone who has not begun to pray, I beg you for love of the Lord not to miss so great a blessing. She said the reason for our Carmels is that God might have closer friends. And the worst thing that could happen is that you stop praying. And the only remedy is of course to start. So that we can be better friends with God. That of course should change our whole idea of friendship. She says, in the beginning we start out treating God much like we treat other people. Then we learn new things from God and that friendship with God then our friendship with other people should also change.

Unfortunately, the spiritual life understood as friendship with God, enthusiastically begun by many to often ends in disenchantment. Sort of as the ocean goes away we get into aridity and we say everything that's failed, and in reality we are sort of being weaned away from being dependent on our devotion and being led along in faith and deep contemplation, and we don't recognize that. So we're going to see ah, this morning how we can recognize that better.

When we are praying in the beginning, on our little chart on the back page, we see that vocal prayer isn't even on there. That's praying what someone else has composed. Finally when we get into meditation, spontaneous prayer, we're praying sort of our own prayers to God. But St. Teresa will say that vocal prayer, we have to pray that as mental prayer. We've got to be aware of who we're talking to, and who we are. The creature talking with the creator. And that makes it mental prayer, and that then will dispose us to get on to these other twelve forms of prayer, as we progressively keep getting. Well here it shown as getting loftier and loftier, but ah, we prefer really to say it's deeper and deeper. Just two different ways of looking at the same thing.

In meditation we are dependent upon whatever we can sort of put on our imagination and reason about. While in contemplation spiritual faculties of the intellect, and the memory, and the will, sort of heighten by the Holy Spirit in using our theological gifts of faith, hope, and charity, we can engage in a much more profound activity. It sort of like elevates our human nature, and our ability to pray, and we then have this loving gaze and attentiveness towards God, and we know a lot more. And when we of course come out of that contemplation and say 'Well now just what did I understand?' at many times we cannot like re-articulate it. It just ah, it was tremendous, it was awesome, and ah that's fine. We don't have to try to spell it all out.

That happens when we are sort of willing to let go of how we are being led to God at the present time. During meditation, this is the third stanza of the Living Flame of Love, Chapter thirty-eight. God communicates to us in little morsels of this ah, this contemplative communication. Gives us a tiny bit, and then we like can chew on that for hours, or even days, or weeks, and just say "Isn't it just tremendous." Ah, but our meditation then is confined to that little bit that we received, and we are using it sort of in the upper part of our egos, and the upper part of that hour glass. And ah, it's in sort of a very primitive, ordinary, human way of grasping God. It's only after we go through the dark night of sense, we go through that vortex, and get into the other side that we then really are contemplatives. We sort of like shift into overdrive. And ah, with a lot less activity we allow God to bring us along. And St. Catherine of Sienna will call that merging into the oceanic. There's a sense of letting go and realizing that God is in charge.

The individual does not decide when the time is ripe for this transition from meditation to a simpler more deeply, spiritual form of prayer. It's God who determines ah when we are able, when we can sustain that type of prayer. So what usually comes before, vocal prayer, praying what other people wrote. Spontaneous prayer, making up our own. Prayer for reading, Lexio Divina, reading along, stopping and doing spontaneous prayer. Simplified prayer where it would take us say two hours to tell God something and then a few months later I can do it in an hour, and then later in a half hour. We can get it down to a few sentences, and even down to a word. That is beautifully simplified prayer. And the side effect during this whole time is this great devotion, satisfaction. 'Yes, I'm making progress, God is listening, great things are happening and this is beautiful'. Some make a mistake and say devotion is a gauge of my closeness to God. Well, during that stage it somewhat is, but then we have to realize 'No its just a side effect.' The key thing is I am resolute with my will, I am staying and determined, persevering, and ah, that is the important thing.

So when does God decide that we've learned enough in this devotional way? Well that's on page 312. Page 3 in your handout. Paragraph 3. Since the conduct of these beginners in the way of God is lowly, and not too distant from the love of pleasure and of self, as was explained. Ah, because we started becoming dependent on this beautiful sense of devotion, for ourself. Well, I mean that's not wrong at this particular stage. God desires to withdraw them from this base manner of loving, lead them on to a higher degree of divine love. He desires to liberate them from the lowly exercise of the senses and of discursive meditation, by which they go in search of Him so inadequately, with so many difficulties. Lead them into the exercise of spirit. Which they'll become capable of communion with God that is more abundant and freer of imperfections.

So when we lose our devotion and get into aridity, and then we say 'Oh, God has abandoned me, got to get a new statue, got to find a different church. Ah, all of that and ah, that is not the case as we will see. God does this after beginners have exercised themselves for awhile in the way of virtue, and have persevered in meditation and prayer. For it is through the delight and the satisfaction they experience in prayer that they have become detached from worldly things. Have gained some spiritual strength in God. This strength has helped them somewhat to restrain their appetites for preachers. And through it they were able to suffer a little bit of oppression and dryness without turning back.

Consequently, it is at the time that they're going about their spiritual exercises with delight and satisfaction, when in their opinion the sun of divine favor is shining most brightly on them, that God darkens all of this light, closes the door on it's spring of the sweet spiritual water, they were tasting as often as long as they desired. For since they were weak and tender, no door was closed to them as St. John says in the apocalypse. God now leaves them in such darkness that they do not know which way to turn. In their discursive imaginings they cannot advance a step in meditation, as they used to. Now that the interior sensory faculties are engulfed in this night. This is the dark night of sense. He leaves them in such dryness that they not only fail to receive satisfaction and pleasure, from their spiritual exercises and works as they formerly did, but also find these exercises distasteful and bitter. As I said, when God sees that they have grown a little He weans them from the sweet breast so that they might be strengthened. Lays aside the swaddling bands, puts them down from His arms so that they may grow accustomed to walking by themselves. This change is a surprise to them, because everything seems to be functioning in reverse.

So the criteria before for beginners was do these various things and the sense of devotion that you feel is the affirmation, the key telling you 'you're on the right track, you're doing the right thing, God is pleased with you, and you are advanced'.
Then God graduates you from that, and say's 'Well now the key is you gave your body to God, you have your heart to God, the next thing is you give your will power to God. Now, will you stay the course? Will you continue with determination even if you do not feel, and even though you do not understand? You are in third gear. You go by your bootstraps. I will do it, I will spend my quiet time. I will not force myself to do spontaneous prayer because I cannot. So I'll just remain here and say 'Lord help me'. And repeat that periodically, and uh in time it will be over. That is sort of the way we go. Then St. John of the Cross said, "When people hit that stage the vast majority quit prayer. They do not realize this is a great advancement. I am now giving a whole new part of myself to God, and God is coming to me secretly, darkly in this contemplation and I am strengthened in a way I never was before. And that is tremendous. So those three signs by which we are able to recognize this particular advancement, getting into the dark night of sense, which is a contemplative mansion. An inability to practice meditation, or get any satisfaction from it.

A similar dissatisfaction with profane thoughts. See, you say 'Well I can't get any kicks you know for no spiritual things, ah, well suppose I think about a new wardrobe? That doesn't satisfy me either'. Ah and there's an inclination toward simple, loving, awareness of God, or if there is a great aridity and anxious concern about God. Those are sort of the characteristics of this dark night of sense, that we will continue because there's that sort of a low grade spiritual depression, but in the midst of it there is sort of this down deep 'I know, you know this is of God and God is somehow leading me'. That is the overall message that is coming through. And of course there are ah temptations to ah say 'Well, God isn't giving me any satisfaction here in prayer. I guess he just wants me to do good works and skip prayer'. That's temptation and not...don't follow that.

Many times the books on prayer give a false impression that if this is contemplation it should always be ah causing great spiritual sweetness or delight. And ah, in reality it may produce spiritual sweetness, serenity, light, burning ardor, a sense of fullness and energizing. On the contrary it may also produce bitterness, aridity, darkness, anxious solicitude, emptiness, ineffable affliction and even suffering. Those all can be of God during this contemplative period. You could probably add a few of your own, to that list. So the time of transition from meditation to contemplative prayer, ah that is a very, very, critical time. It's sort of that we, our ego had been parked in our...St. John of the Cross calls our human self, our sensate self that we have in common with plants and animals. He of course didn't mention couch potatoes.

Audience: Laughter.

Fr. Centala: And we are like moving over into the human self which has free will, and intellect and memory, which animals don't have. And that transition between these two cells the ego graduates in there but we don't know how to depend on our will power and not go back to all this ah, sensation, passion and feeling and that whole affective part of ourself. And so he writes all about this dark night of sense. How to make it from here to here. Then he especially, after we get all accustomed to that, there's a dark night of sense on how to go from the human self into our spirit self. And ah, so the dark night of spirit is the second great thing he writes about. Because he said other authors had not written sufficiently about those transitions, so people get stuck on their way of prayer, and do not persevere in ah arriving at the contemplation that God is calling us to.

So what we learn is, be less dependent upon this sensible satisfaction is the criteria in prayer. The key thing is what our will power has decided to do. During the devotional period our will really was doing all sorts of good things for God, and the sensible devotion was a side effect. We forget about the will power and we say 'that's the whole criteria'. It actually isn't. That helps to fortify us so our will is more resolute in following what God wants. And now we say, 'Well why don't I stick with my will power? Am I going to pray or not pray depending on what I'm going to feel from it?' That's why St. John of the Cross calls that very little different from ah our self will. Love of self. Because we put that evaluation, there. I will pray if I feel good as a result of it, and I will not if I do not. Well, that's just full of pride, but that's where we are and that is normal at that stage.

St. John of the Cross also mentions that in the beginning as we're pouring out our heart in meditation and concerned about the things of God, that one of the side effects of that is we are pulling our attention away from completely dependent upon too many worldly things. So our life is getting simplified. We realize we can get along on a lot less of all these different things that we thought we needed. So that is an important thing. Otherwise, as soon as devotion is gone we just open up our toy boxes again and go right back to wallowing in everything that we used to fill up all of our empty time. So we have to get rid of things at the proper time. That applies also for our little prayer corner. When we're in the great devotional stage we can have it just chuck full, and then later on we say 'no, just a couple items, you know, I don't want to be distracted, all of that now distracts me and before it didn't'. So the ways of God change. The operation of the will alone is the key thing. And then the will sort of, we use our will to go along with what God is teaching us in faith. The I am determined to follow Lord, what I know in faith. That is what's going to lead me on. See how St. John of the Cross puts that.

Holy Spirit illumines the intellect according to the mode of it's recollection. Intellect can find no better recollection than in faith. The Holy Spirit will not illumine it in any other way, but only when it's recollected in faith, because the Holy Spirit now is leading us on to get these new truths that can only be known by faith. And where originally when we renewed our faith 'Oh, yeah, I believe these things' but they didn't mean that much. If we keep on renewing 'yes, I accept these things in faith' so you know, the Holy Spirit starts showing us some of the great depth that there is to those various truths of our faith that we had taken for granted. A person that is going through this dark night of sense, learning how to use this whole new part of their personality to go to God. Many (? 333) have a great affliction and fear that they've gone astray. The reason why they are in this is because they have sinned, they've done something wrong. (? 335) it's the opposite. They've been pouring themselves out to God and ah God gives us at a time, when they're very generous and spending a lot of time, and gone to great efforts to sort of use devotion sacramentals to help them. So it's sort of a reward in a sense. They've graduated. That is the key thing.

They feel they've gone astray, because with every enlightening of the Holy Spirit there is increased knowledge about the holiness of God, and the unholiness of the individual, so those two go hand in hand. There is a great difficulty in doing good. There's a great sense that the person is weak in virtue, while before when they were full of devotion, walking tall, ah why they just could go through just about anything, and now they just are dragging. Now, God wants me to keep doing these things and I feel weak. Very good. Have to turn to God then and say 'Lord, I'll do it if you supply the energy. I can't do anything'. It's also common during this period that God uses our neighbor in this work of purification. That we find that other people get on our nerves and that if we can accept these people properly we grow in virtue. And if we cannot, we don't. So, if it happens like that you are married to an imperfect spouse, ah there is a great opportunity for God to use that particular occasion, you know, to help you to grow in virtue.

How long does this continue? How long the soul will be kept in this fast and penance of the senses cannot be said with certainty. Not everyone undergoes this in the same way. Neither are the temptations identical. All this meted out according to God's will and the greater or lesser amount of imperfection that must be purged from each person. In the measure of the degree of love, to which God wishes to raise a soul He humbles it with greater or lesser intensity, for longer or shorter periods of time. Those who have more considerable capacity and strength for suffering, God purges more intensely and quickly. Now that would be like those who take retreats and things like that.

Audience: Laughter.

Fr. Centala: On the other hand those that are very weak He keeps in this night for a long time, and their purgation is less intense. Their temptations are abated, and He frequently refreshes their senses to keep them from backsliding. They arrive at the purity of perfection late in life. Some of them never reach it entirely for they're never holy in this night or holy out of it. Although they do not advance, God exorcises them for short periods and on certain days, in these aridities to preserve them in humility and self knowledge. In other times and seasons He comes to their aid with consolations. Less through loss of courage they return to their search after worldly consolations.

Yet, souls will pass on to so happy and lofty a state of union with God, no matter how quickly God leads them. They must usually remain in these ariditys and temptations for a long time. That is evident through experience. So one experience is Brother Lawrence of the resurrection. He got this grace of conversion and he entered Carmel in France in the 1600's and just said that he'd ah spend the rest of his life in prayer. And for the first three years he is pouring out his heart and its very easy to pray. Boom, it's all gone. Ten years he is in this aridity, this dark night of sense, and he's complained. I came here to spend my life in prayer and I can't pray. Finally he said after like ten years, he finally told the Lord. 'Alright, I am grateful you know for the grace of you calling me here, and I repented, and I'm saved and I'm in this safe haven here, this monastery and I won't probably go astray, and ah, if this is what you want, fine. If you don't want me to pray ah, I accept what you sent. He said with that, it all went away.

And this great, deep, peace of ah the next mansion started. Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, ah he just kept advancing. See, so the resignation, the accepting of the period of this dark night of sense. But first it has to be recognized and it's got to be accepted, and you got to thank God and be grateful that you're moving on. That speeds the process up. You are giving the Lord permission to continue the purification and you accept the various situations under which it comes. Like this imperfect spouse and those various situations. And ah, when God starts peeking through...if we're lovingly attentive to finding God in this darkness using simple Jesus prayer of some kind, then reading on slowly, and we read a verse. Wow, we get new insight, and truths, and there is an intellectual satisfaction in this new truth. That should not be confused with the old, sort of devotion that we had, which was in our heart. In our emotions. That this is a new contemplative grace by which God is showing us new truths. So St. Teresa will say 'So you read this phrase ah Christ died on the cross for us'. Wow, it stands out with a whole new meaning I never had before, and I said that phrase, you know, a hundreds, thousands of times. So she said it would be a mistake to just say 'Wow, that's what it means. Where's my book about the resurrection, about the crucifixion. You go and tear it apart and try and...she says that's like throwing logs on a fire, boom it's out. Six months, you get nothing.

So you have to learn to be passive and allow the Lord to give these little morsels according to the schedule in the amount that God is giving. So the key thing is to back up a few lines, come down reading very closely...oh yeah, that phrase. Thank you, Lord, and you move on. That is the approach and slowly these things keep getting greater and greater. At last whole pages, whole books, whole months of time. Everything will stand out with a whole new beauty. As God is doing it. And St. John of the Cross is very powerful in that in saying 'We've got to learn to be passive. We've got to learn to allow God to mete it out to us according to the way God wants to do it, and with the various phrases that God wants to show us, and sometimes its things we don't want'. Like if we struggle during Lent, and we say 'Oh, thank God, Easter is here'. And then two days later we are reading about the crucifixion, and we say 'Oh, no Lord, I don't want no more crosses'. No, you've got to say, this is what the Lord is giving, and to go along with it. So we're no longer in charge. That's just one of the characteristics of this contemplative way of praying.

So we have to develop a certain holy indifference toward our feelings, and Elizabeth of the Trinity is very good on that. She said "We've got to realize that our mood swings and all of that are constantly going on and we cannot sort of pay attention to those". And St. Teresa said "That if we pay attention to those sort of things that we'll always be able to find some excuse not to pray". She said "We have to decide once and for all, make resolution I will always have time for prayer, no matter what". She said, "Then you'll start progressing. But if perchance you do hit a day, once in awhile where you absolutely cannot pray, just don't kill yourself". See how practical she is?

Audience: Laughter.

Fr. Centala: So there's a holy indifference to our whole human changes and the same time being resolute to what God wants. Persevering. Trusting in God, sort of no matter what. With this there is a natural thirst for get away from all these distractions and be alone, be in solitude, be in silence. Those two come together at this stage. You just say "I don't want to see anything else. Just let me get out away from everything. Solitude of heart. Sort of interior silence is what you start thirsting for there alone God is different than anything I've experienced or had before, and let me just get away from everything in order to find God in this contemplative way". And that's of course very (? 450 Eliagent/allegiant) where he did not find God in all the flashy things, but in the very gentle, subtle things where he found in his depth.

Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Audience: As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.

Fr. Centala: Elijah the Prophet.

Audience: (? 454 inaudible).

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