THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Introduction to Mystical Prayer  

By Brother Joseph of Mary,

“The history of salvation is God’s gradual communication of Himself to humanity, which reaches its summit in Jesus Christ. God the Father, in the Word made man, wishes to share His own life with everyone: In short, He wants to communicate Himself. This divine self-communication takes placed in the Holy Spirit, the bond of love between eternity and time, the Trinity and history.

If God opens Himself to man in His Spirit, man, on the other hand, is created as a subject capable of accepting the divine self-communication.” (General audience of Pope John Paul II, August 26, 1998, reprinted from: L’osservatore Romano, Sept. 2 nd, 1998.)

Mystical prayer is a most excellent self-communication of God to man. More precisely it also includes Man’s reception of this divine communication. Given that the writings of St. John of the Cross are devoted to this communication of God and that our Holy Father [Pope John Paul II] is reputed to be a Secular (Third) Order Discalced Carmelite formed in the teachings of this saint, our discussion of Mystical Prayer will be primarily from the point of view of the Discalced Carmelite school of thought.

For St. John of the Cross, prayer and the spiritual life are inseparable. To understand Mystical Prayer, it is helpful to discuss the spiritual life. This is similar to discussing fire where you can discuss heat and flame without color, but it helps for a complete understanding of fire to know that flames take place in the context of color, and that changes in color occur when the flames attention is refocused on a new substance. The same will hold true with the soul. As the soul’s attention moves it’s focus from creation to essence of God, a change will occur, the soul’s living flame of love will transform in color and increase in purity and intensity. A new instance of love will have occurred.

In Mystical Prayer, there are two themes that remain constant; the way leading to union with God, and the life itself of divine union. The way is referred to as the journey or the path to God. A journey requires change. That is we change from where we are, to where we ought to be. In all change there are things we should keep in mind. The leaving behind what was, the advancing towards the goal, and the goal itself. Philosophers can refer to this with more precision by using well-defined terms like terminus a quo (the end from which), the means or terminus ad quem (the end to which). This is nothing other than what Christ said: I AM the way. Come follow me He told others, instructing that if they leave behind anything, that a ten-fold reward would await them.

In Mystical Prayer, God is the goal. The soul must leave all things behind by denying its appetites for them. The Soul advances in its journey by means of Faith to God, its end. In order to understand what this calls for, we have to consider what the soul looks like and what the soul is capable of, since it is the soul that is involved in Mystical Prayer.

St. John of the Cross considers the soul in two parts. He divides the soul much like a physician maps, divides and distinguishes the circulatory system from the digestive system in order to better understand the body. The physician does not deny the wholeness of the body and St. John of the Cross does not deny the unity of the soul. The division is made in order to unite conceptually the soul’s purpose, which is to have union with God.

The soul has two parts: the sensory part and the spiritual part. Each of these parts has its’ own powers or faculties. The sensory part has to do with sensible objects, and contains exterior sense powers of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. There are the inner sense powers of fantasy and imagination.

The spiritual part of the soul has to do with spiritual objects or things. There are three powers here which are the Intellect, the Memory and the Will. These are the powers (faculties) that are principally involved in Mystical Prayer. When it is said they are powers, it is not meant they are just forceful like a fire hose with an ability to spray outward. They are more like a sponge that has the capacity to powerfully absorb God, and then when squeezed by love, give of what they contain. That is why in the old days they were called faculties.

The sense powers, along with the spiritual powers of Intellect and Memory are engaged in perception of objects. The Will is that power that is inclined to the good. The will is said to be blind without perception and must see with the eye of the intellect, but the will is also known as the seat of appetites. It is the home to desires and the four great passions of fear, sorrow, hope and joy.

In Mystical Prayer, God bypasses the sensory part of the Soul and attempts to disperse the fullness of Himself in the spiritual portion of the soul. He gives of His Goodness through the will, His Truth through the intellect, and Joy or Happiness through the memory. Mystical Prayer allows Him to do this. Creation, other than Man, is unable to receive Him in this fashion. A rock, or tree, will never tell God how happy they are. An animal will never attempt to remain chaste or build a church for the honor and glory of God. Man is that portion of creation able to respond to God as the Mystical Body of Christ. In a sense, Mystical Prayer is our official language; our native tongue. Strive to learn it.

Here we have learned that Mystical Prayer embraces the spiritual life and the parts of the soul involved in it. Next time we will extend our discussion to include the initial stage of the spiritual life leading to Mystical Prayer, which necessarily involves a discussion of appetites and their denial along with an introduction on how to labor in love to divest and deprive self for God of all that is not God, while maintaining family life. We initially are simply making room for God so that He can be more fully present in our prayer. A more complete organization of this information can be found in the “Collected Works of St. John of the Cross”, by Fr. Kavanaugh, OCD and Fr. Rodriguez, OCD, ICS Publications.