Category: Miscellaneous

• Celtic Monks Observed Three Lents Each Year — Perhaps We Should Too

  This post originally appeared on Patheos. Follow this link to read it:

  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlmccolman/2017/05/celtic-monks-observed-three-lents-year-perhaps/

  May 26, 2017

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• Seven Reasons to Pray the Divine Office

  Everyone knows that monks devote their lives to silence, but also to daily prayer and chanting. Monastic prayer occurs at fixed-hours throughout the day. The rota of Psalms, canticles, scripture readings, antiphons and other prayers that incorporate this daily liturgy is known as the Divine Office (or the Daily Office, or the Liturgy of the Hours).

  Praying the Divine Office is central to monastic life, but even those of us who aren’t monks may find that this type of prayer is an essential part of our spiritual practice.

  But it’s a huge commitment and many people might find it daunting to pray even part of the Divine Office on a regular basis.

  If you’ve read Befriending Silence, then you know that I have a tempestuous relationship with daily prayer. In chapter 7, I make the following confession:

  When I first became a Lay Cistercian, I struggled with the liturgy… My life was too busy, too unstructured, too freeform, and too spontaneous for me to be bothered by something like daily prayers. Or so I rationalized it to myself. I muddled along, praying from time to time and justified to myself all the days that I didn’t manage to pray.

  In the book, I go on to talk about how forming a friendship with a devout Muslim, who prays five times every day, inspired me to take the Divine Office more seriously. I wish I could say that I am now a model practitioner of daily prayer, but the truth is, I still struggle with it.

  Recently I met with one of the monks who guides our Lay Cistercian community, and we talked about the liturgy. He asked me why I find the Divine Office worth praying. Just off the top of my head, I came up with four reasons, and as I reflected on it, I thought of three more. So I thought I would share them with you.

  If you pray the Divine Office, perhaps this will be inspiration to carry on. If you don’t yet pray it, or need encouragement to begin or (like me) to strengthen your commitment to regular prayer, then I hope the following reasons will be a help for you.

  1. The Divine Office provides us with a language for prayer. Sometimes it’s hard to find the words for prayer. But in the Liturgy of the Hours we have access to wisdom that stretches back to before the time of Jesus. The Psalms, canticles, and other passages from scripture form the bulk of the Daily Office; in many ways, it is the Bible at prayer. But the liturgy also contains many other prayers that convey a range of feelings and concerns — it is a rich and nuanced vocabulary for prayer, that will deepen your ability to communicate with God throughout the day.
  2. The Divine Office teaches us who God is, who the Church is, and who we are.What’s interesting about the liturgy is that not all parts of it are addressed toGod — some of it (for example, the canticles of Zechariah and Mary) is language aboutGod. But it’s still prayer — because prayer is more than just us talking to God, it’s God speaking to us. And throughout the liturgy, we encounter insight into God’s personality and character — along with similar insights into what it means to be humanin relationship with God, whether as individuals or as a community.
  3. The Divine Office forms our identity as members of the Body of Christ.The liturgy does more than just describe who God is, and who we are. It also guides us to become who God wants us to be. Our faith is clear: we are created in God’s image and likeness, but we often behave in ways that fail to live up to who God calls us to be. We need guidance to be the people we are meant to be. The wisdom abounding in the Office shows us the path God calls us to follow. It’s not magic: we still need to respond to God’s call to become holy. But the liturgy is a trustworthy map.
  4. The Divine Office helps us to pray at a level deeper than our feelings or experience. The liturgy is a daily commitment, not a “when you feel like it” commitment. It is meant to be offered to God on a regular basis, no matter what kind of mood you’re in or what’s going on in your mind. In that sense it is like marriage: a commitment of love, understanding that true love runs deeper than the emotions that ebb and flow from day to day or season to season. And while it is hard to keep praying during dry seasons or times of emotional turmoil, doing so is a powerful way to deepen your faith.
  5. The Divine Office teaches us humility, obedience, fidelity, and patience.This is the other side of the previous point. We pray on a regular, daily basis, not because our mercurial emotions tell us to, but rather because we want to be faithful to God, obedient to God’s word, and committed to a trusting relationship with God built on eternal values like humility and patience. These are values at the heart of Christian spirituality — even if they are not always held in high esteem by our secular culture. But when we grow in these authentic values, we conform more fully to the image and likeness of the God who created us.
  6. The Divine Office helps us to grow in intimacy with God.I’ve compared the liturgy to marriage, and it’s an appropriate analogy, because like marriage, the Daily Office is all about love. Too often we get unhelpful messages about God, not only from secular society but even sometimes from the Church. Too many of us have images of God that emphasize anger over love, judgment over mercy, sternness over tenderness. Yes, God is holy and just, that is true. But God is Love— and the promise of spirituality is to discover that Love and to become one with it. The Divine Office calls us to that graced discovery.
  7. The Divine Office reminds us that every day is a place where we can touch eternity. I experience the liturgy in many different ways: sometimes it inspires me, sometimes it encourages me, and frankly, sometimes I argue with it or chafe against it. All this is okay. The liturgy speaks to us in the glorious complexity of our humanity, which means we will react to it in a variety of ways. But what is always part of the Divine Office is its orientation toward eternity: it is an invitation to see God, and life, and humanity, from the vantage point of heaven rather than just earth. It reminds us that communion with God isn’t just something that happens on Sundays or at churches or monasteries. The healing and life-transfiguring power of intimacy with God can touch (and transform) our lives at all times and in all places. The very regular, ordinary, dailinessof the liturgy helps us to keep this in mind.

  I hope you find this list helpful — and may it be encouragement and inspiration for you as you continue your journey deeper into the heart of God.

  Can you think of other reasons why it’s a blessing to pray the Divine Office? If so, please share your thoughts with me, either in a comment below this post or on social media. Thanks!

  January 6, 2016

  Daily Office, Divine Office, Liturgy of the Hours, practice, Via Mystica

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• Kenneth Leech (1939-2015)

  I have learned of the passing of Father Kenneth Leech, who died on September 12, 2015 after a long illness.

  He was born in 1939 and grew up in a secular home in the north of England. As a youth he was inspired by Alasdair MacIntyre (later famous for his renowned study of postmodern moral theory, After Virtue) who helped him realize that it is possible to have a critical, inquiring mind as a person of faith. He embraced the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England and was ordained a priest, and served most of his ministry in the same neighborhood of the east end of London, where over the course of his ministry he engaged with a variety of challenges, including homelessness, drug abuse, racism and religious prejudice (his neighborhood became a home for immigrants, particularly from the Muslim world).

  Throughout his career Ken was a prolific writer; his early books dealt with topical issues like the drug problem, but early on he recognized that the youth culture of the sixties and seventies had a strong interest in spirituality, which led him to begin writing about the treasures of the Christian tradition. Perhaps his most significant book, Soul Friend, about the ministry of spiritual accompaniment, was published in 1977. He followed it up with True Prayer, True God, and probably my personal favorite, The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice. Many other books followed, with a splendid career-retrospective anthology published just a few years ago, Prayer and Prophecy: The Essential Kenneth Leech. If you’re new to Ken’s writings, that’s the book I suggest you start with.

  

  Prayer and Prophecy: those two words really sum up Ken’s ministry. He could effortlessly write about Julian of Norwich in one paragraph, and how the Church of England neglected the poor in the next. As an Anglo-Catholic, he stood unapologetically in a sociopolitical “left of center” context. Indeed, his Wikipedia page describes him as a “Christian socialist in the Anglo-Catholic tradition.”

  But his context is important: Ken’s tireless work on behalf of the poor, the homeless, the addicted, the victims of racism or religious prejudice, was always anchored in his faith in Jesus Christ and his unwavering belief that the Church, the community of faith, is called to be a countersign to the “principalities and powers” of our world (which includes oppressive economic and political systems which keep some people marginalized even as they benefit those with privilege). Ken called  himself a “community theologian,” recognizing that the best theology comes not from the ivory tower, but from the gritty realities of life on the street. Yet as a person of prayer and prophecy, Ken always understood that prayer came first.

  Longterm readers of this blog will recognize the following amazing quotation from Fr. Ken, because I quote this all the time. But it’s so beautiful, so true, so important to my own understanding of contemplative spirituality, that it deserves being posted yet again. This comes from Ken’s book The Social God but you’ll also find it in Prayer and Prophecy.

  Contemplation has a context: it does not occur in a vacuum. Today’s context is that of the multinational corporations, the arms race, the strong state, the economic crisis, urban decay, the growing racism, and human loneliness. It is within this highly deranged culture that contemplatives explore the waste of their own being. It is in the midst of chaos and crisis that they pursue the vision of God and experience the conflict which is at the core of the contemplative search. They become part of that conflict and begin to see into the heart of things. The contemplative shares in the passion of Christ which is both an identification with the pain of the world and also the despoiling of the principalities and powers of the fallen world-order.

  

  I only met Father Ken a few times; we met briefly at a seminary bookstore by chance in the early 1990s; but a few years later when I was receiving spiritual direction from Emmett Jarrett (another Christian rabble-rouser), I had the chance to spend some time with Ken on a couple of occasions. Emmett had studied with Ken and the two were friends, so when Ken traveled in America he usually would stay with Emmett, who always made sure I had time to connect with this man whose work I admired so much.

  Ken very patiently answered my many questions not only about Christian spirituality and justice, but also about writing; and when my first book was published in 1997, I was thrilled and humbled when Ken wrote it a very nice endorsement. Then in 2010, he endorsed my Big Book of Christian Mysticism, with such warm words that I actually find his praise almost embarrassing.

  Carl McColman has both studied and practised the Christian mystical tradition, stressing its earthiness and ‘ordinariness’. Like Thomas Merton, Michael Ramsey and others, he holds that mysticism is not an esoteric realm, reserved for the very holy, but is what all Christian life is about. I strongly commend this book.

  Over the past five years I would occasionally write to him and he would always respond, patiently and gracefully answering whatever question I posed to him.

  So now he has gone, released from this mortal life into the silence of eternity. I’m sad that he’s gone, admittedly for selfish reasons: I’m sad that he’ll never answer another of my letters or publish another insightful and inspiring book. Thankfully, he left behind an amazing body of writings, and I hope I can repay him for all he did for me by striving to make my own writing worthy of his inspiration. And one thing I can do (and I suppose is the ultimate point behind this blog post) is encourage all of my readers to get to know Ken’s work.

  Like many forward-thinking, visionary writers, Ken never became a household name (he himself struck me as averse to the trappings of celebrity), so now that he’s gone his writings might have difficulty finding new readers; indeed many of his books are already out of print.

  Dear readers, please make the effort to find, purchase, read books by Ken Leech. You will not be disappointed. I know of no other writer who so eloquently made the case for the integral unity between Christian spirituality and social action.

  Even if you don’t agree with all of Ken’s political positions, his powerful proclamation — that the breathing-in of contemplation is essentially linked to the breathing-out of working for justice and mercy — shines boldly and powerfully in his writings, as it was beautifully embodied in his own life and ministry.

  The world has lost one of its great contemplatives. We are the poorer for it, but let us rejoice in his passing into eternity and resolve to continue to embody our own faith-filled lives where prayer and prophecy unite in an integral act of love.

  

  September 13, 2015

  Etc., Kenneth Leech, Resource

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• Who Are the Great Christian Mystics?

  When I was a sophomore in High School, my English teacher, Mrs. Romano, taught a section on William Blake. She gave us a handout with some information on the poet, and in it Blake was described as “a mystic.” I had never come across the word before. I don’t recall if I or anyone else asked Mrs. Romano to define the term. But I do remember that it caught my imagination — and if the teacher or some other source did provide me with a definition, it would have been something like what you’ll find in the Oxford English Dictionary:

  So William Blake is one of many people, found within Christianity but also in other faith traditions, who practice a spirituality grounded in contemplation and the surrender of the self. This spirituality, at least in Christian terms, can help us (at minimum) to recognize and perhaps even comprehend spiritual truth that is normally inaccessible to ordinary human understanding. But the way of the mystics promises something even greater: the hope for nothing less that (to put it in Christian language) union with God.

  It was about the same time as my English class where I met William Blake that I also had my own life-changing encounter with a sense of God’s intimate presence in my life. I have written about this at length in my books The Aspiring Mystic and Unteachable Lessons. You can read an excerpt from The Aspiring Mystic on my blog. Because of this, the concept of the mystics was more than just an abstract or theoretical idea to me. I didn’t know much about the mystics, but based on what I did know, I wanted to learn more.

  Eventually, I began reading authors like Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, Martin Thornton, and Kenneth Leech — all twentieth century Christian spiritual teachers, who introduced me to the great mystics of the past, figures like Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Bernard of Clairvaux, and many others. Evelyn Underhill in particular helped me to see that there is an entire lineage of men and women who, in every century of the Christian era, have embodied this deeply ineffable, profoundly unitive, and ultimately joyful and transformational spirituality of Divine Union. I also learned that numerous living (or recently deceased) Christian teachers, including the authors I just mentioned but also Thomas Keating, Cynthia Bourgeault, Martin Laird, Mary Margaret Funk, Bruno Barnhart, and many others, were making the wisdom and guidance of the great mystics accessible for Christians today.

  But in a nutshell: what makes a mystic? I’d like to suggest that the great mystics are some combination of three essential qualities: they are contemplatives, spiritual guides, and storytellers. Let’s consider each of these.

  Contemplative Silence. All Christians are called to a life of contemplation: of finding joy, meaning, insight and purpose through the silent presence of God in our lives. Contemplation is a gesture of prayer that emphasizes resting and receiving God’s grace in our lives. Most (but not all) forms of contemplative prayer involve intentional silence, and practices designed to soothe our over-anxious minds and hearts so that we may “be still and know” God’s presence in our hearts and in our lives.

  Friends of the Soul. The Gaelic language has a wonderful term: anamchara (also spelled anam chara or anam ċara, as popularized by the Irish poet/mystic John O’Donohue), which means “soul friend.” A soul friend is someone who guides you or co-listens with you for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life. This is a person who is available to support you when you pray, answer your questions or counsel you with problems arise, or otherwise offer you a sense of direction and companionship as you explore an ever-deepening journey into the mysteries of God. Even though many of the mystics lived centuries ago, by their writings and their teachings they are still excellent companions for the life of prayer. Reading the writings of a mystic is never a dry exercise in some sort of abstract theory. They share the wisdom of their relationship with God in order to invite us deeper into our own.

  Remember the Stories. All human beings are storytellers: each of us has a story to tell. So the mystics are not special for being storytellers, but they are important because of the kinds of stories they tell. Mystics tell stories that remind us who we truly are: men and women created in the image and likeness of a God who loves us so very much. As people who themselves have responded to the love of God, the stories (including poetry, autobiography, and teaching writings) of the mystics can be a profound source of inspiration for us today.

  So let us take time to learn about, imitate, and honor the mystics and contemplatives and sages and saints who have journeyed before us, people like Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John Ruusbroec, Evelyn Underhill, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, and many many more. When we join them in silence, accept their guidance, and remember their stories, we are nurtured in our own unfolding stories of intimacy with God.

  Over the centuries of the Christian era, many people have embodied the way of the mystics — lay and ordained, clergy and monastic, men and women, educated and simple. They have contributed to a large body of literature devoted to prayer, contemplation, and the direct encounter with God. This body of writings comprises the wisdom teachings known as mysticism, a word derived from the language of mystery used by the earliest Christians to describe the inability of the mind to comprehend the spiritual truths of God; spiritual truths such as the lavish abundance of Divine grace and the incarnation of God into human form.

  The greatest of mystical writings are timeless, capable of providing rich spiritual inspiration even centuries after they were written. Through autobiographical and instructional prose, the mystics of the middle ages prove to be surprisingly relevant to the post-modern world. They offer psychologically astute instructions on contemplation and meditation, insightful explorations of the dynamics of both the acceptance of and resistance to grace in the human soul, and fascinating theological insights on issues such as the spirituality of sensuality, the motherhood of God, and deification: the process by which human beings are transformed into the very image and likeness of God.

  

  Here is a list of some of the great mystics — major voices within the western contemplative tradition:

  The first five centuries of the Christian era:

  • St. John
  • St. Paul
  • Ephrem the Syrian
  • Gregory of Nyssa
  • Evagrius Ponticus
  • John Cassian
  • Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

  Sixth through the eleventh centuries:

  • Benedict of Nursia
  • Gregory the Great
  • John Climacus
  • Maximus Confessor
  • Isaac the Syrian
  • John Scotus Eriugena
  • Symeon the New Theologian

  Twelfth century:

  • William of St. Thierry
  • Bernard of Clairvaux
  • Aelred of Rievaulx
  • Richard of St. Victor
  • Hildegard of Bingen
  • Elizabeth of Schönau
  • Hadewijch

  Thirteenth century:

  • Francis of Assisi
  • Beatrice of Nazareth
  • Bonaventure
  • Mechthild of Magdeburg
  • Gertrude the Great
  • Jacopone da Todi
  • Marguerite Porete

  Fourteenth century:

  • Meister Eckhart
  • Gregory Palamas
  • Catherine of Siena
  • Jan Ruusbroec
  • Author ofThe Cloud of Unknowing
  • Walter Hilton
  • Julian of Norwich

  Fifteenth century:

  • Margery Kempe
  • Nicholas of Cusa
  • Thomas à Kempis
  • Denis the Carthusian
  • Nil Sorsky
  • Catherine of Genoa

  Sixteenth century:

  • Francesco de Osuna
  • Ignatius of Loyola
  • Teresa of Ávila
  • John of the Cross
  • Philip Neri
  • Maria Maddelina de’Pazzi
  • Francis de Sales

  Seventeenth century:

  • Jacob Boehme
  • George Herbert
  • Marie of the Incarnation
  • Brother Lawrence
  • Thomas Traherne
  • George Fox

  Eighteenth century:

  • Jeanne Guyon
  • Jean-Pierre de Caussade
  • Jonathan Edwards
  • William Law
  • John Woolman
  • John Wesley
  • Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

  Nineteenth century:

  • Phoebe Palmer
  • Author of The Way of a Pilgrim
  • Coventry Patmore
  • George MacDonald
  • Thérèse of Lisieux
  • Gemma Galgani
  • Theophan the Recluse

  Twentieth century:

  • Evelyn Underhill
  • Simone Weil
  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • Thomas Merton
  • Howard Thurman
  • Thomas Keating
  • Matthew the Poor

  The best way to learn about the mystics is to read their own words. Visit my bibliography page to review an in-depth list of writings by (and about) Christian and world mystics.

  I offer devotional profiles of over 100 of the great Christian mystics, including many of the ones listed here (and others), in my book Christian Mystics: 108 Seers, Saints and Sages.

  If you’re new to mysticism, check out The Hidden Tradition of Christian Mysticism— An article I wrote for the summer 2010 issue of Evolve! Magazine.

  If you are interested in applying the wisdom of the mystics to your life today, I invite you to learn more about Spiritual Formation.

   

  June 26, 2014

  Via Mystica

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• “Seen by wonder; kissed warmly by love; embraced by delight”: Richard of St. Victor on Contemplation

  The more I read Richard of St. Victor, the more I love him. Here are a few jewels from the fifteenth chapter of Book IV of The Mystical Ark:

  See to it that the very time He begins to knock at the door is not the first time that you begin to want to throw out the crowds of those who make noise… All thoughts, empty as well as  noxious, which do not serve for our benefit must be judged to be strangers. In truth, we possess them like domestic servants or slaves, whom we involve for our use or benefit. But because a singular love loves solitude and seeks for a solitary place, it behooves us to throw out the entire crowd of such a sort, not only of thoughts but also even of affections, so that we may be at liberty to cling more freely and more joyfully to the embraces of our beloved one.

  While I don’t think contemplative practice involves “throwing out” the unruly distracting noise of our chattering minds, Richard’s point is nevertheless apt: we embrace contemplative silence only to the extent that we are able to lessen our attachment to the static of our minds and hearts. It’s a question of signal-to-noise ratio: but the “signal” we are seeking is not louder than the noise of the monkey-mind, but infinitely quieter, for it is the “signal” of God’s presence hidden in silence. The following excerpt, from the same chapter, makes this point much more clearly.

  [God] is heard by recollection; seen by wonder; kissed warmly by love; embraced by delight. Or if this pleases you better, He is heard by a showing; seen by contemplation; kissed warmly by devotion; drawn close for the infusion of His sweetness. He is heard by a showing when the whole tumult of those who make noise is quieted down and His voice only is heard as it grows stronger. At last that whole crowd of those who make a disturbance is dispersed and He alone remains with her alone and she alone looks at Him alone by contemplation. He is seen by contemplation when on account of the sight of an unexpected vision and wonder at the beauty of it, the soul gradually glows, burns more and more, and finally at last catches fire completely until it is thoroughly reformed to true purity and internal beauty.

  The “whole crowd of those who make a disturbance” is, of course, found wholly within the incessant chatter of the distracted mind. Here Richard does not counsel out to “throw out” those voices but simply to make sure that they are “quieted down” and therefore “dispersed.” In other words, contemplation is not about making the mind empty (as if that were possible). Rather, it is about finding the silence within, in between, and beneath, the incessant chatter of waking consciousness. There, in that vast openness always available within, is where contemplation happens.

  

  Featured image: An illustration of Dante’s Paradise by Giovanni di Paolo. Richard of St. Victor is the second from the right (in red with a turban).

  October 30, 2012

  Contemplation, Monkey Mind, Richard of St. Victor, silence

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• February 5, 1977

  Here is an excerpt from my book The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps for Spiritual Seekers (2000).

  

  This passage describes my own initiation into an embodied, luminous encounter with the Divine, after which “spirituality” for me would always be a lived reality, not just an abstract idea.

  The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday night communion service. With all one hundred or so of the participants present, we’d have a long, comfortable, folk-style service, with plenty of singing as we stood arm in arm, swaying to the music. Although I had participated in such acoustic-guitar-driven worship services before, this one seemed different, from the start. As we sang, and eventually shared the bread and wine of Holy Communion, it seemed to me as if the entire room began to glow. Not a physical glowing, as if someone had turned on additional lights, but a radiance, a presence—words fail to describe. Slowly, but suddenly and obviously, things were different. Only words associated with light seem to capture the experience. Luminous, resplendent, glowing.

  It’s as if everything—the walls of the room, the various people within it, the bread and the wine being passed from hand to hand—shimmered with a light that I could still perceive even when I closed my eyes. Call it energy, perhaps. It wasn’t just as if there were a nonphysical light, it felt as if a new kind of love or joy had become manifest for the first time ever. I felt loved like I never had before.It seemed to me as if every person in the room became radiant with a visibly miraculous glow. Once I noticed it, I felt simply carried along by this serenity and joy that I had never felt before. It wasn’t ecstasy, for I didn’t feel like I left my body; nor was it a vision, for physically things appeared just as they always had. It had nothing to do with drugs; indeed when at a later date I experimented with LSD or cocaine or magic mushrooms, those substances always seemed pale and physically jarring in comparison to the loveliness I had known that night in Massanetta. Nor was it any kind of psychological breakdown—it had no ill effect on me physically or emotionally, other than to leave me with a sense of serenity and a feeling of connection to the God whom we were worshipping that evening.

  This supernatural energy was so gut-level real to me, and so far beyond anything I might have imagined or tried to concoct, that I thought something objectively miraculous had happened in the room, some sort of profound moment in which God chose to reveal himself. By “objective,” I mean I thought everyone must have experienced what I did. Honestly. It never occurred to me that this might have been just a subjective experience! But I soon discovered to my surprise—and somewhat dismay—that others hadn’t felt or seen anything at all unusual that evening. After the service ended, I said to two or three people, “Wasn’t that amazing?” to which they replied with a totally noncommittal “Uh-huh.” Soon I realized that, for some reason, I had been given a unique gift.

  It happened at church camp, but this wasn’t about church. I’ve been to plenty of church-sponsored events both before and since, and never did the windows of eternity open like they did that evening. No, it was something far deeper, far more profound, than mere religion.

  — from The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps
  for Spiritual Seekers by Carl McColman

  Update 2019: I’ve recounted this same story, in greater detail, in chapter 2 of my book Unteachable Lessons.

   

  February 5, 2002

  Christian mysticism, Massanetta Springs, The Aspiring Mystic, Winter Celebration

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