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Saturday 15 March 2014

Confusion on The Levels of Prayer

I have been following Garrigou-Lagrange's charts on the levels of prayer. There is a bit of complication regarding that great author's definitions and those of Dom Vitalis Lehodey. Now, the complication is not a contradiction, but merely different ways of explaining similar levels of prayer.

If you want to go back and look at the series on prayer, check out the dates of September 29th, September 30th, 2013 and February 9th and 10th of this year.

However, let me clarify a few points again. First of all, Affective Prayer comes during the Dark Night of the Soul, when one can no longer meditate and one can only give God loving "glances" as well as short prayers. The suffering of the Dark Night takes much energy, as purification is painful.

That this type of prayer is simple means that it is not the complex type of either active contemplation or passive contemplation.

It is interesting that Lehodey believes that Affective prayer happens in the Illuminative State and he follows it with the prayer he calls simple prayer. In Garrigou-Lagrange, simple prayer is found in the beginning states, before the Dark Night and before the Second Conversion. The Illuminative State at the last stage is truly one of power and getting things done. In other words, this state is one of true light and life.

To use these terms is, therefore, confusing for some who go to spiritual direction and are told to engage in simple prayer.

I would avoid the term simple prayer or the prayer of simplicity. To move from Affective Prayer to Active Contemplation, one is in an active state of prayer. Not so with Passive Contemplation. This latter type of prayer is not one of striving, but waiting on God.

Active Contemplation, and this is repetition of earlier posts, demands that the one praying is thinking on the Attributes of God, such as Beauty, Truth, Goodness and so on.

This happens in the Illuminative State. Affective Prayer according to Lehodey begins in the Illuminative State, but according to Garrigou-Lagrange, it happens in the Dark Night of the Spirit. This makes more sense, as loving, short prayers to God during the day is all one can do in the Dark Night.

Active Contemplation is the last level of the Dark Night of the Spirit and the Passive Contemplation marks the entrance into the state of Union with God.

to be continued....