I have not had time until now to write about the last level of prayer before and going into the Dark Night. This is the stage of Affective Prayer.
Affective Prayer comes before real contemplation. Affective prayer involves several types of prayer.
The Easter Jesus Prayer is excellent for this stage, as one can no longer meditate-in fact, God does not want to meditate. "Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner" can be said over and over while one works, for example.
Affective prayer could include the Divine Office, or a mere lifting up to God in an act of love despite distractions.
The examination of conscience becomes automatic, almost constant, as one is aware of one's sins immediately.
If one has been doing these things for awhile and no gift of contemplation is forthcoming, it could mean that God needs to complete the purification of the predominant fault through humility and obedience.
The great temptation of the time of Affective prayer is discouragement, as one may feel bogged down and not going forward in grace.
Affective prayer is mostly mental prayer. A crying or calling out to God during the day, or a moment of silence, or a simple act of faith in Divine Providence.
St. Teresa of Avila expressed that she wasted time as she had no one to explain to her the levels of prayer.
Spiritual directors are so hard to find, and those who have allowed themselves to go through the Dark Night and purgation are rare, indeed.
One must not push growth, or rip the little plant of grace out of the ground to look at the roots. One can only go forward, both trusting in God and fearing His judgment as one becomes more and more aware of one's sins.
Here is Garrigou-Lagrange on this stage: one begins in faith, the real virtue of the Dark Night and moves to hope and love.
This gaze of faith on the truth and goodness of God gives spontaneous rise to an act of hope. The soul desires beatitude, eternal life, the peace promised by the heavenly Father to those who follow Jesus Christ. But we know for a certainty that by our own natural powers we shall never reach this supernatural end. Then we have recourse to the infinitely helpful goodness of God and beg Him for His grace. Petition, inspired by hope, relies on the divine help.(14) Having said Credo, the soul spontaneously says: desidero, sitio, spero, I desire, I thirst, I hope. Having glimpsed from afar the fountain of living water, the soul desires to reach it that it may there drink long draughts, "as the hart panteth after the fountains of water." (15)
But the act of hope, in its turn, disposes us to an act of charity. As, indeed, St. Thomas says: "From the fact that man hopes to obtain a benefit from God, he is led to think that God, his benefactor, is good in Himself (and better than His gifts). This is why hope disposes us to love God for Himself." (16)
Thus, the act of charity rises spontaneously in us, at first under an affective form. If, in these affections, our sensibility offers its help to the will vivified by charity, it may be useful on condition that it remain subordinate. But this help is not necessary; it disappears in aridities. Here we need a calm but profound affection, which is surer and more fruitful than superficial emotions. It consists in saying: "My God, I no longer wish to lie when I tell Thee that I love Thee. Grant me to love Thee and to please Thee in all things.""Diligo te, Domine, ex toto corde."
This affective charity should finally become effective: "I wish to conform my will to the divine will. May Thy will be accomplished in me by fidelity to the commandments and to the spirit of the counsels. I wish to break all that renders me the slave of sin, of pride, of egoism, and of sensuality. I wish, O Lord, to share more and more in the divine life that Thou dost offer me. Thou hast come that we may have life in abundance. Increase my love for Thee. Thou dost ask only to give; I wish to receive as Thou dost wish that I should receive, in trial as well as in consolation; whether Thou comest to associate me with the joyful mysteries of Thy childhood or the sorrowful mysteries of Thy passion, for they all lead to the glorious life of eternity. Today I resolve to be faithful on a certain point that I have often neglected. Volo." As St. Teresa (17) suggests, the Pater noster may be slowly meditated in this manner.
Here, in this culminating point of prayer, the fruit of the theological virtues, the knowledge of faith, the love of hope, and that of charity tend, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, to fuse in a gaze of faithful and generous love, which is the beginning of contemplation: Christian contemplation which bears on God and the humanity of Christ, as the contemplation of the artist on nature, and that of a mother on the countenance of her child.
To be continued........................