Catholic Dads

Welcome back to As For Me And My House (Jos 24:15), the place where the rubber meets the road. You can subscribe directly to this series here.

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Rush. Rush. Rush.

Our lives are busy and seemingly getting busier. Everyone agrees that slowing down is good, but nobody seems to actually do it. However, the need to stop every once in a while, take a breather, and reflect on what has gone before is built into the human condition. If we do not allow ourselves this luxury, our bodies begin to break down, our relationships become strained, contemplation is impossible, and therefore prayer remains superficial and our relationship with God does not progress towards the Transforming Union. We begin to see that contemplation is not a luxury after all, but a need.

I once saw an old episode of a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits show in which a man was granted the gift to never have to wait for anything, so he could always get more things done. He quickly despairs because he realizes that he has lost the quiet time in order to think, to dream, and to figure things out. In my own life I have solved many intractable problems by “doing nothing” or “sleeping on it”, allowing my mind to reflect and contemplate. Contemplation and reflection actually rejuvenate the mind, body, and spirit.

God in His infinite wisdom built at least two ways for us to rest and contemplate. The first was the creation of day and night: by day we work, by night we rest and our bodies heal and refresh. The second was by establishing the Sabbath rest – not because He was tired, but because He knew we needed it.

Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation. (Gen 2:2-3)

The Sabbath rest is also symbolic of the Heavenly rest that we will enjoy in the Beatific Vision – not a lazy rest, but an active and infinitely refreshing one.

When we reflect and contemplate, it allows us to order our thoughts, make sense out of all we have experienced, put it in context. Contemplation also exists to build relationships. On my recent road trip to Notre Dame for my cousin’s wedding, we spent the trip back reflecting on our own family past, telling stories and sharing experiences, passing on the “context” to the next generation. Reflection allows you to see where you have been and possibly where you are headed.

God, too, desires us to enter into intimate relationship with him through prayer – and by necessity quiet and contemplation. He has the power to force His attentions on us, but He does not. Rather, He is to be found in the quiet whisper in the silence of our hearts. St. Teresa of Avila describes in her book Interior Castle that the gift of contemplation is received starting in the 4th mansions of prayer and the Transforming Union in the 7th mansion — and we are all called to the Transforming Union. Remember, good people don’t go to Heaven, only Saints.

St. Teresa offers the following grades of prayer (cf. Jordan Aumann OP):

• Vocal Prayer, with attention to what one is saying or reading and God, whom one is addressing.
• Discursive Meditation: consideration of a spiritual truth; application to oneself, and resolve to do something about it.
• Affective Mental Prayer: one turns to “other,” namely, God, and prayer becomes “the language of love.”
• Acquired Recollection: also called prayer of simplicity, prayer of simple regard, acquired contemplation, the loving awareness of God.
• Infused Recollection: the first degree of infused, mystical contemplation.
• Prayer of Quiet: the will is totally captivated by divine love; sometimes all the faculties are likewise captivated (sleep or ecstasy).
• Prayer of Simple Union: both the intellect and the will are absorbed in God.
• Prayer of Ecstatic Union: this is the “mystical espousal” or “conforming union.”
• Prayer of Transforming Union: also called the “mystical marriage” because it is the most intimate union of the soul with God that is possible in this life.

I look at this list and I see that I am not nearly as “far along” as I’d like. Fortunately, God is patient and merciful. St. Teresa continues:

You must not build on foundations of prayer and contemplation alone, for unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs. . . . Anyone who fails to go forward begins to fall back, and love, I believe, can never be content for long where it is.

So we see that if we men have to become men of recollection, prayer, and virtue if we are to have the strength and fortitude to lead our families to heaven – to Our Father. The list of the seven virtues include the 3 Theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity as well as the 4 Cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude.

Dionysius the Areopagite expounds on the character of Virtues and the angelic choir after which they are named:

“The name of the holy Virtues signifies a certain powerful and unshakable virility welling forth into all their Godlike energies; not being weak and feeble for any reception of the divine Illuminations granted to it; mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation with God; never falling away from the Divine Life through its own weakness, but ascending unwaveringly to the superessential Virtue which is the Source of virtue: fashioning itself, as far as it may, in virtue; perfectly turned towards the Source of virtue, and flowing forth providentially to those below it, abundantly filling them with virtue.”

So stop what you are doing – and reflect.

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