Contemplative prayer 101 -background, history and Lectio Devina

"these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God" — 1 Corinthians 2:9-10.     

The first session in the series was back on September 28th. It touched on the background and history of Contemplative prayer (To save you the trouble of googling click here!) along with the basic precepts of it. We also talked about some of the key players in its history and its current state.

I myself was first introduced to the idea of contemplative prayer as a structured part of a daily devotional practice sometime in 1996, and in the spring of that year I attended my first silent retreat led by Cynthia Bourgeault. (Check her out here) I encourage you to search for her presentations on Youtube (This is a fairly recent video) and/or read any of her books on the subject.  She is delightful and wise.

I was able to attend several of her weekend  retreats in the years that she spent in this area, as well as two led by her own mentor, Father Bruno Barnhart. Bruno is a Camaldolese-Benedictine monk of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. He is the author of many books including The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center. (for a full list go here) It was from listening to him that I saw a very concrete fruit from time spent in silence with God; he speaks in the most articulate fashion I have ever heard. It is something to do with the time he spends not thinking and then using the time he is with people to just be a conduit of the words that are given to him, without all of his stuff in the way.  Would that I could.

What Cynthia, and the movement she is central to, (as the founder of the Contemplative Society - ( this is their website)) talk about is "Centering Prayer." It is what was first called Contemplative Prayer or Silent prayer, and I am of the opinion that it does not matter what you call it, it is that you make the attempt to do it. My favourite poetic name for it is Practising the Presence of God.  Another book I will recommend is called just that, and the author's name is Brother Lawrence. (Awesome book!) It is a collection of letters he wrote to a young monk who wondered at this man's ability to find peace and satisfaction in the most tedious of tasks.

There were two primary factors that led to the desire to do this series at this time.  About two years ago, I started watching the growing epidemic of addiction to electronic devices with ever-increasing unease. Even in my own life and the lives of my nearest and dearest they fill every waking hour until the ability to hear your own thoughts, never mind what God has to say to you, is almost impossible.
As I dwelt in thought on this growing phenomenon, I wondered what the antidote would be. At the same time I was also curious about the ever increasing western fascination with Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Zen philosophy, and yogic practices.  Every magazine you open, even the health portion of the nightly news, is full of articles proclaiming the many benefits to be found meditating and doing yoga.  It is extremely hip to be a Buddhist.  Not so much to be a contemplative Christian. Why that might be is for another time, suffice it to say that the concept of Western Christianity seems very out of touch with our current modern culture, and in the marketplace of self-help, ready-made peace and inner wellness, Eastern traditions are easily trumping anything that can be found in the mainstream Christian church.

I was fairly young when I was first drawn to the idea of silence as it relates to prayer.  It might be a very ancient path in the church, but in my late 20s I found it to be very intriguing.  Here was this time-honoured tradition that was accessible to me. Like being told you could go back in time and then bring something home with you and make it fit into your modern world.  It is a true reflection for me of the expression, "God - the same yesterday, today and tomorrow."  It was comforting to me to know that I was entering a stream of Christian tradition that has remained essentially unchanged yet flexible from approximately the 6th century.  It may seem a contradiction in terms to look back at the past in order to embrace something that I am saying can be fresh and new, but as a dear friend said, “Sometimes reflecting on the past makes the future more clear and less frightening.  You don’t feel as alone.”  I feel that way when I know that the pioneers of this tradition were real people just living real lives and that what they taught wasn’t just a passing trend.
It was St. Benedict of Nursia (480 to 543)(more about him here) that first established the practice of Lectio Devina,(more fully explained here) which is important to know something about because it is this practice that contains the tradition of Contemplative Prayer as we know it today.  St. Benedict is considered the founder of western monasticism, but it was Guigo II,(info on him here) a Carthusian monk,who died late in the 12th century that formalised the four-step process of Lectio Devina in a book called The Ladder of  Monks.
In Guigo's four stages one first reads, which leads to think about (i.e. meditate on) the significance of the text; that process in turn leads the person to respond in prayer as the third stage. The fourth stage is when the prayer, in turn, points to the gift of quiet stillness in the presence of God, called contemplation.
Guigo named the four steps of this "ladder" of prayer with the Latin terms lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio.
Nowadays in most monastic houses you won't find that any one monk does these steps in a linear fashion, but they are there for a reason.  They are all aids to getting to the heart of time with God, time in his centre with nothing in the way.  I find it helpful to go through each one of them as a way to quiet both the body and the mind to reach a time of silence gently and not be too overwhelmed by it. Put much more eloquently by John of the Cross:

"Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation" — The four stages of Lectio divina as taught by John of the Cross (1542 –1591).(click this!)

So for many centuries all of this wisdom and this very rich knowledge just stays put in monasteries and cloisters. It is out of reach of the laity and the everyday Christian. But around 1975, three Trappist monks begin a movement that brings this tradition out of the monastic houses and into the church proper. The most well known of the three is Thomas Keating (born 7th March 1923)(Brother Keating info), known as one of architects of Centering Prayer, (more about that here, in particular scroll down to the heading called "Practice" and you will see 4 point set of guidlines by Basil Pennington on the physical practice of it) a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts.

It is this new emergence and accessibility that brought people like Bruno Barnhart and Cynthia Bourgeault into prominence in this area, and into 2013 there are new authors appearing in the New Monastic movement which looks to cement even further this idea that we all have inherited this wisdom and it is not for keeping in stale, old monasteries, but in our churches (no matter what the denomination), in our homes, driving in a car, or wherever you find yourself in need of plugging in with God rather than your cell phone. I think that if you have found yourself drawn to some part of this, God probably has something specific to say to you about the relationship He wants to have with you and a devotional practice that can bear unexpected fruit for you.

It is apparent that each new generation finds something fresh and relevant in this ancient tradition, although the language might seem intimidating at first. We invite you to explore it with us next Saturday, October 26th when we will talk a little bit about how to get at some of the emotional, social, or cultural issues that keep us from being comfortable with silence, as well as exploring how the Psalms can act as a foundation on which to place what is sometimes an ethereal experience.