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With Your Rule
Confused About "Types" of Prayer
Dear Holly
I have been reading your posts about contemplation, but I am confused. What is contemplation? Is it a type of prayer? Is this the same thing as 'meditation' or is it different? Where does the rosary and other prayers like this tie into it? Any clarification would be helpful.
posted by Holly at 5:04 PM
1 Comments:
Good question! We have a real need to understand our spiritual lives and the traditional expressions of this in the lives of Christians, especially as witnessed in the saints. Sometimes a good terminology lesson helps too, because this helps us when we read other things. Here is a very brief overview of the different types of prayer.
First, there is vocal prayer, like the rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet, or any prayers said aloud. It is an act of worship of the whole person, since the body participates with the soul in prayer. It is an essential aspect of public worship.
Then there is mental prayer, which includes all prayer other than vocal, and includes the use of the mind or will. But this can be broken down into levels or degrees.
The lowest 'rung' so to speak is 'meditation' or 'discursive prayer'. This is when we use our reason and reflect upon something in order to fire up our wills to act. We read Scripture and think about it, come up with resolutions, and choose them. This type of prayer builds up convictions and a Christian worldview.
This form of prayer, consistently undertaken, normally leads to 'affective prayer' whereupon it is the experience of loving feelings to God which result from Scripture reading or prayer time. It has an emotional response to it, but is also a movement of the will. We want to praise Him, adore Him, worship Him. It is a prayer of desire.
The next step is contemplation, but of this there are a number of types and kinds.
The first stage of contemplation is called 'acquired contemplation' or 'prayer of simplicity'. This is the highest natural phase we can reach. Having cleared the way of too many considerations and concerns, our minds and hearts are free to focus a 'loving attentive gaze' on God. Here, we cease to reason, and remain in a generally peaceful state, open to God's inspiration.
After this, contemplation takes on a supernatural form, being a direct action of God. This is where Christian mysticism begins. Initially, there occurs a supernatural 'recollection' which is the experience of a 'drawing inwards' or feeling 'called' to our centers.
Then follows the supernatural 'prayer of quiet' or 'quietude', which is a permeation of the will by a spiritual sweetness and overflowing peace. With 'mixed' contemplation, the mind is free to function in activity, but the will is captured by God and can last a good long while. Normally this is experienced only for brief periods, while the remainder of prayer time is something called 'arid or dark contemplation' , which is the absence of all thought, feeling, desire in prayer, and sometimes can be unpleasant.
While there are other, deeper mystical prayer experiences which can be discovered in any good book on the spiritual life, they are not necessary to mention here right now.
For our purposes, it is important in my opinion, to realize that God does not want us to stop at vocal prayer, nor to settle for reasoning with Scripture. It has not been customary for the active apostolate of motherhood to be considered a 'contemplative' vocation, but nonetheless, it also does not exclude mothers from living a deep spiritual life.
There are typical 'stages' to this spiritual life which zig-zag back and forth. There is also a corresponding moral growth which accompanies the various prayer levels: normally, meditation is the realm of the Purgative Way; affective prayer the realm of the Illuminative Way, and supernatural contemplation the realm of the Unitive Way.
Hope this helps!
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