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What is Prayer With the Will vs the Emotions?
Dear Holly,
I am trying to understand the role of the Will in prayer. It's been coming up a few times since July ..in things that I've read and tapes that I've listened to..but because of lack of experience and consistency in prayer I don't fully understand it. It was mentioned in the book "Holiness for Housewives." The author was making a differentiation between praying with the imagination or images, with the emotions and with the will. I find that my prayer life is mostly emotional and filled with images. From what I understand, from the little I heard and read, the will seems to be the core of the human person.
Labels: 1st P Prayer
posted by Holly at 10:25 AM
3 Comments:
There are 3-4 main types of prayer - first, vocal prayer which is prayer with the body primarily. But for the interior person, there is meditation which usually comes first and is very important - and this is prayer with the intellect. This is where we think and apply God's truths to our lives and circumstances in the forom of resolutions. This is very important prayer as it helps form our conscience and worldview and it is meant to be a regular part of prayer until God makes it impossible for us to do, usually through a Dark Night after much time in the spiritual life.
As time goes on and one's relationship with God becomes more personal, there developes as well 'affective' prayer in which the emotions participate and there are many terms of affection spoken to God and loving feelings. This is actually a really really good thing - showing your growth in intimacy with him.
And then as time progresses, there is a passage into contemplation , which is prayer with the heart and will -
I think prayer with the will is a result of God's action - and the dark nights - God Himself enkindles a burning fire of love within and the will discovers
itself and where God lives (for the will is closely connected to the heart) and contemplation happens here.
One way to try and discover the will is to do the mental prayer St Teresa of Avila suggested - mental prayer - where one takes a picture of Jesus and holds it firmly in the imagination - and then the heart/will is free to fix a loving gaze upon him.
Usually, from what I can understand, it isn't until the intellectual discursive reasoning phase of prayer has been put to rest by God that people move into
prayer of the will. And as far as I know, it passes into this phase during the Dark Night of the Spirit - as opposed to the initial purgation of the Dark Night of the Senses .
Don't know if this helps, but feel free to email directly and I can talk more or give more references to this.
You can also see "Confused About Types of Prayer" on my website - Holly's Notebook Page - and it traces the steps - when you get to the contemplation part where it says heart, you can tie the will aspect into this- for the will is the power to choose and it comes from the heart.
Hi,
I recently read about this in Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales, Chapter 4 in Part II.
Prayer of the imagination is when we meditate upon a scene, such as the crucifixion; prayer of the will is more abstract, used for meditating on "invisible things" such as God's Greatness.
I thought I had read a fuller explanation somewhere, but I can't remember... HTH
I have just read a part in the autobiography of St. Theresa of Avila where she speaks about the practice of prayer whereby one holds an image of Jesus in the memory and allows oneself to "be" with Him...just how the both of you mentioned. I never took such a formal approach to prayer. In the past, I just did what I was accostumed to doing, or what I would do naturally. Recently, I felt a need to know Jesus better. I question my love for Him and I want to love Him more. I think that St. Theresa's approach (and St. Francis DeSales and probably many other saints)really holds the key for me...so that I can get to know Jesus better. What a great gift the saints are... teaching us how to know Jesus!! As my kid's catechism lessons teach- first we need to know God then we can love Him. I want to know Him better through the prayer that St. Theresa teaches so that I can love God with emotion and feeling rather than my intellect..which doesn't not motivate me enough to serve Him.
As for the prayer of the heart or will....I hope that God will teach me this oneday.
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