This is a good video, I think!

However, I read the comments. This alerted me to something interesting. Someone in the comments asked whether, because God is the principal agent of contemplative prayer, a time of contemplation must always be a time of consolation. This struck me. It struck me quite forcefully. It is perhaps a much more natural question than I’d have expected. God does it; therefore “surely” we feel consoled, the commenter reasons.

I wonder if, perhaps, that was a weak point of the presentation (and of any of my own words, too, of course). In reality, contemplation as someone like John of the Cross explains it actually begins with the desolations of a “dark night”. Not only are contemplation and desolation compatible; for us pilgrim people of the Cross, they are somehow linked.

Somehow, mysteriously, for us in our condition of Baptized people, we only attain to contemplative prayer through ridding ourselves of attachments and being able to, through that human pain, more simply look on Jesus our Love. It hurts. Whatever exterior and interior causes lead to this desolation, the desolation is real. And this time of desolation is when contemplation can begin.

Well, it struck me that a commenter seemed confused about this. If contemplation comes from God, “surely” it makes us feel consoled? Actually, no. Not in the beginning. Not at all. This confusion makes me wonder how much this needs to be emphasized in talking about contemplation. Perhaps, otherwise, many people get the wrong idea: “Can contemplation have desolation?” one asks, quite naturally and understandably. Oh dear. Yes, my friend. Yes. A lot of it. We have to count the cost. =\

h/t A Solitary Bird for a post about this video. ^^