One of the challenges that Christian contemplation seems to face today is the temptation to turn contemplation into something that we can do to or for ourselves. To be sure, when Pope Francis targets forms of “neo-Gnosticism” and “neo-Pelagianism,” this is one of the manifestations of that. The former is self-salvation by the thinking mind, the latter by the will. But we might also know the temptation by other, more genteel names. There’s the “Christian meditation” movement. There’s “centering prayer.” There’s whatever it was that religious superiors tried to force on me and I rebelled against and contributed to my decision to leave. These all have a much more kindly face than “neo-Gnosticism” and “neo-Pelagianism.”

I think that the genuinely Christian contemplative has an instinctual revulsion for trying to quieten the mind oneself and trying to empty it of any content that might focus our knowledge and our love. After all, Christian contemplation is essentially an experience of divine beauty. We can’t generate that ourselves, nor should we try to. The experience is a gift.

Evidently, there are many witnesses of this instinctual tendency of the Christian contemplative. Saint John of the Cross comes to mind, with his three signs of the onset of contemplation and the cessation of meditation. John’s contemporary and friend, Saint Teresa of Avila, gives a similar concern for us not stopping our minds before God bestows on us the gift of something else. I was recently rereading her and came across this passage that I’d like to pause on:

If His Majesty has not begun to absorb us, I cannot understand how the mind can be stopped. There’s no way of doing so without bringing about more harm than good, although there has been a lengthy controversy on this matter among some spiritual persons. For my part I must confess my lack of humility, but those in favor of stopping the mind have never given me a reason for submitting to what they say. One of them tried to convince me with a certain book by the saintly Friar Peter of Alcántara—for I believe he is a saint—to whom I would submit because I know that he knew. And we read it together, and he says the same thing I do; although not in my words. But it is clear in what he says that love must be already awakened. It could be that I’m mistaken, but I have the following reasons. (Interior Castle 4.3.4)[1]

Teresa goes on to enumerate some reasons why she thinks she is right. They are of variable quality and argumentative importance, but they essentially boil down to the big notion that Christian prayer is a relationship.

In its contemplative form, prayer is really a strong leap of love. One rests lovingly with the One one loves. But before that, of course, we often share things back and forth. It’s creepy to stop talking with and stare at someone with whom we’re not already comfortable and familiar. Don’t do that. We arrive at the point and are drawn naturally to it. We don’t initiate it one-sidedly. Or—to switch up the metaphors—it’s far better to let the mind run like “wild horses” (Way of Perfection 19.2)[2] than to try to push it into a stall and let it atrophy.

Saint Teresa gives clear testimony that the controversies of our own age are not unique. At the dawn of the modern period, there were already those who were running around saying that, if recollection in God is a prayer to aspire to, then we should cease working the mind so as to get there. We shouldn’t focus attention on specific Bible passages or mysteries or thoughts. They claim we should slow down and empty ourselves. This, the saint argues, is wrong. Thank God for that!

Note, though, the way Saint Teresa handles the situation. Not only does she provide rational arguments in her favour, she reads the passage in Saint Peter of Alcantara together with the person she is having the disagreement with, then asserts that the passage says what she has been saying, not her interlocutor. This is clever and wise. She doesn’t first dispute in the abstract. She finds an authority, renowned for his prayer life, and then focuses on his lived experience. She doesn’t reason in a purely logical way that A is good, therefore enact A. Nor does she initially reason logically that A is good but unattainable because of reason B, thus we can aspire and hope but not enact. She says all that. But only after she first goes to experience. Her experience. And the experience of others, of certain holy authorities. She essentially paints a picture of those she disagrees with as being purveyors of ideology, while she is rooted in what has happened to her and to others. Hers is a relationship and a story. Theirs is a theory—and an untested one at that.

These are just a few things to think about. There’s much good stuff happening today in the contemplative world, particularly with Pope Francis at the helm, but it’s always good to go back to the contemplative saints, too. I think we see so many of the Holy Father’s own themes here in Mother Teresa of Avila. There’s the stalwart no to ideology. There’s a turn against self-effected life changes. There’s an appeal to dialogue, sharing, and experience. There’s the assurance that the battles we’re fighting may have been fought before, in a slightly different permutation, and that our friends in heaven know where we are and what we need.

[1] The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. 2, trans. Kieran Kavanagh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washing, DC: ICS Publications, 2017), 329.

[2] Ibid., 107.