Tito Edwards over at American Catholic is reporting that the American branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion – known as the Anglican Church in America – is formally requesting reception into the Catholic Church. Woo hoo!

It was the Traditional Anglican Communion that instigated Pope Benedict’s decision to set up a process by which entire parishes, dioceses and communions of the Anglican tradition could be received into the Catholic Church. The American branch of this Communion numbers 99 parishes throughout the United States.

Welcome home!

The Dark Night of the Senses
Fourth in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I,  Part II,  Part III)

Most people are familiar with the work of St. John of the Cross called “The Dark Night.” However, not many have actually read it or really understand what he means by “Dark Night.” First, there are actually two Dark Nights: the Dark Night of Sense and the Dark Night of the Soul (or Spirit). The first forms the bridge between the purgative and illuminative ways and the second is the bridge between the illuminative and unitive ways of prayer.

Unfortunately, “Dark Night” has become a term used very loosely to designate any difficult or depressing time in life. But this is not the meaning St. John of the Cross gives to “Dark Night.” These two stages are not brought about by external events, such as the loss of a job or the death of a loved one. Instead, they are brought about by God alone, who uses the Dark Nights to purge the soul of attachments to the things of this world.

Let us look at the first Dark Night, that of the senses. As said previously, this stage of prayer forms the bridge between the fourth and fifth levels of prayer, or between the purgative and illuminative ways. At this stage, God becomes the primary initiator of prayer, not man. Whereas in the purgative way, man’s primary duty is to actively cooperate with grace, at this level, man’s duty is to be passively receptive to grace.

But what does the Dark Night of Senses consist of? Primarily it involves a prolonged series of aridities in which the soul experiences dryness in prayer. It is a painful state that tests the soul to see if it desires prayer for the consolations or because it desires God Himself. At this stage, the ability to meditate becomes difficult, even painful, as no fruit comes from it and the Holy Spirit wants to move the soul from meditation to contemplation.

Why is this painful stage necessary? Why is it the bridge between the purgative and illuminative ways? It is necessary so that the soul can be purged of defects that still exist within it, defects which prevent the soul from being passively receptive to God’s grace. Note that at this stage the person is very spiritual and is basically living a life of virtue. But that does not mean that the soul does not still have defects that keep it from God. What are some of these defects? There are three primary ones:

(a) Spiritual Gluttony: the soul has an inordinate attachment to consolations and begins to see them as ends, not means to the end.

(b) Spiritual Sloth: a laziness which creeps into the soul in which it does not strive for perfection anymore but is content with mediocrity in the spiritual life.

(c) Spiritual Pride: Since at this stage one is truly advancing in virtue, it is easy to become spiritually proud and to look down on others. But of course pride is the worst of sins and keeps one away from God.

This stage too is a spiritually dangerous one, perhaps the most dangerous of them all. Up to this Dark Night the soul has advanced in virtue, holiness and prayer. Yet at this stage it appears that one is backsliding: consolations disappear, temptations become greater and meditation dries up. So a person might flee from the Dark Night and regress into lower levels of prayer. The proper response to this temptation to regress, however, is renewing your trust in God, continuing to utilize acquired recollection in prayer, abstaining from seeking consolation, and seeking counsel from a good spiritual director.

If one does make it through the Dark Night of Senses, then he can move into the illuminative way of prayer, which we’ll look at in the next post of this series.

What an awesome story:

Fr. Augustus Tolton, a man born into slavery who became the first American diocesan priest of African descent, is now being considered for canonization. Cardinal Francis George announced on Monday that the nineteenth century priest’s cause for sainthood has been introduced in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“Many Catholics might not ever have heard of Fr. Augustus Tolton; but black Catholics most probably have,” the Archbishop of Chicago wrote.

Born in Missouri on April 1, 1854, John Augustine Tolton fled slavery with his mother and two siblings in 1862 by crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois.

“John, boy, you’re free. Never forget the goodness of the Lord,” Tolton’s mother told him after the crossing, according to the website of St. Elizabeth’s Church in Chicago.

The young Tolton entered St. Peter’s Catholic School with the help of the school’s pastor, Fr. Peter McGirr. Fr. McGirr would later baptize him and instruct him for his first Holy Communion. Tolton was serving as an altar boy by the next summer.

The priest asked Tolton if he would like to become a priest, saying it would take twelve years of hard study.

The excited boy then said they should go to church and pray for his success.

After graduating from high school and Quincy College, he began his ecclesiastical studies in Rome because no American seminary would accept him on account of his race.

On April 24, 1886 he was ordained in Rome by Cardinal Lucido Maria Parocchi, who was then the vicar general of Rome. Newspapers throughout the U.S. carried the story.

Fr. Tolton was ordained for the southern Illinois Diocese of Quincy. Upon his return in July 1886, he was greeted at the train station “like a conquering hero,” the web site of St. Elizabeth’s Parish says.

“Thousands were there to greet him, led by Father McGirr. A brass band played church songs and Negro Spirituals. Thousands of blacks and whites lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the new priest wearing a black Prince Albert and a silk hat. People marched and cheered his flower-draped four-horse carriage. Children, priests and sisters left the school joining the procession heading towards the church.”

Hundreds waited at the local church where people of all races knelt at the communion rail.

Fr. Tolton served in Quincy before going to Chicago to start a parish for black Catholics. The new church was named for St. Monica and opened in 1893.

On July 9, 1897 Fr. Tolton collapsed during a hot day and died from sunstroke at the age of 43. Cardinal George explained that most priests in the nineteenth century died before their fiftieth birthday.

“Visiting the sick on a daily basis was risky in an age before antibiotics,” he explained.

The priest was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery just outside of Quincy, Illinois.

An investigation for canonization will collect evidence of Fr. Tolton’s heroic virtues and will investigate claims of his miraculous intercession.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, pray for us!

I’m sure you were asking yourself that question this morning…

During this season of lent, we often hear about penance and mortification. Often the two terms are used almost interchangeably. But they are not the same thing. Over at Catholic Spiritual Direction, the difference is explained:

The distinction between mortification (synonymous in most spiritual writers with self-denial, abnegation, self-renunciation, dying to self) and penance (synonymous with penitence, sacrifice or self-sacrifice, and “reparation”) has to do with the interior motive behind the action. In other words, the exterior action (fasting, for example, or taking a cold shower on a cold morning) can be exactly the same, but depending on the reason why I am doing the action (my intention), the spiritual nature of the act can be either mortification or penance.

The intentionality of an act of mortification is to “punish [i.e., discipline] my body [i.e., self-seeking tendencies] and bring it under control, to avoid any risk that, having acted as herald for others, I myself may be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). In other words, I freely deny the satisfaction of a normal and healthy desire in order to grow in my spiritual maturity, to learn to govern the self-seeking tendencies built into my fallen nature. For example, I purposefully mortify my perfectly legitimate desire for dessert on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent, so that I am better able to control an illegitimate desire to get drunk whenever that desire happens to surface. Mortification is spiritual training, tempering of the willpower in order to be able to better govern our passions and instincts, starving the bad plants in the garden (vices and selfish tendencies) so the good plants (virtues) can flourish.

The intentionality of an act of penance is to “make up in my own body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). I am doing penance for sin, making up for an evil, destructive deed, just as Christ did by dying on the cross. He offered his obedience as “payment” (or atonement) for our disobedience. This is how he repaired (made “reparation” for) the breach between God and man created by original sin. He sacrificed himself (made himself into an offering to God) on our behalf. Penance, therefore, is done as a way to tell God we are sorry for our sins, or for the sins of others, and to make up for them. Thus, my teenage son refused to go to Mass on Sunday, and so, to make up for this ungrateful offense against the majesty and goodness of God, I do penance on his behalf – perhaps making a Holy Hour on Monday evening instead of watching a favorite television show, or not listening to music during my morning commute this week, just to show God that someone (I) does indeed love the Giver more than the gifts. A good dad would do something similar if his son broke a neighbor’s window by throwing a rock; he would make up for it himself, if his son refused to do so. When we do penance, we are repairing for sin, reversing the self-indulgent act of sin by replacing it with a self-giving act of mortification.

Now you know!

The Purgative Way, Levels 3 and 4
Third in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I,  Part II)

Most likely, the vast majority of Catholics are familiar with the first two levels of prayer that I have reviewed, vocal prayer and meditation. After all, both levels are involved in the most common forms of prayer, such as the Rosary. Many Catholics may also have heard of higher levels of prayer such as the mystical experiences of a St. Catherine of Sienna or a St. John of the Cross. But there are actually two more levels of ascetical prayer; i.e. prayer which is initiated by man. We will look at these last two levels of the purgative way here.

Level 3: Affective Prayer
We saw in the previous level of prayer, called meditation, that the intellect predominates: one thinks about some supernatural truth and makes an effort to have that truth apply to their life. In this third level of prayer, called “affective prayer,” the will begins to dominate over the intellect. What does this mean? Unlike meditation, where the intellect works to consider the supernatural truth, during affective prayer the soul receives certain consolations regarding that truth which impress upon the will.  These consolations lead one to make acts of love towards the Lord. I like to think of this activity as a “supernatural New Year’s Resolution.” When making a resolution at the beginning of the year, one simply says that he will do such and such and then makes an effort to stick with it. However, in affective prayer, the will makes a certain resolution, aided by grace, which leads the person to make a true change in his life. For example, the soul might be meditating on the scourging at the pillar, and recognizing Christ’s suffering for our sake, might resolve to live a stricter life of penance. This resolution does not cause a sense of burden or anguish, however, but instead fills the soul with deep consolation and joy.

This level, however, can be spiritually dangerous. Now that the prayer has consolations attached to it, the person can fall into “spiritual gluttony,” desiring the consolations of the prayer for themselves. Thus, one can become stuck on this level and believe that his prayer is “fruitful” because he receives consolations. But the truth is that the only indication as to whether prayer is fruitful is whether the person is growing in virtue, charity, and self-denial. Consolations are wonderful, but they are a means to an end, not the end in themselves.

Level 4: Acquired Recollection
As we are still in the purgative way, we are still in the domain of ascetical prayer; so even at this fourth level, man is still the primary initiator.

This level, also called “prayer of simplicity” or “simple gaze” is the simple loving gaze upon the divine object. In it, we use our faculties to focus on our Lord, not using our intellect or imagination or emotion. It is a simple gaze of the will.

Acquired recollection demands the greatest recollection and requires us to master our faculties of intellect and will. This is so that we can be completely focused on the Lord and be still within.

Note that acquired recollection should not be forced and it is not proper to all persons. If one is getting fruit from an earlier stage, there is no reason to push to this level. Furthermore, you would not leave your 10-year-old daughter in an adoration chapel and just tell her, “Gaze on Jesus, not thinking of anything other than him.” She simply couldn’t do it and it could actually be harmful for her, as she would associate boredom with prayer. But there is a certain beauty about this level, as it starts to leave the domain of man and enters the domain of God: prayer is no longer only about what it does to you, but is more and more directed towards God.

In my next post in this series, we will look at the bridge to the illuminative way: the Dark Night of the Senses.

Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth

…is now Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family:

Cardinal: Stay-at-Home Moms Need to Be Paid

Of course, considering that stay-at-home moms work 24/7, even paying just the minimum wage would work out to over $60,000/year. Where do we sign up?

The Purgative Way, Levels 1 and 2
Second in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I)

As the saying goes, we must crawl before we can walk. So in this post I will explore the the first two levels of prayer,  which begin what is called the “purgative way.” These levels, along with the next two, also fall into the category of “ascetical prayer,” which means that the primary initiator of these levels of prayer is man. Obviously, they require grace, but the emphasis during the purgative way is man’s cooperation with that grace.

Level 1: Vocal Prayer
What is the first prayer that we teach our children? Usually it is something like the Our Father, the Hail Mary or perhaps grace before meals or bedtime. In other words, vocal prayer. Vocal prayer is, simply put, prayers said out loud. Before we can meditate upon the mysteries of our faith or contemplate divine realities, we must first say our prayers out loud. Man is a body-soul composite, and therefore our bodies – including our voices – must be involved in our prayer. And it is important to remember that no one – I mean no one – ever abandons this level altogether. Even the greatest mystics said vocal prayers to their dying day. But over time, vocal prayer can be combined with other forms of prayer, as we will see below.

Of course, anyone can outwardly say prayers, but that does not mean that he is actually praying. For vocal prayer to be truly prayer, two components are necessary: (1) attention; and (2) devotion. We must be aware of what we are saying and we should be saying it with love. Otherwise, we will be “like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them” (Matthew 6:5).

Level 2: Meditation
Meditation applies the mind to some supernatural truth in order to penetrate its meaning. It is primarily an act of the intellect, but the will also comes into play, since the purpose of meditation is to excite the will to love.

In general, there are three elements to meditation:

(a) Consideration: we think about the supernatural matter and ponder what it means.
(b) Application: we apply the truth to our own spiritual life.
(c) Resolution: we resolve practical ways to make the application of this truth occur in our life.

Meditation is the first stage of any serious prayer, and it is foundational to the further stages. It has been said that if a person meditates daily, in a short period of time he will either stop committing serious sin or will stop meditating. Meditation is also something that can be fruitful at any level of prayer; St. Theresa of Avila said that she always started her prayer by reading some spiritual work and meditating on it. That would then lead her to other, higher levels of prayer.

In my next post in this series, we will look at the next two levels of the purgative way, which are affective prayer and acquired recollection.

One of the inspirations for my book “Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew” (coming this September) is the Christology of Pope Benedict XVI. The depths in which the current pontiff has delved into the mystery of Christ is quite remarkable and has helped me in my own understanding of the person of Christ. His book “Jesus of Nazareth” introduced much of the world to his Christology, but he has been exploring the reality of the person of Jesus for decades.

Amy Welborn, author of numerous books and host of the popular “Charlotte was Both” blog, has just published a book entitled Come Meet Jesus: An Invitation from Pope Benedict XVI which explores the Pope’s Christology in some depth. I’m sure it will be very insightful. Click on the link of the book title to read more details from Amy.

For those in the local Maryland area, next Monday (March 8th) will be the annual Maryland March for Life in Annapolis, MD. Fighting against legalized abortion in this state often seems like an uphill battle, but we’ll never win if we don’t try. Try to make an effort to be there next Monday.

Details can be found at: www.marylandmarchforlife.org

Introduction
First in a seven-part series

The Catholic Tradition considers there to be nine levels of prayer. The explanations of these levels have been developed over the centuries by various Catholic spiritual writers and saints, most especially St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Although we are all called to live a life of prayer, most Catholics are not informed about these various levels, and it may be for this reason that they are unable to advance in prayer as they should. So I’d like to go through the levels this week in a seven-part series.

Before describing the nine ascending levels, let me first mention some general terms with regard to prayer. First is the distinction between ascetical prayer and mystical prayer. Ascetical prayer emphasizes man’s cooperation with grace; the primary initiator of this type of prayer is man. Mystical prayer, on the other hand, is initiated by God. Man’s role is to be receptive. It is important to remember, however, that these two types of prayer exist at all levels; they work together and should not be held in opposition. Some levels though are primarily ascetical while others are primarily mystical.

Furthermore, the nine levels of prayer can be grouped into three “ways”: purgative, illuminative, and unitive. The purgative way is proper to beginners in the Christian life. Its goal is to tame the body, and its emphasis is on the ascetical purification of self. The illuminative way is the path of infused contemplation, in which an experiential, intuitive knowledge of God is supernaturally infused into the soul. The illuminative way is the beginning of mystical prayer. The third way, the unitive way, is proper to the “perfect.” It is the intimate union of the contemplative soul with God.

Finally, between each of the three ways there is a “bridge” that marks the soul’s advancement from one way to the next. The bridge between the purgative way and the illuminative way is the Dark Night of the Senses, in which the soul is purged of all consolation of the senses. The bridge between the illuminative way and the unitive way is the Dark Night of the Soul, in which the soul is purged of all consolation of the intellect, mind and memory.

It is very important to note that there is some fluidity between these levels and the length of time a person spends in each one. Some levels one always experiences, whereas other levels are only attained over a long period of time.

With that, here are the nine levels of prayer:

Ascetical Prayer

Purgative Way

1. Vocal Prayer

2. Meditation

3. Affective Prayer

4. Acquired Recollection

Bridge: Dark Night of the Senses

Mystical Prayer

Illuminative Way

5. Infused Contemplation

6. Prayer of Quiet

Bridge: Dark Night of the Soul

Unitive Way

7. Simple Union

8. Conforming Union

9. Transforming Union

Over the next several days I will go into detail about each level with the hope that those who read this will be helped in their own prayer life.

Sts. Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, pray for us!