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Adoration: Losing Self, Finding Peace

This article is the second in a three part series on the spiritual mission of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity for our time. We are arguing that contemplation of the Triune God can heal the wounds of social alienation that so profoundly mark the experience of believers today and, more than this, offers a fullness of Christian living no other kind of prayer can match. In our last article, we distinguished St. Elizabeth’s confidence in presenting a contemplative approach to the Trinity in contradistinction to the tentativeness that often comes through the preaching of those who do not share a deep devotion to the Divine Persons. In this article, we will further explore St. Elizabeth’s devotion to the Trinity by reflecting on her understanding of adoration as an oblative reality characterized by peace and a distinctly Christian understanding of self-forgetfulness.

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity contemplates the Trinity as a mystery in which one can both “lose” and “forget” one’s own self. She does not explicitly refer to Christ’s observation that whoever loses his life for the sake of Christ will gain it forever (Mt 16:25). Yet she approaches the Divine Persons, asking for the grace to completely “lose” herself so that she might be established in peace, and sees the immensity of God as evoking self-forgetfulness and complete surrender to his love.

A severe spiritual trial during her novitiate helped forge this devotion. Her prioress and novice mistress, newly appointed thirty-one year old Mother Germaine, describes Saint Elizabeth struggling with “shadows of a dark night,” including “interior disturbances, spiritual pain, and strange phantoms.” Such an observation is entirely consistent with Carmelite tradition. In his commentary, Dark Night, St. John of the Cross argues that such testing is necessary to dispose the soul to perfect union with God, and even more, that this union is already being affected during the trials when he seems so absent. In Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross makes even more explicit that this is a spiritual battle against the devil. Suffering the dark shadows of this spiritual trial in contemplative prayer, according to this wisdom, would prepare Saint Elizabeth for a profound and fruitful union with Christ, the Bridegroom.

A Spiritual Mission for our Time

The Second Vatican Council’s reminder of a “universal call to holiness” for all the baptized[1] has borne great fruit in the life of the Church. In her mission of evangelization and catechesis, the Church has gradually identified how the call to holiness takes on flesh even in the life of a catechist. In fact, over the last 25 years there has been an emerging discussion of an authentic “spirituality of the catechist” based on the vocation and mission of the catechist. This positive movement is reflected in the Church documents and, with ever-increasing and expanding frequency, in the publication of articles, books, and curricula for the formation and training of catechists.[2] Any treatment of the spirituality of the catechist inevitably includes a focus on the nature of personal prayer. Often highlighted subtopics include: The importance of daily personal prayer; the effectiveness of evangelization and catechesis hinging on the catechist’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ; concrete recommendations on how to develop and maintain one’s prayer life through participation in the sacramental life of the Church, as well as other spiritual practices and exercises. In my experience, catechists accept with seriousness and dedication the vocation and mission that the Church entrusts to them. They generally participate diligently in all of the abovementioned areas of personal prayer, and sincerely strive toward personal holiness. In my years of training catechists and members of the laity, including through spiritual direction, it is rare, however, that I encounter someone with a basic understanding of how the overall path to holiness concretely unfolds. Personal prayer, as well as Christian perfection, are often described today as a “journey,” a “path to holiness,” or in terms of “spiritual growth.” While these are certainly apt descriptions, such analogies remain vague in themselves without concrete details about the path to holiness and where it leads. Many of us have forgotten the specific stages of the spiritual life proposed by the Doctors of the Church and spiritual masters such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Ignatius (although not a Doctor of the Church). The classical “three ways” or “conversions” of the spiritual life, the Dark Night of the Soul, and the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, are not generally known or taught to catechetical leaders, catechists, or the laity as a whole. As a result, the spiritual life or path of holiness appears to many as a nebulous, disjointed journey. The times I touch upon one dimension or another of the stages of the spiritual life in a teaching or a homily, inevitably at least a few catechists or parishioners share afterward that they have experienced the exact same struggles in prayer, and how helpful it is to have clarity in those areas. For this reason, it seems appropriate to deal briefly with a reality many of our lay faithful face during personal prayer: spiritual aridity, or more specifically, the Dark Night of Sense.

The Book of Wisdom (18:6, 9) speaks to us about “the night of the Passover,” saying that the Israelites in Egypt were “putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.” Something divine was being instituted—established—when the Jews performed that first Passover meal according to the instructions they had received from God through Moses. Something “divine” because something of God.

However, the Passover meal of the New Covenant is divine in a far more profound way because in it there is not merely something of God, but God himself. The Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is really present in the Eucharist.

One evening, as I was offering Mass in the parish, I was joined at the altar by . . . a gnat. He showed up during the Opening Prayer; so when the time came for me to prepare the wine in the chalice, I was ready for him. He behaved just as I expected: he tried to get to the wine. Throughout the Eucharistic Prayer, I had to cover the chalices, uncover them for the essential parts—the invoking of the Holy Spirit and the Consecration of the Precious Blood—and then rapidly cover them again. Each time, as soon as the covering was removed and the fragrance of wine began to emanate from the chalices, here he came; and at times I had to brush him away as I continued with the prayers.

One of the words particularly beloved of Pope Francis, is the Greek parrhēsia.[i] It is also a significant word for all who hand on the faith of the Church: parents, priests and religious, catechists in parishes, and teachers in schools. We could go so far as to say that it sums up for us how we should learn to catechize for the new evangelization.

Every page of the Catechism’s text is characterized by this quality of parrhēsia. The Catechism explains that the word means “straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved,”[ii] reminding us that we can speak with “straightforward simplicity” precisely because of our filial trust in the Lord; we can speak with “humble boldness” because of the certainty we have of his love for us.

Hablando por mí, debo admitir que mi mente a menudo divaga durante la Misa, especialmente durante la Misa diaria. Generalmente me dejo caer en un banco de la iglesia unos treinta segundos antes o después de que el sacerdote haya entrado. Mi mente anda dando vueltas y estoy distraído por miles de pequeñas preocupaciones. Para cuando haya terminado el Evangelio, a menudo me doy cuenta que apenas he escuchado una palabra. Mi respuesta, "Gloria a Ti, Señor Jesús" a veces me provoca una risita silenciosa ya que viene pegada al final de un chorro de pensamientos que nada tenían que ver con Jesús. Luego, a pesar de mi sincera intención de concentrarme en la homilía, de nuevo se me va la mente. Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, he descubierto unas técnicas que me han ayudado a lidiar con este problema.

C. S. Lewis was a conjurer, whose words evoke the magic of ordinary things, breach the ramparts of rationalism, awaken the appetite for the eternal, and evangelize through the medium of fiction.

Plato’s “allegory of the cave,” as related by Socrates, tells of a group of people imprisoned in a cave since childhood. They have never seen the light of day and so imagine that shadows projected on a wall compose the whole of reality.

The progressive narrowing of thought in the Western world since the Enlightenment has achieved a similar kind of effect, shrinking our horizons and restricting our vision of reality. We could say that this intellectual narrowing has dimmed the memory of our true homeland, or, as philosopher Peter Kreeft describes, it has screwed “down the manhole covers on us so we became squinting underground creatures” instead of eagles capable of soaring towards the sun. Like the cave dweller’s attraction to reality in Plato’s famous allegory, however, the longing for light (which is the desire for the infinite) cannot be fully extinguished. Though buried deeply, it lies dormant and waits for someone to bring it to life.

As with many of our metaphysical troubles, often the path of awakening passes through a baptism of the imagination, the faculty that acts like a router to the deepest recesses of the soul. The art of storytelling is an exquisitely appropriate means to the rehabilitation of our capacity to perceive reality. Stories pique our curiosity and sense of wonder, and they excite our spiritual taste buds. With our souls’ senses heightened, our vision begins to clear and sharpen, and we perceive the magic and mystery that lies beneath the surface of everyday things.

Jesus used stories, symbols, parables, and paradoxes to reveal the “mysteries of the Kingdom.” The Word Incarnate, whose story is “the most tremendous tale of all,” revealed the magic of ordinary things, like seeds, sowers, trees, food, and drink in order to unlock the portals of the imagination and awaken our longing for infinite love and joy.[i] He is the storyteller par excellence and the bearer of Good News from a far-off country, the “happy homeland of the Trinity,” which is our true origin and destiny.

Those involved in youth and young adult ministry accompany and mentor young people as they center their lives on Christ. We hope you enjoy this testimony written by a young adult woman, who describes a significant instance of this conversion from her own life.

Recently, I spoke to 100 young adults on a retreat in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona. The majority of attendees were single and feeling uncertain about their lives and the direction the Lord was taking them. In addition, many spoke of the ache they have in their hearts—the longing they have to find someone to love them in marriage. I remember this feeling myself when I was a single younger adult praying for my vocation and wondering if God would ask me to be single for the rest of my life. The thought made me feel so sad and lonely. Then something changed.

In his 1979 apostolic exhortation On Catechesis in Our Time, St. John Paul II wrote, “the definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.” In these words, we catechists can perceive our humbling mission. With the challenges we face as catechists, both from the world around us and perhaps even more crucially from our own experience of our limitations and our inner brokenness, this affirmation should help us stand firm in faith, hope, and love. God, our Father, who is Love, would not ask us to do anything without giving us the means to accomplish his will.

In this issue's "Inspired through Art" department, Jem Sullivan introduces a method of teaching with art that follows the contours of the ancient practice of lectio divina. In addition to offering a synopsis of this promising approach, she then shows how to use it to reflect upon a masterpiece from the Italian Renaissance. We live in a visual culture. From our waking moments to the day’s end, our senses are accessing the natural world and the visual culture that surrounds us. As catechists, we know this visual culture well from our daily experience of print, electronic and social media, mass communication, and entertainment; and the dominant visual culture also shapes those we are privileged to catechize. In a culture of images, how might the rich heritage of Christian art serve catechesis and evangelization? What catechetical methods might we employ to lead those we catechize to deeper faith in Christ through reflection on masterpieces of Christian art? In this article, we will consider the ancient spiritual practice of lectio divina and its adaptation today for reflection upon works of art. To gain a good sense for how lectio divina could be employed in this way, this method will be used to reflect in a catechetical manner upon a masterpiece painting of the Annunciation by Giovanni di Paolo. Why Attend to Beauty in Christian Art? Christian art speaks the language of the Incarnation. In his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI drew attention to the theological basis of Christian art when he noted that, “the complete absence of images is incompatible with faith in the Incarnation of God.”[1] Both Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis urge catechists to attend to the vast Christian artistic tradition as a means of evangelization and catechesis. Pope John Paul II observed that, “in the history of human culture…believers have gained from art in their experience of prayer and Christian living…[I]n times when few could read or write, [artistic] representations of the bible were a concrete mode of catechesis…[since] every genuine art form in its own way is a path to the inmost reality of man and of the world.”[2] Pope Francis highlights the evangelizing role of art when he wrote, “every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus…So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith.”[3]