Contemplation's Place in Prayer

It is said that "we pray as we live and we live as we pray." Vocal prayer uses words, meditative prayer thought, and contemplative prayer, love. A seminary professor of spirituality, writing in the Kyeongyang magazine, discusses how contemplative prayer is to be understood by Catholics. It is particularly important today, he believes, that we call on our traditional prayer resources to ask for divine assistance in dealing with living in the most unchristian of times.

Often prayer is not the means of knowing, loving and being more like God but rather as a means to be more successful in our lives. This is, he says, the reason we have to examine carefully our faith life and prayer.

Contemplation comes from the Latin verb 'contemplari,' meaning to discover the will of God and use all our energies in gazing and beholding him. As a Christian, through intuition, we first become aware of  God's presence and then gaze upon him with love. It is not a simple gazing, he says, but one that calls forth admiration and a joy that clasps our souls, followed by knowledge. Contemplation is the love-filled gaze of God and the things of God that absorb our attention. The Catholic Catechism (# 2724) describes it as "...the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love."

There are many varieties of contemplative prayer, but the writer focuses on two: acquired and infused contemplation. As the words imply, the former develops from our efforts, and the latter is given to us as a gift from God.

With contemplation, our life becomes more passive, but not completely, for with the prayer we become more personally intimate with God; we strive to accommodate ourselves more to the way God is calling us to himself by practicing the virtues, by imitating the life that Jesus has shown us.

With our ordinary meditative practices, often called mental prayer, we tend to see little improvement but with the graces of contemplation, we grow closer to Jesus. There are those who see prayer as psychological, others who search for a mental and emotional state of emptiness from which to prayer, but what is forgotten is that prayer comes with the help of the Holy Spirit and not only with our efforts. We are to get rid of our individual egoism, which is a great obstacle in getting closer to God.

"The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality which cannot be mastered by any method or technique. On the contrary, we must always have our sights fixed on Jesus Christ, who went to the cross for us and there assumed even the condition of estrangement from the Father." --Letter to the Bishops on Meditation  #31.

By our practice of contemplation, we are more closely united to God and our understanding of ourselves; the world is more understandable and clearer, and we are better able to know our roles in society. This is to be discovered not only in the time of prayer but during every day of our lives.

Humble Enough To Be Corrected

The columnist in View from the Ark recalls the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis Tennessee in 1968 and the riots and violence that followed. Jane Elliott a third grade elementary school teacher embarrassed and angered, devised a very simple experiment with her students which the columnist briefly describes. Her experiment is written up in the book Blue and Brown Eyes.
 
Jane, told the students that they would be two groups in the class. The  blue eyed students would wrap a cloth collar around the brown eyed students. They would be treated as inferior and the blue eyed be given privileges. It was an exercise to understand how you feel when you are the object of discrimination. The next day it was the brown eyed students that would be the superiors and the blue eyed the inferior ones, and given the treatment the blacks received.

It was only done for two days but the children quickly  grasped and internalized what was to be done and even though artificially manipulated  those  discriminating felt  joy and those who received the discrimination felt great anguish and pain.
 
The columnist is using an article that was written on this issue of  discrimination in one of the daily papers. This kind of experiment is very dangerous admits the columnist for the chances  of being hurt seriously is not missing. And Jane Elliott also admitted that  it would be nice to have another way of bringing about the same kind of  learning.
 
In this experiment  those who participated and those who viewed it all were moved deeply. Words, no matter how well chosen do not  have the same effect as when you bodily experience  discriminating and being  discriminated. The  artificiality with the  experiment was not accepted well by the  adults when they were asked to participate in the exercise. After a couple hours the exercise  was discontinued. Once seeing the injustice they don't want to participate.
 
Bias more than a  reason for prejudice, is  often the results. Bias narrows our vision of the world  and makes it smaller, but prejudice  cripples the other which makes it much more harmful. The columnist said after reading the book Blue and Brown Eyes she compared it with the society in which she lives. Even the artificial exercise was considered dangerous by some, how about the the gap between the rich and the poor, status  in society, religion, political positions, personalities, appearances and the like. Don't we see how the bias and prejudice that we come in contact daily is affecting many in society?

Any arbitrary differences on which we base our
prejudice,  for the most part, is not reasonable or has any foundation. Race, color of skin, religion, we know where to stand. However, a little difference in opinion  and  right away we ticket the person as a follower of the North. Isn't this a sign of prejudice? Important for us is to give heed to the words of others who make known the prejudice that this shows, and become aware  of it. We have to revisit the Golden Rule and make it a living part of our life.

Living At A Slower Pace

"Let us live each day twice" was the headline of a recent article in the Kyeongyang magazine in which a university professor mentions  the way many of the Indian Tribes in the Americas considered the month of February.  She reflects on the Mohawk  people's understanding of the month as the 'slow moving month.' She first understood it to mean a month of hunger and cold, before seeing it in a more personally moving way, as a reminder to live each day more slowly and with more awareness. 

Citing the French philosopher Pierre Sansot (1928-2005) and his book The Meaning of Slow Living, she lists lists some of his proposals to start living a slower life: Go for a leisurely stroll, listen to people very intently, do everything with your whole heart, become attentive to your dreams, wait for opportunities and do  your best to make the most of them, spend some time writing, and occasionally enjoy a glass of wine--all to be done without a sense of business.

Koreans, she says, are known to be always busy. This is not a good trait, according to Sansot. To be pressed by time is to lose your freedom; we are to live in harmony with time and this is done by living slowly. Pascal said "Men have only one problem: They don't know how to rest in a quiet room."  A society that expects only efficiency and productivity is not conducive to this slow life that is being recommended. 

She mentions the hero of the fantasy movie About Time, who is told by his father that they have the capability of going back into time if they think long enough about it. Although relishing this way of life for awhile, he realizes that instead of going back into the past to fix problems it is better to live completely and fully in the present, and also to make the most of each moment we have been given, for it is then that we find in surprising and new ways the hidden happiness, fruitfulness and mystery of our personal relationships.

Thomas a Kempis in his Imitation of Christ writes "Now is the time to be up and doing, now is the day of battle, now is the time to change my life." And the professor adds, if we don't succeed today we have tomorrow to complete the work. Today we work, we walk, we dream, we wait. And when tomorrow comes, we have another chance to give ourselves to another new day by again giving ourselves carefully and completely to the work before us.

Every 24 hours we need to be awake to this new birth we have received and to begin it with a new awareness to live it well. Tomorrow's day and the next day, when they come, are always today's day, always new and always ready to give us great joy. With the birth of each new day, slowly, in orderly fashion, we also are born again.

Below is a paragraph from the book The Meaning of Slow Living:

More than anything else what elates me the most is the birth of a new day. At the birth of a new day I am filled with vitality. For 24 hours I am conscious that in every moment I can express who I am. To my eyes the birth of a new day comes to me with more emotion than the birth of a new infant.Tomorrow, another day will be born. Tomorrow again, I will be looking forward to the  future.

Returning to "Our First Intentions"

 

Parables have always been used as a means of instruction, and our Lord was a master in their use. The problems of society give rise to many of the parables still being told today. Jealousy and greed, for instance, two of the capital sins, though motivational forces for moving our economy and fostering progress, also are a cause of much evil in the world. The Taegu Catholic Bulletin recounts a parable that addresses these problems. 

One day a king traveling through his kingdom stayed overnight in the home of a shepherd. Seeing the behavior of the shepherd he was moved by his simplicity, honesty and overall demeanor, which he didn't find among his retainers.  Since the king valued the attributes of the spirit more than professional skills, he decided to make the shepherd prime minister of his kingdom. 

As prime minister he was  honest and faithful in his duties, but the other retainers, knowing he was only a simple shepherd, began to envy his way of doing every task impartially and dutifully; it made their work more difficult, and so they conspired to find ways to get rid of him

Noticing that he would go to his country home once a month, they decided to secretly follow him. The shepherd went to a hollow in the ground and, lifting a large jar from the hole and removing the cover, stared into the jar for some time. The retainers reported this to the king; it appeared, they said, that the prime minister had a pure heart, but that he was not the poor simple shepherd he claimed to be, for in his home, they told the king, he had a jar with all kinds of gold and precious stones. 

The angry king demanded that the prime minister take him to see what was in the jar he kept hidden in the ground. Along with the retainers, the king watched as the prime minister took off the cover to the jar; inside, they could see only old clothes and a shepherd's staff.  "I was a shepherd," the prime minister said, "but because of the kindness of the king I was made the prime minister. I come to look at the clothes and staff in order not to forget who I was, and still am at heart, a simple shepherd." 

From that time on, no one found fault with the prime minister. The prime minster's efforts to remember who he was helped him to keep the disposition that he had as a shepherd.

"First Intention" was the headline of the Taegu Bulletin article that recounted the parable. As a child there are some basic aspirations and intentions that we entertained. "Returning to the First Intentions" is the Korean expression to describe these first dreams and intentions we had as children, before being buffeted by the reality of life, changing our aspirations to adapt to what we came to know as the reality of the world. This we need to do, according to the article, but despite it all we should have our own 'jar' that we can return to and peer into for the dreams that should not completely  disappear from our lives.            

The Moral Law Written On Our Hearts

The German philosopher Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote a great deal about virtue and the moral law, which can be derived, he says, from reason, thus removing all doubt concerning whether immoral behavior is ever reasonable; it is never reasonable, says Kant. And yet, a professor, writing in the Kyeongyang magazine, points out that despite morality and virtue being held in high esteem by Koreans since ancient times, the tendency today is to bow before the altar of money, and even to find it reasonable to do so--when the reward made it worthwhile. 

According to Kant, what was basic to making us human was the virtue inscribed in our hearts. Though the professor admits that because of the rapid cultural changes in Korean society, some change is to be expected, he laments how far we have deviated from the norms of our past which held morality and virtue in high esteem.

He cites a recent news report of a son killing his mother and brother for about 80,000 dollars and secretly burying their bodies. It shocked the nation. How could any person do this, many were thinking, no matter how much money was involved. If done by someone who was mentally disturbed or was overcome with emotion or a one-of-a kind rare occurrence, the professor says, it would be less of a problem, but that is not what we are beginning to see in these acts.

A survey of 10,172  students in elementary school, middle and high school was taken to measure the ethical standard of honesty among our young people. One of the questions was: If you had the opportunity of receiving a million dollars by doing something immoral and it would require one year in prison would you do it? 47 percent of the high school students would; among middle school students, 33 percent; among elementary school children,16 percent.

Paradoxically, the more education they received the less moral the behavior. In another survey, to the question: What is the most important element in finding happiness? The answer from most elementary school children was family; among high school children it was money.

What children see in society, says the professor, is what will influence them. The thinking that seems most prevalent in our society at this time, he says, appears to be: "Why not do it if you can; if you don't, you are a looser in our society." The article goes on to note that these surveys are revealing what many have known for some time, that many of us lack a correct understanding of morality and that there are few cultural helps to nurture the spark of virtue that still resides in our hearts.

In Korea today, the professor believes that if this tendency to go with what appears to be the natural movement of greed or the freedom to do whatever one likes, we will soon be governed by the law of the jungle. The solution might well be, he suggests, to do what Kant did, if we are to become virtuous human beings.

On Kant's gravestone there is the inscription: "Two things fill my mind with ever increasing wonder and awe the more often and more intensely I reflect on them: The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

Working Towards A Just Society

Economic democratization was at one time a hot topic of discussion in our Korean society, according to the bishops column on faith and economics. Irrespective of political party, conservative or progressive, the cultural climate had been demanding more economic parity, which we hear little of nowadays.

Recently, however, the column noted, a university student taped a poster on a campus bulletin board with the question: "Are you doing all right?"  Soon after, bulletin boards in other universities and schools where filled with similar posters, expressing dissatisfaction with much of what is happening in society, and the determination of the young to do something about it.

The scale of economic development  and the numerical values of productivity have increased while the gap between those who have much and those who have little keeps growing larger. At the same time, the competition both among students vying for the top spots in elite schools and among businesses interested in gaining a large share of their particular market keeps escalating. Along with present and future uncertainties (the North/South controversy, for one) the quality of life for many decreases, with the middle class tending to disappear, wealth tending to concentrate in the hands of a small number of people at the top of the economic chain, and a large number of the poor at the bottom.

Christians have the mission to participate, the column points out, in living and building God's kingdom, and examining what economic democratization may mean for the future health of our society. Ignoring the effects of an unjust economic system on the people involved, concerning ourselves only with mathematical  figures and economic progress, is not the way we should go about achieving a just society.  If we fail to solve some of our present economic problems, the column warns, we will fail also to bring about a just society or affect meaningful change, as well as mortgaging the life of future  generations.

Seeing the economic democratization issue from a Christian perspective will require, the column says, the serious engagement of Christians to work for a healthy society, to know what is expected of us, and be determined enough to do what is necessary to see it implemented in society.

We know from the Gospel teaching what is expected. One example of this appears in Matthew (20:1-16)  where the parable about the farmer and his workers shows us what it means to be just. The parable of the lost sheep is another example that makes clear that God's way of calculating is not our way.

What we are shown in these parables is that what is important is not only productivity but providing the workers with an opportunity for living better lives. This was the standard that Jesus wanted us to consider important.

Do we as Christians, the bishops column asks, also have this as our standard? Do we have the courage to make this our aim in working for a just society?

Returning to the Farm

Going back to the farm is a popular new movement within Korean society. City life can be hectic and the lure of a carefree country life, with a chance to renew dreams of a better life, has become an attractive option for many weary city dwellers.

Statistics show that in the past few years over 10,000 people have made the change. The government has allotted subsidies and loans for those returning to the farms. Those who desire a happy, family-orientated and slow-paced life close to nature, without the pressure of city life, will find it very satisfying. Those who are looking for success and money will be disappointed.

A woman who returned to the country eight years ago and is living a happy farmer's life writes in the Catholic Times about her experiences. She was brought up in a small, quiet country town, she says, but spent most of her life in Seoul. She described her feelings when she decided to return to the country as "leaving the jungle of buildings for the grove of pine trees, and the noisy city for the quiet country."

Her country home, 300 meters above sea level, with only four other families nearby, is surrounded by rice  paddies and a dry field. It has helped her to become, she says, closer to God and, by working with the earth and doing the farm chores, she has a deeper understanding of the teachings of Jesus. She feels that losing our closeness to the earth has made it difficult for us to understand many of the parables in the Bible.

Before returning to the country, she had considered the time after the Fall harvest one of desolation, and at times lonely. Now she sees this time as an opportunity to enjoy a period of rest, to offer thanks for the harvest, and to prepare for a new beginning in the Spring.

Nature in the winter months seems without movement, but deep down, out of sight, it is, she reminds us, preparing for the new season. In nature there is no remorse, frustration or vacillation, she says, just rest, new beginnings and life, always and everywhere life. Whether hidden or evident, Nature is always animated with the movement of life. Living with nature we learn at a deeper, experiential level what rest can mean in renewing our sense of self. God, himself, rested on the seventh day. She would like to know how many of her readers have used this easily overlooked method of renewing their lives by resting occasionally more often during the day, whether in the city or in the country. 

Pope Francis, it was reported, has in mind to write his first encyclical on the environment. He has often spoken on the subject; his words in an address he gave last year on the environment will probably indicate the substance of what he will write in the encyclical. "We are losing our attitude of wonder, of contemplation, of listening to creation and thus we are no longer able to see and understand in creation what Benedict XVI calls 'the rhythm of the love story between God and man'. Why does this happen? Why do we think and live 'horizontally'? Because we have drifted away from God. We no longer read his signs."