The Nine Levels of Prayer

[Michie]

Catholicism has developed the best “school of prayer” available, but it's mostly forgotten today.

Years ago I was involved in a Protestant apologetics online forum. Unlike many online forums, this one included many very bright and respectful people who expertly debated theology without rancor. Just about every viewpoint was represented: Calvinist, evangelical, liberal, conservative, even Mormon and Unitarian. I, however, was the only Catholic participant. One of the great things about being a participant was that I really had to know how to defend my faith, for making any theological statement – whether about justification or the Real Presence or morality or anything else – would result in challenges from every direction.

However, one day the topic of prayer came up. A Protestant who was friendly to Catholics noted that Catholicism really has the deepest and richest tradition of prayer, hands down. He lamented that much of Protestantism had abandoned this tradition. What surprised me was the reaction he got from the other forum participants: complete agreement. Although they couldn’t agree on the basics of Christianity, and never considered Catholicism a truly legitimate option, they all readily agreed that Catholicism has developed the best “school of prayer” available.

Unfortunately, this tradition is mostly forgotten within the Church today. Your average Catholic knows little about prayer, other than how to say the Our Father and the Hail Mary and how to ask God for some want or need. Meditation, contemplation, mystical prayer – these have become obscure ideas to today’s Catholic. Yet prayer is the lifeblood of the spiritual life. Mixing my metaphors, prayer can be compared to breathing in physical life – without constant prayer, the spiritual life will perish. For 2,000 years the Church has studied prayer, and by doing so has given her children a path to follow to grow in deeper union with God. There will be no way to escape the crisis of the Church we find ourselves in today if Catholics do not return to lives of prayer – it is the foundation for any legitimate reform of the Church.

Continued below.

The Nine Levels of Prayer

By Eric Sammons - Catholicism has developed the best “school of prayer” available, but it’s mostly forgotten today.

crisismagazine.com

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

That was a pretty good article bringing a lot of things together. I think the most important for us are the first 4 since they are up to us.

Purgative Way

1. Vocal Prayer

2. Meditation
(a) Consideration: Think about the supernatural matter and ponder what it means. For example, one might meditate upon the Incarnation – that God became man.
(b) Application: Apply the truth to one’s own spiritual life. If God became man, why did he do so? The Fathers said it was so that man might become like God – therefore, the purpose of the spiritual life is to become more and more conformed to the image of God.
(c) Resolution: Resolve practical ways to make the application of this truth occur in one’s life. If the destination of man is God Himself, then what virtues do I lack to be more like God?

3. Affective Prayer
In this third level of prayer, called “Affective Prayer,” the will begins to dominate instead of 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 that impress upon the will. These consolations lead one to make acts of love toward the Lord.

4. Acquired Recollection
Acquired recollection demands the greatest recollection and requires one to master his faculties of intellect and will. This is so that he 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. In this final level of the Purgative Way, the soul is 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, one uses his faculties to focus on the Lord, not using the intellect or imagination or emotion. It is a simple gaze of the will.

" This level of prayer reaches the limits of what man can initiate in prayer; all steps beyond this one are initiated by God."


Lectio Divina is a good example of these: Lectio (reading), Meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer), Contemplatio (Contemplation)

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All the other levels are up to God when we are ready for them..

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




St Bonaventure talks about our journey through powers of the soul;

• Sensus, our perceptions and how we experiince them
• Imaginatio, our ability to image
• Ratio, our logical reasoning and acquiring knowledge through effort.
• Intellectus, our intuitive understanding and effortless apprehension of truth.
• Intelligentia, our higher, potentially divinely illuminated, level of intellectual activity.
• Synderesis, our innate habit of the practical intellect that guides us towards moral good.

These powers have been planted in us by nature, deformed by fault, reformed by grace, purged by justice exercised by knowledge and perfected by wisdom.

Capter 1 #6

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