The contemplative life demands a heightened sensitivity and constant attention to the inner movements of one’s soul in relation to God. Ignatius of Loyola is a perfect starting-point for beginners in the life of contemplation: he talks about consolation (those moments when we feel moved with joy or tears because of a sense of God’s love for us), and desolation (those moments when God feels very distant and our spiritual lives feel empty). More importantly, he helps pray-ers distinguish between true consolation (consolation which comes from God), and false consolation (consolation used as trickery by the evil spirit to lead us astray).

John of the Cross helps more mature pray-ers understand the Dark Night of the Soul, where we are called to surrender ourselves in complete abandonment to God, even if and when we do not find consolation.

And of course, for all wishing to enter into a more contemplative prayer life, Teresa of Avila’s autobiography–the same one that made a convert of Edith Stein–is a must-read.

The contemplative life demands a heightened sensitivity and constant attention to the inner movements of one’s soul in relation to God. Ignatius of Loyola is a perfect starting-point for beginners in the life of contemplation: he talks about consolation (those moments when we feel moved with joy or tears because of a sense of God’s love for us), and desolation (those moments when God feels very distant and our spiritual lives feel empty). More importantly, he helps pray-ers distinguish between true consolation (consolation which comes from God), and false consolation (consolation used as trickery by the evil spirit to lead us astray).

John of the Cross helps more mature pray-ers understand the Dark Night of the Soul, where we are called to surrender ourselves in complete abandonment to God, even if and when we do not find consolation.

Of course, for all wishing to enter into a more contemplative prayer life, Teresa of Avila’s autobiography–the same one that made a convert of Edith Stein–is a must-read.

Will we put our trust in Him even if He fails to ‘deliver’ us?
Or what if we wind up suffering at the hands of the ungodly in a communist prison because we’ve committed the crime of ‘sharing the gospel’?

I hope my faith endures and it can be said of me in the end that I trusted God even when it didn’t seem to make sense.

However, it is worth noting though that Colson refers to saints in the Protestant understanding and does not call these authors by title which their own writings carry; Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross nor does he say straight out that these people that are Catholic only that they are of “older and richer theological traditions.”

Owen

Chuck does it poorly when, in the immediately subsequent paragraph, he seems to imply that these people evangelicals could learn from Puritans:

“In the evangelical heritage, we could draw on spiritual forebears like the Puritans…”

Unless I missed something both of these individuals he has highligthed were Roman Catholic.

Owen
thrive!

Come join the Church found by Jesus Christ– come join the Catholic Church!

What a timely essay (for me anyway)!

My wife and I went through a ten year
“dark night” stuggling w/ depression.
We both have had problems with it on
and off. It wreaked havoc in our early
marriage. Sometime during that dark period
we found out our son had Aspergers syndrome,
which can cause some very difficult behavior
issues in some people.

Some time late in our dark period, I had a
“shouting match” (read as temper tantrum) with
the Lord. I asked him why he thought two people who
were battling depression needed a child like ours.

The answer, looking back, was that the Lord allowed
us to go through what we did with our son so that
I would have to confront my own sickness and get the
help I needed. (The kid needed me to be his father,
not some great big mountain of depression and self pity.)

I hesitate to say, “I’d do it all over again”, it really
was painful for all of us. We learned so much, however,
about God’s depth and wisdom by having to battle through
what we did.

I hope this wasn’t “too much information” for you or
any other readers.

Oh, and wonderful article by the way. Thank you for bringing this subject up.

Brad