The Guiding Light of Contemplative Spirituality
"May I know you, may I know myself." St. Augustine
Thomas Merton was a novice master and continues to be a spiritual guide today through the testimony of his life and through his abundant writing.
Thomas Merton was not a theologian or a religious theorist. Thomas Merton lived in the woods, danced in the rain, and noted the birds and the trees; he was awake and aware. He beckons you to disconnect from distractions, and to seek God in solitude. He encourages you to explore nature and notice and treasure the beauty of creatures.
If Merton is a theologian, then he is also theology. Merton understood that what you spend time studying and who you spend time with shapes who you are and who you become. He demonstrated how to live and pray through his many letters, books, and especially his journals.
Merton desires for you to experience the wonders of communion's relationship with God. First, you must have a yearning for God because desire for God is a precondition; you must develop this yearning. If you do not possess it now, pray for it, study Merton, and it will come to you in an unexpected way.
Merton is not interested in prayer as a duty, "now I have to say my rosary, then I have to pray this or that." check a box of a spiritual to-do list.
Merton spent time in prayer, hours upon hours in a dark, dusty shack or an old decrepit train car, alone, because he desired to experience an intimate relationship with God. He waited for God, sometimes days; this was not duty, this was not fake, this was a true relationship with divine love.
The purpose of contemplation is to develop awareness through our desire to understand and experience the wonder of God's unconditional merciful love.
Contemplation removes the blinders over our eyes, so we can truly see.
When we truly see through Christ's eyes, we evaluate ourselves and the world through the lens of love. We see ourselves in the image of God, reflected to us, and these eyes look upon us with love and mercy.
Through contemplative prayer, we begin to understand the meaning of our lives, redeemed from our mistakes and failures, and death through the love of God.
Through contemplation, prayer, and the eucharistic celebration, we develop the right thinking, right acting, and right living, and we become wise. Loving our neighbor, each other, becomes natural.
Through Christian contemplative prayer and studying the writings of the church fathers and saints, through regular Eucharistic celebration, we lose ourselves in the love of God, we hear God's word and respond, and we develop as authentic Christians. This is how we can learn God's will and learn how to trust and submit to God's will.
Merton taught that all prayer, reading, meditation, and all the activities of living should support the goal of developing a purity of heart.
Purity of heart allows us to lose our egos and to surrender to God unconditionally. Contemplative practice washes our minds and clarifies our thoughts because we experience God's mystical love and encouragement.
Through contemplative prayer, I am able to totally accept myself, my past mistakes and failures, my imperfections, and my situation because I see myself through the compassionate lens of Christ. I experience love and understanding of the big picture through this wider lens.
Through contemplative prayer practice, spiritual seeking, and study, I see who I am, discern how to change and move forward, and become who I already am: a cherished child of God.