Three Metaphors for Prayer

THREE METAPHORS FOR PRAYER

The desert

The moon and the river at night

The swiftly sailing ship

I eat dry bread...

I eat dry bread in the desert:

It tastes like a cake of dust.

I breathe in and out powdery clouds:

Nostrils singe, snorting fire.

I swallow my own saliva:

Thick paste coats my inside throat.

How will I sustain my journey in this land

When my mouth is filled with sand?

I falter inside a steel kettle, sparks popping about.

Black footprints flame at the edges.

I am dried up, a gourd rattling seeds.

Heat waves deceive like the devil.

Thirsty, I lick at a mirage with my eyes.

Twisting, I glimpse the taskmaster sun.

Hands astride hips, he glares mercilessly,

Glowering white noon death rays.

The sky is livid, a clown murderer, crimson lips, grinning.

He spills sacksful of hot ash from above.

Multitudes, buried alive, scratch at the insides of a wooden coffin.

Spiritless as the burning air gone lifeless,

I am dark as a moonless, starless sky,

Staggering in an expanse unbounded beyond extreme sight,

Devoid of any atom of hope,

Despair, a universe expanding endlessly.

—Gonzalinho da Costa

Since centuries past the desert has long assumed the status of a practically universal symbol for dryness in Christian prayer.

Richard J. Foster describes this dryness well and connects it to the image of the desert.

“Sometimes it seems as if God is hidden from us. We do everything we know. We pray. We serve. We worship. We live as faithfully as we can. And still there is nothing—nothing! It feels as though we are ‘beating on Heaven’s door with bruised knuckles in the dark,’ to use the words of preacher George Buttrick. Times of seeming desertion and absence and abandonment appear to be universal among those who walk the path of faith.

“I am not talking about a true absence, of course, but rather a sense of absence. God is always present with us—we know that theologically—but there are times when he withdraws our consciousness of his presence.

“But these theological niceties are of little help to us when we enter the Sahara of the heart. Here we experience real spiritual desolation. We feel abandoned by friends, spouse, and God. Every hope evaporates the moment we reach for it. We question, we doubt, we struggle. We pray and the words feel rote. We turn to the Bible and find it meaningless. We turn to music and it fails to move us. We seek the fellowship of other Christians and discover only backbiting, selfishness, and egoism.

“One metaphor for these experiences of forsakenness is the desert. It is an apt image, for we indeed feel dry, barren, parched.”

See: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1992/july-20/praying-in-desert.html

—Richard J. Foster, “Praying in the Desert,” July 20, 1992, Christianity Today

Saint Ignatius of Loyola has called dryness in prayer and in the spiritual life generally, “desolation,” and he defines it in the Fourth Rule of the Spiritual Exercises:

“I call desolation all the contrary of the third rule, such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to things low and earthly, the unquiet of different agitations and temptations, moving to want of confidence, without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord. Because, as consolation is contrary to desolation, in the same way the thoughts which come from consolation are contrary to the thoughts which come from desolation.”

Since he defines “desolation” in contraposition to “consolation,” we should also cite his understanding of “consolation” in the Third Rule:

“I call it consolation when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord; and when it can in consequence love no created thing on the face of the earth in itself, but in the Creator of them all.

“Likewise, when it sheds tears that move to love of its Lord, whether out of sorrow for one’s sins, or for the Passion of Christ our Lord, or because of other things directly connected with His service and praise.

“Finally, I call consolation every increase of hope, faith and charity, and all interior joy which calls and attracts to heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, quieting it and giving it peace in its Creator and Lord.”

See: https://scepterpublishers.org/blogs/scepter-blog-corner/14-rules-for-the-discernment-of-spirits-by-st-ignatius-of-loyola

—“14 Rules for the Discernment of Spirits by St. Ignatius of Loyola,” August 3, 2018, Scepter Publishers

Saint Ignatius, acknowledged master of the spiritual life, in the Ninth Rule gives three reasons why a soul might be afflicted by desolation:

“The first is, because of our being tepid, lazy or negligent in our spiritual exercises; and so through our faults, spiritual consolation withdraws from us.

“The second, to try us and see how much we are and how much we let ourselves out in His service and praise without such great pay of consolation and great graces.

“The third, to give us true acquaintance and knowledge, that we may interiorly feel that it is not ours to get or keep great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation, but that all is the gift and grace of God our Lord, and that we may not build a nest in a thing not ours, raising our intellect into some pride or vainglory, attributing to us devotion or the other things of the spiritual consolation.”

Paraphrasing Saint Ignatius, we would say that the first reason is on account of the sinful habits of the soul. This condition applies to beginners in prayer and to those who have lapsed or fallen away in their spiritual journey toward God.

The second reason pertains to those who are making progress in the spiritual life and are tested by God for their spiritual good. Desolation is a trial for the proficient, so-called.

The third reason is to chide the soul concerning their own spiritual poverty before God, the origin and source of all good, urging them toward a deeper condition of humility.

The desert, therefore, is an intermittent feature of the entire spiritual journey, and descends upon both beginners and the proficient, for different reasons and for diverse purposes in the spiritual life.

The desert as a universally applicable metaphor for the spiritual life and for prayer in particular originates in the Bible.

“…it is only in the Middle East that a very influential mythic literature of the desert dating from ancient times was written—the Bible. It’s a curious fact.

“…Fraught with spiritual meaning, the desert is a central motif of the Bible, one of a handful of the most influential works of world spirituality.”

In the Bible, “the desert is a place and symbol of purification and revelation during Israel’s forty-year sojourn before the nation entered the Promised Land.”

See: https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2019/01/three-poems-about-desert.html

—Gonzalinho da Costa, “Three Poems about the Desert – Analysis and Commentary,” January 17, 2019, Poetry of Gonzalinho da Costa

The desert as a locus of purification and revelation appears not only in the Pentateuch but also in the rest of the Bible.

Another image of prayer that has become commonplace in Western cultural discourse, courtesy of Saint John of the Cross, is the night, particularly the “dark night.”

THE MOON AND RIVER AND SILENCE

Guided by the moon,

Traveling downriver,

I am enraptured by silence.

All I hear is, delicate, song of my oar

As it dips gently, emerges,

Streamlets, bright notes running down the edge

Of the blade, silver spoon, glistening.

I listen to the moon…

River, warbling bird…

Illumined by silence.

Crickets dare not crack their knuckles.

—Gonzalinho da Costa

Saint John of the Cross’ “dark night” has been popularly misunderstood as a state of psychological depression or the convergence in a person’s life of especially difficult and trying events.

We will examine Saint John’s own words to clarify and explain in what the “dark night” essentially consists.

“We may say that there are three reasons for which this journey made by the soul to union with God is called night. The first has to do with the point from which the soul goes forth, for it has gradually to deprive itself of desire for all the worldly things which it possessed, by denying them to itself; the which denial and deprivation are, as it were, night to all the senses of man. The second reason has to do with the mean, or the road along which the soul must travel to this union—that is, faith, which is likewise as dark as night to the understanding. The third has to do with the point to which it travels—namely, God, Who, equally, is dark night to the soul in this life. These three nights must pass through the soul—or, rather, the soul must pass through them—in order that it may come to Divine union with God.”

—Saint John of the Cross, “The Dark Night,” Ascent of Mount Carmel, Chapter 2

The “dark night” is a period of sensual and spiritual purgation, the latter subsuming the former.

The soul that enters the “dark night” seeks union with God and undertakes the mortification of the senses and of the spirit—the spiritual faculties of the intellect and will—for this purpose, mortification which is not only active but also passive.

Saint John expounds the first two stanzas of his mystical masterpiece, “The Dark Night,” to explain this point.

“One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings—ah, the sheer grace! —I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.

“In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised—ah, the sheer grace!—in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled.”

—Saint John of the Cross, “Stanzas of the Soul,” The Dark Night of the Soul, Prologue

“In this first stanza, the soul speaks of the way it followed in its departure from love of both self and all things. Through a method of true mortification, it died to all these things and to itself. It did this so as to reach the sweet and delightful life of love with God. And it declares that this departure was a dark night. As we will explain later, this dark night signifies here purgative contemplation, which passively causes in the soul this negation of self and of all things.”

—Saint John of the Cross, “Explanation of the Stanzas,” The Dark Night of the Soul, Book I

The “dark night,” consists, therefore, in the first place, in habitual sensual and spiritual abnegation.

Saint John gives a second reason why this passage in the spiritual life is a “dark night.” God is darkness to the soul and indeed will always be so while the soul animates the mortal body, because God, being pure spirit, cannot be apprehended by the corporeal sense of sight.

True, the soul in beatitude—in heaven—apprehends or “sees” God not in darkness but in light, according to the capacity of the soul, but we are assured that in this mortal life the soul always experiences God as darkness, in varying degrees.

Scripture testifies that God is light, yes, but also affirms that God is darkness.

“He made darkness his cloak around him.” (Psalm 18:12)

“Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one.” (Psalm 113:12)

“Solomon said, ‘The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud.’” (1 Kings 8:12)

A third reason why Saint John describes this stage of the spiritual journey as a “dark night” is because the pilgrim soul advancing towards union with God travels in the darkness of faith.

However, it is not a lost, undirected darkness because the soul that earnestly seeks God is assured of spiritual guidance, according to the doctrine of Saint John.

Kevin Gerald Culligan, O.C.D., demonstrates that Saint John of the Cross, in Ascent of Mount Carmel principally, advances the following propositions:

- God is a person’s principal spiritual director.

- The goal to which God leads the human person is union with himself in perfect faith, hope, and love.

- God guides the human person to divine union through human nature, especially the light of natural reason; through divine revelation, particularly as expressed in the Person of Jesus Christ, and through infused contemplation.

- Persons committed to seeking divine union are capable of following God’s guidance without the aid of a human spiritual director.

The fourth point above is worth noting because God, who is infinitely good, does not allow the soul that earnestly seeks him to wander about in confusion and misdirection. The infinitely good God guarantees their spiritual guidance.

About human spiritual direction, Saint John says the following, according to Culligan:

- Spiritual direction is a ministry in the church to help persons follow God’s guidance to divine union.

- The essential function of the spiritual director is to guide the directee along the road to union with God.

- To fulfill the role of an instrument in God’s guidance of persons to divine union through infused contemplation, the spiritual director must possess knowledge, experience, and skill in helping relationships.

—Kevin Gerald Culligan, O.C.D., “Toward a Contemporary Model of Spiritual Direction,” Ephemerides Carmeliticae, Volume 31 (1980/81), pages 33-37

In the words of Saint John of the Cross:

“God, like the sun, stands above souls ready to communicate himself. Let directors be content with disposing them for this according to evangelical perfection, which lies in emptiness of sense and spirit; and let them not desire to go any further than this in building, since that function belongs only to the Father of lights from whom descends every good and perfect gift (James 1:17)

“…directors should reflect that they themselves are not the chief agent, guide, and mover of souls in this matter, but the principal guide is the Holy Spirit, who is never neglectful of souls and they themselves are instruments for directing these souls to perfection through faith and the law of God, according to the spirit give by God to each one.”

—Saint John of the Cross, “Stanza 3,” The Living Flame of Love

In the poem, “The Moon and River and Silence,” our assurance of God’s spiritual guidance in the “dark night” is signified by the moon, which, among others, stands for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Worth noting is that when the Blessed Sacrament is displayed for adoration, it is placed inside a receptacle called the luna, derived from the Latin word for “moon” and which denotes the Roman moon goddess, Luna. The receptacle slides into place inside the monstrance.

The river in the same poem stands for the silent, peaceful stages of the spiritual journey.

Rivers can be turbulent, troublesome, and dangerous, or the converse, effortless, calming, and placid.

The mercurial character of rivers defines the spiritual life generally and the “dark night” of Saint John in particular. He writes:

“The soul, if it desires to pay close attention, will clearly recognize how on this road it suffers many ups and downs, and how immediately after prosperity some tempest and trial follows, so much so that seemingly the calm was given to forewarn and strengthen it against further penury. It sees, too, how abundance and tranquility succeed misery and torment, and in such a way that it thinks it was made to fast before celebrating that feast. This is the ordinary procedure in the state of contemplation until one arrives at the quiet state: the soul never remains in one state, but everything is ascent and descent.” [boldface mine]

—Saint John of the Cross, “How this Secret Wisdom Is Also a Ladder,” The Dark Night of the Soul, Book II, Chapter 18, 3

Saint John teaches us that the spiritual life is not an endless desert. It is a distortion to imagine God as the merciless taskmaster of an unrelenting ordeal. We can take heart that the desert of purification is punctuated by oases of refreshment and even by extended periods of tranquility and rest.

SAILING

Swiftly I sail the perfect blue water, slicing through the sea.

Clouds charged with electricity fill broad sky vistas.

At night I am guided by the geometry of the stars.

—Gonzalinho da Costa

At times it appears as if everything in the spiritual life is delightful, untroubled, and radiant. We understand keenly, pray deeply, and act upon spiritual challenges with the virtuous prowess of an Olympic athlete, in a manner of speaking.

We might describe this time as a period of prolonged consolation, to use the vocabulary of Loyola.

The “dark night” begins to give way to the warmth and light of an enduring dawn, which corresponds to the higher levels of the ten-step “ladder of contemplation” of Saint John of the Cross.

He writes about the ninth step of the ladder as follows:

“The ninth step of love causes the soul to burn gently. It is the step of the perfect who burn gently in God. The Holy Spirit produces this gentle and delightful ardor by reason of the perfect soul's union with God. St. Gregory accordingly says of the Apostles that when the Holy Spirit came upon them visibly, they burned interiorly and gently with love.”

—Saint John of the Cross, “The Remaining Five Steps of Love,” The Dark Night of the Soul, Book II, Chapter 20, 4

Saint Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order, has spoken in rapturous terms about the spiritual joys of this state of blessedness:

“Only those who have experienced them can know the benefits and divine exultation that the solitude and silence of the desert hold in store for those who love it. For here men of strong will can enter into themselves and remain there as much as they like, diligently cultivating the seeds of virtue and eating the fruits of Paradise with joy. Here we can acquire that eye which wounds the Bridegroom with love by the limpidity of its gaze, and whose purity allows us to see God Himself. Here we can observe a busy leisure and can rest in quiet activity. Here also does God crown His athletes for their stern struggle with the hoped-for prize: that peace which the world cannot know and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

—Saint Bruno the Carthusian, “Letter of Saint Bruno to Raoul-le-Verd,” c. 1090

Saint John of the Cross conceives the Song of Songs alluding to the end of the “dark night” and the beginning of rarefied contemplation. In his explanation of Stanza 34 of his Spiritual Canticle, he cites the following verses:

“See, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the turtledove is heard in our land.” (Song of Songs 2:11-12)

When winter is past, we travel the world in the weather of a perfect summer aboard a swiftly sailing ship, the enchantment seemingly unending.

 

Praying Hands