I am stuck in my spiritual growth… how do I get unstuck? This is frustrating! Part I of II

Q: Dear Sister Carmen, I feel like I am stuck in mansion somewhere in mansion one or two. Is this normal? Where do most people get stuck in the journey through the mansions and is there any common way you can suggest that we get unstuck? Maybe I am just impatient. I feel like I should be growing but I am not.

A: Teresa posits conformity to God’s will as the first principle of spiritual growth In her Way of Perfection: Chapter 16. She reminds us of the necessity of “keeping our eyes fixed on You; if we were to look at nothing else but the way, we would soon arrive.” Teresa herself had sufficient experience in her own life of a lack of focus due to the many preoccupations which diverted her eyes from the Lord, thus drawing her out of herself and out of her interior center back into the world around her. Because of this struggle she gave up prayer for many years. So too our attention can be drawn away from the Lord and dissipated in many directions so that we are no longer in our own center.

The Lord continued to call Teresa from His Presence in the Center of the Castle of her soul; this entry back into the castle was prayer – that intimate voice – leading her through the gate into the Mystery of divine intimacy. It is only when we assume a posture of loving attentiveness where the Lord’s voice becomes the First Voice that the rest of the pieces of our life fall into place. As children we often delighted in looking through a kaleidoscope to view broken pieces of colored glass falling into new patterns of color. The possibilities seemed endless. The more conformed our lives are to Our Lord’s the more the broken pieces of our lives catch the reflection of Christ thus producing a kaleidoscope of endless arrangements of stunning beauty.

There is a “getting stuck” when we are not serious about our prayer life or intimate relationship with the Lord and thus make little or no effort to climb out of our comfort zone and therefore move forward. This may even result in our slipping backward. But what we term “getting stuck” may also be due to our impatience to move into the next rooms before we are ready. When a butterfly has rested after coming out of the chrysalis, it will pump blood into its wings in order to get them working and flapping – so that it can fly. This time is crucial to the flying phase. If in our impatience we were to “help” the butterfly open its wings, the butterfly’s wings would become useless and the butterfly would die.

These first three mansions are the soil where we grow in the virtues and in order to do that we must, as mentioned above, become more and more conformed to God’s will. It takes our fidelity and determination, with the help of God’s grace, to continue to draw spiritual nourishment from the present set of circumstances in which we find ourselves. Jesus is present in the midst of the joys and sorrows, confusion, trials, successes, failed plans and messiness of our daily lives. This is where we work out our salvation and sanctification. The temptation is to become distracted through either past situations, present preoccupations, or imagined future ones. This pulls us away from the Present Moment in which we find all the graces needed for our interior growth. We know that growth is necessarily often slow. Teresa tells us that most of us will probably spend a long time in the first three mansions. In this sense she takes the first three mansions as a group for this is where we ourselves are most active in our own growth process. This is where we learn humility, advance in the virtues and grow in generosity. Jesus is the Beloved – how much are we willing to give? Can we ever measure our gift against His?

Anything worth doing or worth having requires arduous preparation. We can only receive what we are prepared to receive. God is patient and takes us where we are. He gives accordingly the growth we are ready to embrace. Just as Teresa abandoned prayer for many years before she was willing to detach herself from what was hindering her growth and open herself in abandonment to the Lord, so too we need to take a good look at our “attachments”. God can give much growth in a short time according to the person’s readiness to receive.

In our next post we will provide you with a brief examination of conscience that will help you understand where you might be stuck and a little more about what you can do about it.

PS: To learn more about the Carmelite Sisters visit our web site: www.carmelitesistersocd.com and for more information please contact the sisters at contact@carmelitesistersocd.com, or 626-289-1353 Ext. 246, 920 East Alhambra Road, Alhambra, California 91801.

Am I being self-absorbed when praying for spiritual growth?

Q: Can praying for spiritual growth indicate being self absorbed? I am troubled by my intercessory prayer.  I pray quite a bit for others but, I also pray a lot for myself. I pray that I grow in faith, that I love and see others as Christ sees them, etc. Still, I wonder if I am too focused on self. These thoughts have become distractions in prayer and in Mass. In Mass, as I was thinking on this, I even wondered if I should fast from self prayer and pray only for others. In adoration, I wondered if that was a temptation rather than of God. What do I do with these thoughts?

A: Asking for good things from God is one of the most basic forms of prayer that we have. Jesus himself encouraged us to do this – over and over again! My favorite is: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). In the Jewish mindset, repeating the same concept three times in a row, changing only the words, was a mode of emphasis. Jesus wants us to desire, ask for, and pursue all the good things we need, most especially the graces of spiritual growth. The thoughts that are making you want to stop asking for these good things cannot, I think, come from the Holy Spirit. They are distractions. Two observations may help you avoid getting tangled up in them as you continue to seek union with God in prayer.

Partnering with God

First, remember that God has decided to require our partnership in the building up of his Kingdom. On the one hand, without God’s grace we “can do nothing” (John 15:5). But on the other hand, Jesus has given us work to do in his Kingdom. He has commanded us to follow him, to obey him, to seek to be his witnesses and spread his teaching “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). St. Paul understood this so well. He wrote to Christians in Corinth: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Prayer and Action Should Be in Harmony

This means that while our prayer should be fervent and heartfelt, we can always test its sincerity by looking at our actions. If we pray “Thy Kingdom come!” sincerely, then in our actions we will try to second that prayer, to reiterate it. We will make a decent effort to speak and behave in ways that are pleasing to God and that will help bring God’s light into this darkened world.

And so, when you find yourself badgered by doubts about whether you are being too demanding in your petitions to God, reflect on your actions. Are you doing your part to cooperate with the grace God is sending you? Are you working hard to avoid sin and the occasions of sin? Are you living the sacraments, practicing mental prayer, carrying your cross with faith, seeking to fulfill the duties of your state in life, finding ways to build up your neighbor and serve those in need?… A clean conscience will assure you that you are not being hypocritical in your petitions to our Lord. Of course, you will never be impeccable in your actions; the important thing is to make a decent effort, day after day.

Why Prayer of Petition Is Pleasing to God

Second, remember the reasons that the prayer of petition is so pleasing to God. When we approach God our Father and voice our needs to him, we are exercising all the most beautiful and powerful Christian virtues. We are exercising profound humility by acknowledging that we need God, that we can’t do it on our own. We are expressing our faith in God’s existence and interest in us. We are expressing our trust in his goodness towards us. We are expressing our love for him – our desire to live in a closer and closer union with him in all things. The prayer of petition (this is when we “intercede” for our own needs; usually, the term “prayer of intercession” refers specifically to praying for the needs of others) is an exquisite bouquet of multifarious love, and we should never hesitate to continue begging God our Father to pour his grace into our hearts.

The Catechism makes this abundantly clear (#2629): “The vocabulary of supplication in the New Testament is rich in shades of meaning: ask, beseech, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out, even “struggle in prayer” (cf. Romans 15:30, Colossians 4:12). Its most usual form, because the most spontaneous, is petition: by prayer of petition we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures who are not our own beginning, not the masters of adversity, not our own last end. We are sinners who as Christians know that we have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already a turning back to him.”

Remembering that the prayer of petition gives glory to God should help you deflect the distractions and doubts that you describe in your question.

A Final Thought

I can’t tell from your question whether or not you habitually engage in mental prayer. If you don’t, I would highly recommend that you give it a go. Not only is it the bread-and-butter for real spiritual growth, but it may also help you achieve a better balance between the different forms of prayer (praise, adoration, supplication, contrition, thanksgiving). The influence that the doubts and distractions have had in your prayer life may be partially due to a lack of that balance. Here is a link to a post that can get you started.

God bless you!

Can God speak to me in my dreams?

Q:  I never had dreams like this before. Only now that I have grown closer to Him in recent months He has spoken to me in other ways like at prayer. And He often confirms what I heard in prayer by people, articles, etc. If these dreams bring me closer to Him then surely they are from Him right? They have been such wonderful sources of consolation for me! Oh please enlighten me!

A: Surely “if these dreams bring you closer to Him” then, absolutely, they can be welcomed as Providential gifts. So you can be at peace! In fact, God has often used dreams in the lives of his faithful. This appears in both the Old and the New Testaments, and also the lives of the saints (see for example the dreams of St. John Bosco). Nevertheless, two other thoughts may be of use to you. First, we should reflect on how you can determine whether or not they are truly bringing you “closer to Him.” It is easy to be misled. Second, we should mention some warning signs and things to avoid in this arena – after all, we fallen human beings have a penchant for turning good things to bad use.

Discerning Experiences

Coming closer to God is the essence of spiritual growth. But sometimes things that make us temporarily feel closer to God are not actually bringing us closer. Feelings of consolation or emotional tranquility, or even enthusiasm, can accompany spiritual growth, but the core of spiritual growth lies elsewhere. It consists of becoming more united to Christ. This entails becoming more like Christ in our attitudes and behaviors. We can grow in humility, wisdom, and love for neighbor, for example, even in the midst of great suffering and feelings of confusion and dryness in our souls. In fact, sometimes the periods of greatest spiritual growth occur precisely during the seasons of greatest emotional aridity.

And so, in reflecting on how these dreams are affecting your spiritual life, you need to periodically reflect on the same questions that we would use to evaluate spiritual growth in general. Do they encourage me to participate more frequently and more consciously in the sacraments? Do they motivate me to deny my own tendencies to self-indulgence and self-righteousness in favor of serving my neighbor mercifully and gracefully? Do they empower me to hold my tongue, control my anger, think well of my neighbor, and forgive the faults and offenses of my loved ones? Do they increase my thirst for prayer and for a deeper knowledge of Christ’s teachings as offered to me by his Church? Do they strengthen me to obey the moral law and the precepts of the Church?

If dreams, or any other powerful experiences, were to push you away from those objective reference points for spiritual maturity, then they would be suspect.

Some Warning Signs

Another warning sign would be if you find yourself actively seeking out those dreams, consciously trying to make them repeat themselves instead of receiving them as gifts of God’s Providence. This can happen even with consolation in prayer, or with the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. God sends them in order to build us up spiritually. But we, weak as we are, can sometimes become attached to those gifts as ends in themselves. When that happens, we forget about the Giver of the gifts, and fall into a kind of mercenary spirituality, where we seek to reproduce certain states of soul through prayer and spiritual disciplines, instead of seeking to glorify God and receive his grace.

In this sense, fascination with dreams and dream-experiences can lead us very far astray indeed. Some strains of the New Age movement, for example, encourage the intentional development of techniques for “lucid dreaming.” This is often linked up with the invocation of some kind of spirit guide who can aid the person in astral traveling. At first, the experiences obtained through these practices seem thrilling and energizing. But they can easily become a kind of idolatry, and can even be coerced by demons. The person following these practices may continue to seek more and more intense experiences, regardless of whether or not they can bring the soul closer to Christ and contribute to moral and spiritual growth. This can make them more vulnerable to subtle and not-so-subtle spiritual attacks.

Avoiding Over-Emphasis

Finally, it is possible to give too much importance to what happens in a dream. Although God can speak through dreams, that doesn’t mean that everything that happens in our dreams comes from God. The psychology of dreams is complex and confusing. The interpretation of dreams is not an exact science, by any stretch. And although God can certainly speak to the soul through dreams, he will never contradict himself; he would never inspire someone in a dream to disobey his commandments or abandon the duties of their state in life, for example.

And so, just as we can be grateful for dreams that encourage us in our relationship with God, we should not allow ourselves to be overly distracted by dreams that cause turbulence in our souls. That being said, even good Catholic psychologists will admit that intense and repetitive dreams can sometimes give clues to minor or major psychological disturbances. But they are never sufficient for a complete diagnosis all on their own.

We are members of Christ’s Church, enlightened by grace and renewed by the New Covenant. As a result, we have been given God’s own self-revelation in Christ. This provides us with objective reference points of doctrine, of truth. We find these in the Bible, in the Tradition of the Church, and in the official teaching of the Magisterium (for example, the Catechism). These sources of knowledge should always be our primary guides when we are faced with decisions or dilemmas.

May God continue to bless you with his abundant love and grace, and draw you closer and closer to his Sacred Heart.

What is the essence of Catholic spirituality? – Part I of II

Q: Dear Father John, I still struggle with keeping things in perspective. Would you therefore kindly explain what is the essence of authentic catholic spirituality, i.e. irrespective of whatever tradition one follows (ignitian, carmelite, opus dei, etc.), and also what are the essential elements of the spirituality. Also what is the relationship between catholic morality and catholic spirituality.

A: This question is harder to answer than you might think! But we’ll give it a shot.

What Do We Mean by Spirituality?

First, we will briefly define “spirituality.” Basically, this term signifies an itinerary for growth in our friendship with Christ. This itinerary has as its final destination what we call holiness, an individual’s firm, deep, integral, and dynamic communion with God. We call this itinerary “spirituality” because we achieve communion with God through the purifying our spiritual faculties (intelligence and will) and aligning them with the wisdom and will of God.

Our intelligence, our capacity to perceive and understand truth in a self-conscious manner, was severely darkened by original sin, and darkened even more by our personal sin and the sinful tendencies of the world around us. Growth in the spiritual life gradually increases the influence of God’s revelation and wisdom (a “light for our path and a lamp for our feet” as Psalm 119 puts it) in correcting, healing, and strengthening our minds. In this way we come to see and understand ourselves, God, and the world around us truthfully, i.e. as God does.

Our will, the capacity of self-determination which allows us to make self-aware choices, was also severely weakened by original sin, personal sin, and the evil tendencies of the world around us. Growth in the spiritual life gradually heals and strengthens our will, so that we emerge out of self-centered and self-indulgent habits into virtuous living. Virtues are those good habits of the will that enable us to choose what is truly good and right in any circumstance, even at great immediate cost to ourselves.

In our next post we will dig a little deeper into the nuts and bolts of the practical elements of a spirituality.

No spiritual director in sight – how can I keep growing spiritually in the mean time?

Q: Dear Father John, I cannot find a spiritual director in my area. I will keep looking and praying, but until I find someone, what do I need to do to ensure that I continue to grow spiritually?

A: As you patiently continue looking and praying for a good spiritual director, God will continue to guide you through the other means for spiritual growth that the Church recommends. These are the some of the same items and activities that you would discuss with a spiritual director. If you make a decent effort to keep these plates spinning, the Holy Spirit will have plenty of room to work in your heart until he gives you a good spiritual director. These are the plates I am referring to:

• Participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and confession. It’s funny, but sometimes you run into people who claim to be enthusiastically pursuing spiritual growth, but who make little effort to receive frequent Holy Communion, spend some time regularly in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and go to confession (Although the Church only requires us to confess our mortal sins once a year, for someone like yourself, whom God is clearly drawing to a deeper intimacy, I would recommend at least a monthly confession – every 15 days is even better.).
• Daily prayer. A daily God-time is absolutely essential for spiritual growth. I would include both vocal and mental prayer. If you are not already doing this, I would start with a very realistic time commitment – 15 minutes of mental prayer in the morning would be plenty. If you can add a few minutes at night to prayerfully review how your day went, thanking God for his blessings, asking pardon for your sins, and renewing your desire to seek and serve Christ during the next day, that would be a big help.
• Spiritual reading. This is not the same as prayer. It consists in taking some time each day (or a few times a week) to read about the spiritual life. This is like fertilizer for the soul. If we are filling our minds with solid teaching about what it means to follow Christ and how to know, love, and imitate him better, our decisions and attitudes will gradually become more and more like his. What you are doing right now, for example, is spiritual reading. Some classic works that can be a good place to start include St Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life and Eugene Boylan’s This Tremendous Lover. (If any of our readers have some favorite spiritual reading books, I would ask them to share their recommendation with the rest of us!)
• Fellowship with people seeking to follow Christ more closely. Christianity is not a self-help method; it is a family affair. We were not meant to pursue holiness on our own, but together with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Developing friendships with others who have the same priorities as you do and are trying to live them faithfully helps keep the fire burning in your own heart, and actually makes it burn better. If you take a burning coal out of the hearth, it will lose its heat. But if you keep it in the hearth, in contact with the rest of the burning wood and hot coals, it will stay warm. If you can plug in to a faith-sharing or Bible study group that is truly focused on transformation in Christ, it will give exponential help to your growth in holiness.
• Service to others. Christianity is about redeeming the world, showing forth God’s goodness, rolling back sin and evil, and leading others to friendship with Jesus Christ. If we aren’t engaged in this activity, consciously and purposefully, we will be like those stultifying ponds that receive water from a stream but have no outlet. They become rank, clogged, and swampy. We want to be like a spiritual reservoir, constantly receiving new floods of God’s grace through our means of spiritual growth, and just as constantly sharing what we have received with others – grace flowing in, grace flowing out. That keeps our souls fresh, and gives God a chance to work more freely in and through us. This service could be directly religious, or it could be humanitarian. If you have a profession, this too can be supernaturalized, simply by offering your work to God for the good of your neighbor. Not everyone is called to be an explicit missionary, but everyone is indeed called to be actively engaged in the mission of spreading Christ’s Kingdom.

If this seems like too much, don’t fret. Just take baby steps in each area, gradually. The important thing is to get started and to keep going, not to break speed records. I will say a prayer for the success of your search for a spiritual director.