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

In our first post in this two part series we talked about a few of the reasons we get stuck and touched on the key issues we often face in the first three mansions. In this post, we will provide a little summary of the first three mansions through a brief examination of conscience may help to determine just where you “feel stuck”. Perhaps the following will be of some help.

Since one enters the Castle through the gate of prayer the person entering the first mansion already feels drawn to prayer. Teresa does not talk much about prayer in the first three mansions but she does talk about what may help or hinder prayer.

First Mansion

• How generous are you in the development of your prayer life?

• Are you growing in the poverty of self-knowledge which in turn helps you to know God better?

• What for you are occasions of sin and what determined means do you take to avoid them?

• How frequently do you avail yourself of the sacrament of confession?

Second Mansion

• How are you strengthening the practice of virtue?

• Is your prayer becoming more simplified?

• Are you growing in a healthy concept of perfection?

• Do you quiet your own voice in order to discern the gentle voice of God?

• Do you seek guidance in learning to conform your will to God’s?

Third Mansion

In the third mansion we see that true conformity with God’s Will is reached only when our “false gods” (centers of our lives) die and integration takes place not only in relation among these centers, but new life emerges as a result. “Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies…”

• Are you desirous not to offend God even by venial sin?

• Do you eagerly perform penance?

• Do you spend quality time in prayer?

• Do you use your time well?

• Is your life orderly?

• Do you practice works of charity?

Teresa speaks of seven mansions or main rooms. But there are rooms within each mansion. Our movement within these “rooms” is fluid not static. Although we may spend more time in one room than in another we tend to move in and out and may have brief glimpses of rooms to come, if the Lord chooses.

This whole process is about change or transformation. Change can take place only through our generosity and willingness to surrender. In the example of our butterfly above there are four main life cycles: 1) the egg or beginning stage; 2) the caterpillar or growth stage; 3) the chrysalis or transformation stage; and 4) the adult or perfected stage. We might compare the growth stage here of the caterpillar to the first three mansions. Without this growth the transformation might never take place and thus perfection would be stunted.

This is all a preparation for what lies beyond the first three mansions which is God’s to give not ours to produce.

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.

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.

What does St. Teresa mean by “pesky reptiles”?

Q: Dear Sister Carmen, In the Interior Castles St. Teresa talks about “pesky reptiles” and other creatures. What exactly does she mean when she is saying these things?”

A: Those “pesky reptiles!” When you come across a snake unexpectedly, what is your immediate reaction? Well, unless you are a herpetologist it is probably fear, dread or surprise. Let me share with you the reaction of a group of Sisters with one such encounter several years ago.

We had attended Mass at an abbey and were looking for a place to have our lunch on the grounds. We began walking down the path of the Stations of the Cross looking for some benches. At that particular time of the year the grasses and wild flowers had grown to waist level on both sides of the path. Thus, the path had become very narrow, so much so that we had to walk single file. I was in the lead and looking up at some birds flying overhead and not paying attention to the path I was on. The Sister behind me in a sweet gentle voice said, “Oh, look at that snake.” Thinking it was well ahead on the path, I replied, “Where?” She answered, “Right there.” I looked down and about a foot in front of me was the largest diamondback rattler I had ever seen. Its head was well out on the path but most of its body was concealed in the grasses. I froze! Everyone stopped and I said, “That’s a rattlesnake; back up slowly!” Everyone began taking steps backwards.

When we were out of danger, I turned and the Sister who was last in line was nowhere to be seen. She is normally a very slow mover but we found her later by the van, a good distance away. We were very happy that she did not have the van keys or she might have left us behind. We doubled over laughing not only because of her but because of the gentle sweet message we had received about the danger in our path.

Knowing our human nature, Teresa uses an image that is repulsive for most of us: snakes and poisonous creatures – not because they are bad in themselves – but because they can become a danger to us if we do not understand what we are dealing with and do not take the necessary precautions.  Teresa tells us that these creatures live outside the castle in their normal habitats, but they can manage to squeeze into the castle when we enter, just as creatures which live in our yards manage to find their way into our homes.

The creatures to which St. Teresa refers here are “worldly things” – whatever can be an occasion of sin or a danger for us. In the first mansion, we are less aware of the danger before us since we are just beginning a serious life of prayer and not as spiritually attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This room is also cold and dim and our spiritual eyes do not recognize the perils around us. Progress is slow but if we stay with it, allowing God to do His work in us, we gradually enter the second Mansion.  But a number of these “pesky reptiles” manage to come in with us.

Both the first and the second mansions are “rooms of humility.” If Adam and Eve could so easily be convinced by the reasoning of Satan then our wounded nature can undoubtedly be misled. Although the second mansion is not as dark and cold as the first, the hard work required here, the discouragement and impatience with ourselves, and our self-condemnation can cause us to look back and try to return to the previous room. We are still too close to the “world” and its allurements and comfort levels can entice us back. If Satan can induce us to return to the First Mansion, then it will not be too long before he convinces us to leave the castle altogether.

These two rooms of humility are also the rooms of self-knowledge. Unless we know ourselves well we are not in a position to recognize the menaces that can endanger us and draw us off the right path. The difficulty in recognizing what becomes for us an occasion of sin is the proficiency with which we rationalize our choices and behavior.

The second mansion requires great determination and determination is the resolve to move. But to move, we must take a step in some direction. A holy card I have shows a newly hatched fluffy chick standing and looking forward. The verse beneath it states, “Trust is at the beginning of everything: it precedes every step and at every step lights up the way.”

Will we trust God sufficiently to keep our gaze looking ahead, to step forward courageously, and to tune out all voices which are not in conformity with His?

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.

When is prayer not prayer at all?

Q: Dear Dan, I read your post about praying at the speed of light. I agree, however, one of the commentators seems to be attempting to dull the point that we must be attentive when we pray for it to be real prayer? They said that it is only our intent that matters. If our intent is all that matters, then what if we regularly intend to pray and be attentive to God but never or rarely are, in fact, attentive to God. Is this really prayer? I understand that God is a God of mercy and that he does take these things into account (our intent) and helps us but it seems to me that we should work hard to be attentive and to love him in practice, not just in our intent. If our intent doesn’t result in a change in our practice, then our intent is suspect – at least in my mind. What do you think?

A: Great question! Why don’t we let St. Teresa of Avila answer this for us? She was designated as a Doctor of the Church because of her profound life of holiness and her teachings on prayer and the interior life. What she has to say about this is very simple and straightforward:

Since vocal prayer is prayer, it must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I do not call prayer; however much the lips move. Sometimes it will be so without this reflection provided that the soul has these reflections at other times. Nonetheless, anyone who has the habit of speaking before God’s majesty as though he were speaking to a slave, without being careful to see how he is speaking, but saying whatever comes to his head and whatever he has learned from saying at others times, in my opinion is not praying. Please God, may no Christian pray in this way. (Interior Castle 1:1)

Jesus also made a distinction between prayer that is not really prayer and worship that is not really worship, etc. We need to be careful not to seek to transform the “narrow path to life,” into a wide path to destruction.

Questions about contemplation

Q: The encounter of contemplation is such an unexpected and memorable experience, shouldn’t one be content with leaving it to God if it would ever be repeated?  I see people trying centering prayer, Taize prayer, etc. to try to achieve it.  It somehow seems wrong to try to ‘get’ something that’s purely a gift.

Is acquired contemplation the same experience as infused contemplation?

Books like The Interior Castle confuse and intimidate me.  How do you know when you’re ready to read such things?

A: You have asked a few questions and made a few observations that are very important. The answer to your first question is “yes” you should leave it to God. The encounter in contemplation does not come from our will but his. It would be like having a much beloved relative give us a hug and then not letting go as if we could contain or prolong that initial surge of warmth and tenderness. Love is not something to be grasped or contained but simply to be known and lived when it is made alive to us by the mercy of God. The desire to hold on is a natural one but not one that we should entertain. When we feel these touches of grace we simply should yield to God, express our gratitude, and continue to pursue Christ.

You are also correct that “contemplation” cannot be achieved with a method or approach to prayer. We can sew the seeds of contemplation by living lives of grace and expressed love for God and neighbor and by regularly participating in prayer and the sacraments. However, regardless of how well we prepare the soil and plant the seeds, God determines the harvest. You are right – true contemplation is purely a gift, not something we can “do” or “achieve.”

Regarding acquired versus infused contemplation, this is an academic distinction that is confusing to most. Suffice it to say that digging in to this topic won’t yield much benefit. The key is that we should pursue Christ in prayer and in the way we live. As we progress in the cultivation of silence, meditation, and virtue, he will, in his wisdom and his time, draw us more deeply into prayer. It is living the life of love that we should be concerned with and then we will discover what the distinctions really mean as we experience them.

With respect to the Interior Castle, the way you know if you are ready is simply to take up and read. The best version is The Interior Castle Study Edition. This edition will provide a brief introduction to each chapter and then a brief summary at the end of each chapter. These treatments provide context for unfamiliar terms or ideas that can otherwise be confusing. Still, I would first recommend Father Thomas Dubay’s Prayer Primer: Igniting the Fire Within. Once you read this, you will be better prepared to deal with more advanced ideas of prayer. Then, as you are reading St. Teresa again, you could also pick up Father Dubay’s book on the topic of contemplation entitled The Fire Within. In this book he does a masterful job of synthesizing the teachings of St. Teresa and St. John on the topic of prayer and contemplation. It can be a heavy read for some but well worth the effort.

Be encouraged. You are asking the right questions. I have no doubt that God is calling you into a deeper relationship with him.