Touched By God: The Way to Contemplative Prayer by Bloomsbury Publishing

TOU C H E D   B Y   G O D

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TOU C H E D   B Y   G O D The W ay to Contemplative Prayer

Luigi Gioia

BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, CONTINUUM and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 © Luigi Gioia, 2018 Luigi Gioia has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for. ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-5100-7; ePDF: 978-1-4729-5101-4; ePUB: 978-1-4729-5099-4 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.

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To Philip McCosker Capacious in faith Lover of paradoxes Faithful in friendship

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CONTENTS Introduction: Unexpected harmony

PaRT ONE FEELINGS The gift of feeling

Irrelevant feelings

Frustrating feelings

Silent rest

Restless desire

Mindfulness 47 Arresting awareness

A strange ability

PART TWO JOHN Empty hands

Playful encounters

Soft spot

Chasing the fugitive

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Contents

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God’s touch

Body and flesh

105

Acknowledging stillness

111

Contemplating the light

119

Struggling to see

127

The inner nagging

133

PART THREE QUIETISM Sue the bastard!

147

Embracing history

155

A new sense of identity

165

What did you expect?

175

Epilogue 181 Yours is the night 181 The teacher within 187 Acknowledgements 193

I N T RO DU C T I O N : UNEXPECTED HARMONY Do we ever reach a stage in prayer where we are granted access to a new level of awareness of God? Are we ever relieved from the burden of constantly having to find something to do or to say so that persevering in prayer somehow becomes natural, spontaneous, effortless? Does prayer ever fill us to the point that it brims over and starts permeating the whole of our life? In a word, is there a point when this sentence by Paul starts to make sense: ‘Pray without ceasing’?1 Surely Paul here means that everything can and should be transformed into prayer. But he might also hint at something else, similar to what he suggests when he says that the Holy Spirit prays in us2 and that ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.’3 Since the age of 16 I have been puzzled by this sentence: ‘Pray without ceasing.’ At the peak of a period of militant atheism fed by Bertrand Russell’s arguments against the existence of God, I had decided to disprove Christianity at its roots and embarked on my own reading of the Gospels. 1 1 Thessalonians  5.17. 2 Cf. Romans 8.26. 3 Galatians 2.20.

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A fateful decision. My initial scepticism soon changed into fascination for texts I had heard countless times in snippets but never read from cover to cover. Soon I became so engrossed by them that I remember carrying on the reading for hours on my bed – and by the end of it, well, not only had I come to believe in the gospel, but I had started talking to a God I knew did exist and was eager to befriend me. Through Scripture God had talked to me and, spontaneously, I was trying to answer to him in prayer. Many years later, when I was studying theology, I could not believe my eyes when I came across a page by the French theologian Henri de Lubac that described exactly that initial wonder at the harmony between Scripture and my heart: Scripture and the soul are a temple in which the Lord resides, a paradise in which he can stroll. Both are a fountain of living water – and of the same living water. Both conceal the same mystery in the depths of themselves. Consequently, the experience of the soul is in prior accord with the doctrine of Scripture. If I need Scripture in order to understand myself, I also understand Scripture when I read it within myself. To the degree that I penetrate its meaning, Scripture makes me penetrate the innermost depths of my being.4

This sentence was like a thread: by pulling on it I found that I could detect the same experience throughout two thousand years of theological and spiritual writings. 4 Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit. The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 397f.

Introduction

I found it described in a text from the fifth century by the monk John Cassian: ‘Whoever takes into himself all the dispositions of the Psalms, will begin to repeat them and treat them not as if they were composed by the prophet but as if they were his own utterances and his own prayer.’5 Same thing with the Carthusian monk Guigo in the twelfth century: ‘Speak, Lord, to the heart of your servant, and my heart will speak to you.’6 I discovered similar accounts of the harmony between Scripture and the heart in contemporary spiritual authors, such the French Trappist André Louf: ‘There is an affinity between the Word that calls us from outside and the Spirit waiting in our drowsy heart’,7 or the Egyptian monk Matta el Meskin: ‘The words of the Psalms will come across as if they were uttered by God to answer, console and help you. And yet your prayer will appear as if it was coming only from you: it is the Holy Spirit who secretly leads your prayer and answers you with the words of the Psalms’,8 or the British Orthodox bishop Anthony Bloom: ‘Gradually all the words of prayer, all the thoughts and feelings the authors of the Psalms express in their prayers, come alive in you, they begin to go deep into your will and to mould your will and your action.’9 A final example from the twenty-first century comes from the Italian monk Enzo Bianchi: 5 John Cassian, The Conferences 10.11.4. 6 Guigo the Carthusian, Twelve Meditations 2. 7 André Louf, Lo Spirito prega in noi (Bose: Qiqajon, 1995), 47–8, 51 (my translation). 8 Matta el Meskin, Consigli per la preghiera (Bose: Qiqajon, 2000), 15 (my translation). 9 Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (Anthony Bloom), School for Prayer (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1970), 30f.

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Authentic prayer flourishes only through listening to Scripture: ‘Speak Lord for your servant is listening.’10 Otherwise prayer becomes a discipline based on focusing, which might dispel distractions but does not really open us to a prayerful attentiveness to the Lord who speaks and loves, who speaks because he loves.11

This ability of the words from Scripture to speak to our heart is not uncommon in our human experience. We love novels, poems and songs because they give voice to our feelings much better than we would be able to do it ourselves with our own words. Scripture, however, was not just expressing feelings I had in me but unearthing a presence, revealing a voice, that seemed to have always been there – only I did not have ears able to listen to it or eyes fit to perceive it. Jesus’ healings of deaf and blind people suddenly made sense to me. I understood what Luke meant when he said of the disciples of Emmaus that ‘their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus’.12 Life changed for me the moment I discovered that I could speak to God in my heart, knowing that he was there and was listening. I could not hear or see anything but when I was reading Scripture from that place in me I could make my way through everything in its pages that puzzled, shocked, bored me, and always pick up a spark that meant 10 1 Samuel 3.9. 11 Enzo Bianchi, Perché pregare, come pregare (Turin: Edizioni S. Paolo, 2009), 35 (my translation). 12 Luke 24.31.

Introduction

something to me and gave me a deep sense of not being alone any more. From that moment onward, whenever I had some free spans of time during the day I was praying. I used to travel to school and the long journeys by bus were an ideal time for prayer. Same thing during long walks. Words from Scripture would feed my prayer for a long time and I had so much to say to God – I knew he was interested in everything, absolutely everything I was telling him. Still, however, I was not praying without ceasing. I knew that if the Spirit was indeed crying in me, as Paul says,13 there had to be a way of praying that did not depend on me making the talk all the time or being afraid of running out of things to say to him. The connection with God had to be based on something more than words, but I had no idea about what this ‘something’ was and how to get there. I do not remember the first time I came across the idea of ‘contemplative prayer’. Not in Scripture for sure, since this expression is not in it.14 I was reading some spiritual authors at the time, especially the writings of an Italian Jesuit and cardinal I deeply admired, Carlo Maria Martini. He taught me how to pray using the Psalms.15 But none of his books mentioned contemplative prayer. I remember asking some priests about contemplation but none of their answers ever dispelled the impression that they were 13 Romans 8.26. 14 Theoria, the Greek word for contemplation, can be found in Luke’s Gospel but with a different meaning. 15 Carlo Maria Martini, What Am I ThatYou Care for Me? Praying with the Psalms (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1992).

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making up something without really knowing what they were talking about. It soon became clear that I had to search by myself and since I have always thrived on challenges this quest truly excited me. When I was 18 I befriended some Korean Christian monks who initiated me into methods of meditation inspired by Buddhist practices: sitting with crossed legs, controlling my breathing, repeating a sentence endlessly. I developed an impressive discipline: I could keep my body still without changing my position for a very long time despite the intense pain in my legs. I had memorized a number of sentences from Scripture and according to how I felt I would choose the words that better allowed me to turn my feeling of that moment into prayer, whether it was joy, repentance, weariness, sadness, discouragement or desire, hope, trust and love. Thanks to the Psalms I had already learnt that all these feelings could feed prayer. The length of this form of prayer depended on the intensity of my determination to extend it for as long as possible, and I could make it last even a whole hour, my eyes closely shut, my body absolutely still, my breathing tamely tied to the sentence I was repeating in my mind. I was quite proud of my achievements. In spite of this, however, I could not stifle a persistent unease, a little voice warning me that this was not ‘it’. Besides, I was not really convinced that praying should require me to be so unkind to my legs. Then, one day, it all changed. I had prayed for a long time in the way I have described so far and was feeling tired. I was kneeling in the back of an empty chapel and I remember saying to myself: ‘You’ve prayed enough. Why don’t you sit

Introduction

down and just enjoy being in God’s presence without trying so hard? Try to remain in silence and do nothing!’ Some candles were burning in one of the corners and I was looking at them. At one point I found that I had become like one of these candles myself: I felt (yes felt) that my trust in God, my desire and my love for him, could express themselves even without words, burning silently. No rush of emotions or excitement, just a sober and keen awareness of God’s presence, something familiar and entirely new at the same time, unmistakable. I was reminded of a sentence from the Psalms: ‘My desire lies open before you O Lord.’16 I stayed on in that chapel for a long while and even after I had left it this awareness somehow remained with me. The description of an experience of this kind is necessarily subjective and, of course, does not prove anything. But is this not true whenever feelings are involved? Some experiences are more common than others and for this reason it is easier to acknowledge them. Contemplative prayer is probably less common but belongs to the range of possibilities of our relation with God, even though it is often neglected. The purpose of the three sections of this book is to remedy this neglect with the help of Scripture and spiritual tradition, and encourage everyone to explore more contemplative ways of praying. The first section (‘Feelings’) relies on the Psalms and on spiritual authors to examine the role of feelings in our relation with God and answer the objections that they might be purely subjective and hence irrelevant or untrustworthy. We shall 16 Psalm 38.9.

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look at the themes of silence and rest, and at their puzzling coexistence with restlessness and inner contradictions. We shall also see the extent to which contemplative prayer can answer the modern longing for mindfulness, even though it is better understood as a form of responsiveness. The second section (‘John’) will revisit similar themes in a more narrative form with the help of the writings that the New Testament attributes to the Apostle John. John’s emotional and even physical proximity to Jesus explains why he is the model of contemplative prayer. He presents God’s way of interacting with us through extensive dialogues between Jesus and a number of unforgettable characters: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the blind man, Thomas, Peter, Mary. For John, God is word – that is, ‘eager to talk to us’ – and flesh – that is, ‘eager to touch us’. He helps us to see how God can touch us today through both speaking to us in Scripture and sending his Spirit to instruct us from within. The final section of the book (‘Quietism’) will interact with a play and a novel to illustrate how contemplative prayer opens our eyes and our ears to recognize God’s presence and action not just in Scripture and in the lives of Christians but everywhere and in everyone’s existence. We shall see that contemplative prayer can afford this generosity because one of its main features is the gift of discernment: that is, the ability to judge well. This commitment to look for God everywhere, including in the secular sphere, is crucial to counteract one of the most insidious misunderstandings surrounding contemplative prayer, namely quietism. By quietism we mean a form of pseudo-mysticism that focuses on well-being rather than on relation with God, cultivates inner calmness through

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Introduction

passivity and withdrawal from history, and tends to take refuge in sacred niches. Nothing more than quietism is alien to the contemplation of the God who plants his tent in our midst, plunges in our mess, engages with our history and wants to reach every human person in any possible way. Authentic contemplation leads not to withdrawal and indifference but to struggle for justice and activism; not to taking refuge in sacred spaces but to reaching out; not to spiritual elitism but to humble solidarity with the journey of every other human being on earth, whether religious orâ&#x20AC;Żnot.

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FEELINGS

THE GIFT OF FEELING When, aged 16, I had embarked on my own reading of Scripture, I was looking for evidence that Christianity was contradictory and irrational. Whenever I found a sentence that seemed to prove my point, I would copy it on a card and stack it with my range of arguments against the existence of God. I soon discovered, however, that it was difficult to approach the Gospels in this way consistently. They do not claim to be a mere report on what Jesus did or said but are the account of witnesses who want us to believe in him as they did themselves. John, for example, presents himself as ‘the disciple who testifies to these things, who wrote them down’ and who wants people to know that ‘his testimony is true’.1 He is not relating information about Jesus, but the promises he had made, as we have seen, for example, in his dialogue with the Samaritan woman: ‘Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst’,2 or ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die’3 or, 1 John 21.24. 2 John 4.14. 3 John 11.25.

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to give just another example, ‘I will do whatever you ask in my name. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.’4 By believing in these words the reader enters into a bond with God, a covenant: ‘The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him’,5 and ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’6 This discovery was slightly unsettling for my purpose. The sentences from the Gospel were difficult to turn into the bits of information I was looking for. Reading them, I was inescapably invited not just to understand what they were saying but to take a stand: would I trust the witness? Was I going to believe in the promises? And especially, was I going to let whoever was talking through these pages love me? To prevent these words from having an impact on me, to touch me, I had to keep saying no, no, no – and I could have succeeded in doing it. But it is easier to do this if you stay away from Scripture. If you start reading it, it becomes harder. I felt that by saying no I was not refusing ideas but resisting a presence. A voice was increasingly audible that seemed able to touch deep chords in my heart. Something similar happens with poetry. ‘[Poets] will matter if you learn to hear yourself by listening to them.’7 Even when they seem intent only on describing something, 4 John 14.13. 5 John 14.21. 6 John 14.23f. 7 James Longenbach, The V irtues of Poetry (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2013), 15.

The gift of feeling

they succeed insofar as they summon something within us, they affect us. I can read endlessly Rilke’s poem ‘A swan moves over the water’ because it exquisitely captures the ambivalence I experience whenever I love someone: just as the reflection of a swan gliding over a lake quivers because of the trembling water, so I can never disentangle how much of the happiness and doubt I experience in love comes from my beloved or from my own insecurities or idealizations. In poetry,‘meticulous attention to the surface of things inevitably dredges up emotional depths’.8 A measure of surrender and trust is necessary to read poetry: ‘Our pleasure depends not on mastery but on submission: we feel something happen because we’ve trusted an utterance we cannot yet fully comprehend.’9 In a similar way, the witness and the promises of the gospel resonate with that part of ourselves which is created in God’s image and is eager for standards of meaning and of love so uncompromising that they can only be met by God. Every day we experience how much words can affect us. We should not be surprised to discover that God’s words and promises are able to have an impact on us too as soon as we start engaging with them. The God who speaks through Scripture has an impact on us, affects us, touches us, well before we start trusting and loving him. This can sound strange, but it is confirmed by the way we see Jesus interacting with people in John’s Gospel. Jesus’ wonderful dialogues with the Samaritan woman, Mary, 8 Longenbach, The V irtues of Poetry, 106. 9 Longenbach, The V irtues of Poetry, 131.

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Nicodemus, Nathanael, the man born blind, the adulterous woman and Peter are very instructive about our relationship with God. They show that God is perfectly able and willing to speak, listen and answer us even when we still mistrust him (like the Samaritan woman and Thomas), have wrong ideas about him (like Nathanael and Nicodemus), cling to him for the wrong reasons (like Mary), cannot see him (like the man born blind), are crushed by guilt (like the adulterous woman) or are still full of wishful eagerness in our relationship with him (like Peter). The only condition for this dialogue to begin – whether directly with Jesus or indirectly through Scripture – is not hiding from God, as Adam and Eve did when he came to meet them in the garden. Everything God says through Scripture can be enshrined in the poignant cry Ayeka – ‘Where are you?’ in Hebrew – he uttered that day for the first time and has kept on repeating ever since. Through Scripture God looks for us, he waits for us at the well even if we still do not know who he is; he comes to visit us behind our closed doors to wrestle with our doubts about him; he is not put off if we find him pathetic or think he is only a prophet, or do not recognize him; he is not resentful if we have betrayed or ignored him. Tirelessly, tenderly, patiently, he leads us to love him and trust in him. Even though trusting or loving the God who speaks through Scripture is not a precondition, nonetheless to understand what he says we need to engage with this text not only intellectually but emotionally. We have to pay heed both to what we are told and to how these words make us feel. True, emotions are unreliable. Here, however, we are not

The gift of feeling

talking just about emotions, but about emotional intelligence and, somehow, about ‘intelligent emotions’. The things I understand and interact with make me feel something. But, conversely also, what I feel makes me want to probe more deeply with my mind, to keep asking, challenging, thinking, investigating. It is by referring to this kind of intelligent emotion – that is, to an emotion that feels within a process of understanding – that we can make the following claim: contemplative prayer begins when we start feeling something in our reading of Scripture and in prayer. This is what some spiritual authors called the ‘gift of feeling’ and it is what we have to nurse, because ‘feeling toward God – even without words – is a prayer. Words support and sometimes deepen the feeling.’10 This feeling is a gift. I cannot force myself to find joy in something. True, our taste can be educated. For a long time I was incapable of enjoying exhibitions of modern art and I avoided them. Then I met a friend who knew how to appreciate modern art and taught me to see what he was seeing. I learnt that art is not always about what I like or dislike but is also about being challenged, forced out of my habitual approach to reality, invited to take a stand. At one point I found that I was starting to enjoy the experience and that I wanted to go on my own – and now it is one of my favourite activities. The Psalms and Augustine would say that now I love it because I have learnt to find delight in it. 10 Theophan the Recluse, in Chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology trans. E. Dakloubovsky and E. Palmer (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), 62.

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The same applies to prayer. Finding it boring, useless, dry, is a common experience and enjoying it is not something that can be achieved at will. If, however, we are willing to spend even a short time reading Scripture and paying attention not only to what it says but also to how it affects us, we might discover that we enjoy it, that it leaves us with a sense of peace and a desire for more. And at one point, this feeling might feed our prayer even without words. It is as if we had new eyes to see and new ears to hear something which we had been blind or deaf to up to that moment. With regards to the ‘gift of feeling’ which spiritual tradition associates with contemplative prayer, we need to face two important questions. Some people might argue that feelings are by nature unreliable and therefore, whether they are part of our experience of prayer or not, they should be ignored, not sought after but seen as ultimately irrelevant. Other people might object that they have never ‘felt’ anything in prayer and wonder whether they got it all wrong. Let us look more closely into this in our next two chapters.

I R R E L E VA N T F E E L I N G S Having to acknowledge that emotions play a role in our experience of God can make us nervous. The Positivist presupposition that underpins modern prodigious scientific and technical progress seems to be threatened by this assertion. Something should be true irrespectively of how we feel about it and only insofar as it rests on verifiable facts. Increasingly, however, science, and physics in particular, is unconvinced about the possibility of isolating facts from the viewpoint – and the values – of the beholder. Our everyday experience of language, too, testifies to the fact that we speak not just to give information but because we want to say something, to have an impact on others. On the receiving end, language fulfils its role when it affects us in one way or the other, leads us to make an experience, to take a decision or to trust a word. Most of our life depends on words we believe because we deem that we have enough reasons (but rarely exhaustive reasons) to trust the skills, competence and motives of persons and institutions. It is not shameful, therefore, to admit that one of the reasons we trust the promises, the appeals, the invitations, the witnesses we encounter in Scripture is because of how

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they make us feel – and that one of the reasons we trust God and want to spend time with him in prayer is how this makes us feel. Scripture and spiritual tradition overwhelmingly corroborate this point. The prelude to the book of Psalms locates happiness not in a complete knowledge or understanding of Scripture, but in discovering the joy, the delight we feel when we believe that through these words the Lord is indeed speaking to us: ‘Blessed is the man … whose delight is in the law [that is the word] of the Lord’1 – we could say: ‘Blessed is the man whose delight is the sign that he recognizes the Lord speaking to him through Scripture.’ ‘Delight’ is not mere interest or intellectual curiosity and much less a resolution to spend time reading Scripture because it is the right thing to do. ‘Delight’ is what we feel when we play, have a good time, find pleasure in a hobby, meet a dear friend. As Augustine famously said ‘We only love that which delights us.’2 This theme is pervasive in the book of Psalms.We recognize God speaking to us through Scripture not only because it ‘enlightens the eyes’ but also because it ‘rejoices the heart’ and thus becomes ‘more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb’.3 It is a joy deeper than the pleasure we find in comfort and safety: ‘You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.’4 ‘Our heart 1 Psalm 1.1–2. 2 Augustine, Sermons 159.3. 3 Psalm 19.8, 10. 4 Psalm 4.7.

Irrelevant feelings

leaps for joy’ when we realize that we can trust God, that he helps us, that he is our strength and our shield.5 We find joy even in the hopeful waiting for the Lord to act because we know that his love is unfailing and that his promises are certain.6 The presence of the Lord becomes so real that we rejoice in it:7 he makes us ‘glad with the joy of his presence’.8 When God speaks, he simultaneously enlightens the mind and touches the heart. Prayer is our response to this experience and it certainly consists in words, prayers, poems, songs of the kind we find in the book of Psalms. But, according to these same Psalms, prayer is much more than the words of praise, thanksgiving and wonder that rise to our lips. Our lips can praise only because our heart hears a melody from within and joins in. Augustine says that when we pray ‘we lend our ear to the inner voice of God’, we listen to a secret melody, ‘in the silence something resounds from on high, not to our ears’ but in our heart, ‘a sound exceedingly delightful, incomparable and which no words can express’.9 This is a splendid description of contemplative prayer! This inner melody awakens the heart: ‘Awake, my heart! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.’10 The heart is silent no more, it joins this melody, it starts singing too: ‘that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent’.11 For Augustine, 5 Psalm 28.7. 6 Psalm 33.21. 7 Psalm 97.12. 8 Psalm 21.6. 9 Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms 42.7. 10 Psalm 57.8. 11 Psalm 30.12.

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this is the ‘new song’ which the Psalms repeatedly invite us to sing: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song.’12 What is pleasing to God’s ears is this song of a heart that increasingly trusts, loves and desires him, hopes and rejoices in him, keeps on pining for him. In the New Testament, a mere glance through John’s writings confirms the idea we found in the Psalms: feelings are part of Jesus’ good news, his message cannot be understood or received properly without them, they are the signs of his presence in us. Everything God said and did in Jesus’ earthly life, everything the Gospels witness to, has this purpose: ‘that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete’.13 This promise recurs several times in John’s Gospel: Jesus wants to turn our grief into joy;14 even after he withdraws his bodily presence after the Ascension, he remains present to us in such a way that our heart is filled with a joy that nobody can take away from us.15 That nobody will be able to deprive us of this joy is also suggested each of the many times Jesus assures us that this joy will be complete:16 this joy will not depend on the changing circumstances of our lives, but only on our relation with God, especially on the ability to see him like Abraham did: ‘Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day. He saw it and was glad.’17 Abraham ‘saw’ Jesus’ day with the eyes of his trust 12 Psalm 96.1 13 John 15.11. 14 Cf. John 16.20. 15 Cf. John 16.22. 16 John 15.11, 16.24, 17.13. 17 John 8.56.

Irrelevant feelings

and of his desire, as it happens for us too. For this we need something of John the Baptist’s contemplative eyes and ears that could ‘behold the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on’ Jesus18 and could perceive his voice: ‘the friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.’19 Seeing Jesus in this way – that is, beholding him with the eyes of faith – always fills us with joy. This same joy Scripture is meant to kindle in us according to John’s first letter, where he declares: ‘We write this so that you may fully share our joy.’20 The sign that we really have understood what Scripture tells us and have welcomed it in us is that we find delight in it,21 and that it gladdens our heart.22 In the same way, Jesus’ presence is accompanied by his peace. When the disciples become aware of his presence in their midst after his resurrection and are given eyes to recognize him, this is the way he greets them: ‘Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them and said “Peace be with you.” ’23 Of course, this peace refers to the reconciliation he has established between us and the Father. However, it is also meant to be the antidote to our negative feelings of anxiety and fear and to infuse courage in us: ‘Peace I leave with you;

18 John 1.32. 19 John 3.29. 20 1 John 1.4. 21 Psalm 1.2. 22 Cf. Psalm 19.8. 23 John 20.19; cf. 20.21 and 20.26.

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my peace I give to you … Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid’,24 and ‘I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage, I have overcome the world.’25 We know that we have become aware of God’s presence in us when it fills us with a peace unlike any other sense of inner harmony or quiet we have ever experienced in our lives. But the decisive feeling for our life of faith in John’s Gospel is love. Love, of course, is not just a feeling. It designates the Father’s or Jesus’ attitude towards us which gives shape to our relations with each other: the Father loves the world by giving his only Son for us,26 Jesus by giving his life for us27 or by washing our feet,28 and we are told that the only real test of authentic discipleship is the love we have for each other: ‘A new commandment I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’29 Love, however, also is something in which we dwell: ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love.’30 It results from the Father’s presence in us: Jesus wants that the love the Father has for him ‘may be in us’.31 To 24 John 14.27. 25 John 16.33. 26 John 3.16. 27 John 15.13. 28 John 13.1–17. 29 John 13.34–5. 30 John 15.9. 31 John 17.26.

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remain in this love, we are asked not only to believe in it, but also to ‘know’ it, that is to feel it: ‘we know and believe the love God has for us’.32 This is a love we learn to perceive, to experience, to ‘see’: ‘Behold what great love the Father has lavished on us.’33 Therefore, since God intended to fill us with his joy, peace and love, it would be strange indeed if these gifts did not have an emotional impact on us, especially when we pray. It would be equally odd if we did experience joy, peace and love and the many other facets of the ‘gift of feeling’ in contemplative prayer but dismissed them as purely accidental or even suspicious. This is confirmed by spiritual tradition: the awareness of God’s presence in our heart that characterizes contemplative prayer is accompanied by a reassuring experience of God’s tenderness, gentleness and mercy that makes the heart burn like a flame because of a humble and heartfelt love for God; of a thirst and a desire for God based on our hope in him; and finally of the joy and peace that we draw from trusting in him, from finding refuge in him.

32 1 John 4.16. 33 1 John 3.16.

Luigi Gioiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second spiritual book deals with the art of contemplation.

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