Tag: Fr. Thomas Keating

Centering Prayer and the CDF (Part 5)

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Do all religions lead to one reality?

For devout Catholics, that question is a no-brainer. Judaism and Christianity were revealed by God. Other religions are attempts by humans to understand the transcendent and achieve some kind of salvation. While, as Nostra Aetate taught, other religions do contain some goodness and truth, they also contain much error. Some of them are even influenced by demonic powers, as both the Old and New Testaments clearly teach (see 1 Cor 10:14-22, for example).

The CDF says of non-Christian religions:

one can take from them what is useful so long as the Christian conception of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured. (On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, no. 16)

Yet, in this video (below), Fr. Thomas Keating says, “Faith, when it becomes contemplative, begins to perceive the oneness behind all religions.” Religious doctrine, he says, no matter from which religion, is necessary “as a stepping stone” toward this ultimate reality. Once reached, religious practice and belief is no longer “absolutized.”

This video is just one of many examples in which Fr. Keating avoids speaking about the truth of Catholicism or Christianity in general, as compared to other religions. He makes the Catholic Faith  into simply one of many possible ways of moving towards the divine (albeit, the way he has chosen).

Watch the video yourself, and then I’ll comment on a few other aspects of what he says.

Note also in the video his Buddhist understanding of the self. What is the cause of all our ills? Fr. Keating says it is our “separate-self sense.” In other words, the sense that I am someone separate from everyone else, that I am a person, and that there are other persons who are distinct from me.

Contrast this idea with what the CDF says about Christian prayer:

[Prayer] expresses therefore the communion of redeemed creatures with the intimate life of the Persons of the Trinity. This communion, based on Baptism and the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church, implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from ‘self’ to the ‘You’ of God.” (On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, no. 3)

Without a “separate-self sense,” we cannot even practice Christian prayer. Recognizing that God is a personal being, distinct from ourselves (also personal beings, made in His likeness), is absolutely foundational.  The CDF also says,

an absorbing of the human self into the divine self is never possible, not even in the highest states of grace.” (No. 14)

Fr. Keating quotes the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:27). But how is it possible to love God at all, if he is not someone separate from ourselves? Without separate selves, love is just a nice word. One ends up seeking fulfillment, release, etc., rather than intimacy and the Divine Will. This is ultimately selfishness, not love. The CDF says:

 From the dogmatic point of view, it is impossible to arrive at a perfect love of God if one ignores his giving of himself to us through his Incarnate Son, who was crucified and rose from the dead. (No. 20)

I did not notice a single mention of redemption or even of Jesus in this interview on (supposedly Christian) “spirituality.”

In much of the video, Ken Wilber (the interviewer) and Fr. Keating deal with psychology, as though science could confirm or deny spiritual truth. In fact, the CDF identifies the substitution of psychology for spirituality as one of the problems with modern methods of prayer. And this erroneous substitution is intimately bound up with the rejection of the truth of our separateness from God:

[Erroneous modern prayer methods] incite [man] to try and overcome the distance separating creature from Creator, as though there ought not to be such a distance; to consider the way of Christ on earth, by which he wishes to lead us to the Father, as something now surpassed; to bring down to the level of natural psychology what has been regarded as pure grace, considering it instead as ‘superior knowledge or as ‘experience.’ (On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, no. 10)

We see once again that the CDF has addressed numerous ideas taught by Fr. Keating and other Centering Prayer advocates and found them problematic. The fact that the CDF never mentions Centering Prayer or Fr. Keating by name is completely irrelevant.

Earlier posts in this series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Skip “Contemplative Outreach”

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Fr. Thomas Keating and the Dalai Lama in Boston in 2012. (Photo by Christopher, Wikimedia Commons)

This post analyzes the latest newsletter of Contemplative Outreach Chicago (March 2018). Contemplative Outreach is the organization co-founded by Fr. Thomas Keating and David Frenette and others to promote and teach Centering Prayer. Sometimes it’s difficult to see what is wrong with the method of Centering Prayer. The problems with the Centering Prayer movement become clearer when we consider the theology associated with it, as well as the other New Age teachings, heterodoxy, and political liberalism that the organization promotes.

Here are seven problems found in this short newsletter. They cast serious doubt on the organization’s claim to be teaching Christian prayer.

1. Gnosticism

Wisdom of the Gospel of Thomas: Although the newsletter reveals that the Gospel of Thomas was discovered at Nag Hammadi, it blatantly lies when it says, “Scholars are in general agreement that it is a legitimate text that is consistent with the canonical gospels.” The Gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic text. Gnosticism was one of the major heresies in the early Church. When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) wrote its authoritative document On Some Aspects of Christian Mediation, it identified pseudo-gnosticism as one of the two “fundamental deviations” behind “erroneous ways of praying” (no. 8).

2. Neighbor = Self?

“Learning who you truly are is the work of the method of Centering Prayer.  Our invocation from Jesus is to love our neighbor as ourself, not as much as ourself,” writes Alan Krema.

In other words, according to the Contemplative Outreach Chicago Coordinator, we love our neighbor because our neighbor and ourselves are at heart indistinguishable. We are in “Union,” which in this case means “you” and “I” are basically two different words for the same thing. This is an instance of non-dualism – also known as monism. Non-dualism/monism teaches that everything is one. Monism was condemned as a heresy at Vatican I:

“If anyone shall say that the substance and essence of God and of all things is one and the same; let him be anathema. “

This heresy is commonly taught by Fr. Keating and Contemplative Outreach.

Loving your neighbor is meaningless, if your neighbor is not a real person separate from yourself. What you are then loving is not your neighbor at all, but the “Ultimate Reality” of which you and he are only shallow manifestations. There is no person at all in the philosophy. No one to love, no one to be loved. There is no “you” to love anyone.

The second greatest commandment thus becomes a mere statement of Eastern religious thought.

3. The Enneagram

Contemplative Outreach is enamored of the Enneagram.

What is the Enneagram?  Although it has some surface similarities to classic temperament theories, it is widely recognized as an unscientific, New Age tool. In fact, it was mentioned by name in the Vatican document Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life: a Christian reflection on the “New Age.”  The Enneagram

“when used as a means of spiritual growth introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and the life of the Christian faith.” (no. 1.4)

4. Retreat with Nancy Sylvester

Nancy Sylvester “is the former President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)”. This organization had so many problems that it underwent a Vatican investigation earlier this decade. The result can be read here:

The organization NETWORK, of which she has also been a leader, has been called out for problems as well.

But most problematic is the organization she founded, The Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue. Its website is replete with New Age teaching, including using Hindu mandalas at retreats, “re-imagining” the Creation Story, and the adulation of Cynthia Bourgeault’s non-dualist theology. Sylvester calls us to “exercise contemplative power” to bring about, among other things, “ecclesial transformation.” Which appears to be a sophist way of saying “changing the Church to our liking.”

5. Beth O’Brien

Beth O’Brien, who will lead the “Midwest Wisdom Schools” advertised, writes in her biography on her website:

“Inspired by Teilhard de Chardin’s writing on human energy and convergence, she continues to seek an ever-deepening knowing within an evolutionary and incarnational (embodied) spirituality.”

6. Religious Indifferentism

Phil Jackson, former president of Contemplative Outreach Chicago, shares his adventure of backpacking alone in the West. In his reflection, he refers to Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha as though they are all worthy of the same level of respect, although they represent diverse religions and only one of them claimed to be (and was in fact) God.

7. Vibrations of God?

But, as often, the quote from Fr. Thomas Keating crowns it all. It begins:

“We’re all like localized vibrations of the infinite goodness of God’s presence.”

Say what?

This issue of the newsletter of Contemplative Outreach Chicago is typical of other issues I have read, and the newsletter of Contemplative Outreach, Ltd. It is full of New Age thought, religious indifferentism, the monist heresy, and the just plain weird. There is very little of the Gospel, although the organization claims Centering Prayer is just a modern version of the prayer of the saints.

Centering Prayer and the CDF, Part 3

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Virtue and Nobility Putting Ignorance to Flight by Tiepolo (Wikimedia Commons).

We continue going through the document Orationis formas (On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation), comparing its cautions with the teaching of Fr. Thomas Keating, Contemplative Outreach, and other leaders of the Centering Prayer movement.

Let’s return to pseudognosticism, which we began discussing in Part 2. As in this whole series, quotes from Church documents and saints and Fathers are in purple. Quotes from Centering Prayer practitioners are in green.

Footnote no. 8 of Orationis formas explains:

“Pseudognosticism considered matter as something impure and degraded which enveloped the soul in an ignorance from which prayer had to free it, thereby raising it to true superior knowledge and so to a pure state…”

How do Centering Prayer advocates view matter?

Matter and spirit

Fr. Keating writes in The Mystery of Christ:

“By becoming a human being Christ annihilated the dichotomy between matter and spirit.  In the Person of the Divine-Human Being, a continuum between the divine and the human has been established.  Thus, God’s plan is not only to spiritualize the material universe, but to make matter itself divine.  This he has already done in the glorified humanity of his Son.  The grace bestowed on us by the Ascension of Jesus is the divinization of our humanity.  Our individuality is permeated by the Spirit of God through the grace of the Ascension and more specifically through the grace of Pentecost.  Thus we, in Christ, are also annihilating the dichotomy between matter and spirit.  Our life is a mysterious interpenetration of material experience, spiritual reality and the divine Presence.”

Typically, Fr. Keating’s words tangle truth and error.  Jesus united God and man in one Person. He united Spirit with flesh, Creator with creature. Through His Passion we are able to attain union with God as well. We will (and already do to some extent) “partake in the divine nature” (see 2 Pet 1:4).

But is it correct to say that “Christ annihilated the dichotomy between matter and spirit?” Fr. Keating, as we saw in an earlier post, believes that “contemplation resolves all dichotomies.” This is non-dualism. Non-dualism is not a Christian concept. Christianity believes in opposites: evil truly is the rejection of good, not just a word we use for things that make us uncomfortable. Jesus does not blend matter and spirit. He does not erase the difference between them. He was and is fully God and fully man, not a hybrid.

The idea that Jesus’ divinity and humanity were somehow blended together is actually an ancient heresy. As the Second Council of Constantinople decreed:

“We think that God the Word was united to the flesh, each of the two natures remaining what it is. This is why Christ is one, God and man; the same, consubstantial (homoousios) with the father as to the divinity and consubstantial with us as to the humanity.”

Neither the flesh nor the spirit is annihilated. Nor are they mixed. There is not, nor could there ever be, “a continuum between the divine and the human.” (More on that in a future post.)

The Catechism enumerates the early heresies concerning Christ’s two natures:

“The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism)…

“The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it…” (nos. 464 and 467)

And then the Catechism clinches it, bringing us back to Fr. Keating’s assertions and their opposition to the teaching of Orationis formas:

“Because ‘human nature was assumed, not absorbed’, in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from ‘one of the Trinity’. The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:

“‘The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.'” (CCC no. 470, quoting Gaudium et Spes)

The Incarnation does not “annihilate the dichotomy between matter and spirit.” Instead, it unites matter and spirit. It allows us to be united with God in our intellect, our will, and even our body. We are not fully human without our bodies–thus, the Resurrection of the Dead. We will not be ghosts in Heaven. Nor will we be angels.

Christ sanctified matter. He did not “set us free” from it. He freed us from sin’s hold over matter. Now we can think, love, eat, and drink in union with God and for His glory.

Pseudognostic knowledge

Does Centering Prayer teach that the human soul is “in an ignorance from which prayer had to free it, thereby raising it to true superior knowledge and so to a pure state?” Yes!

Reporting on an interfaith dialog the Trappist monks conducted with other Christians, Native Americans, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and others, Fr. Keating listed eight points of agreement among participants. Here is one of them:

“As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.”

In other words, for Fr. Keating separation from God is an illusion born of ignorance. If only we would recognize our oneness with God, suffering would cease!

But this is not the Christian view. Although man could not even exist without God holding him in existence, God calls us to a much deeper union with Himself that sin prevents. Weakness and suffering are clues to reality. They teach us that something is terribly wrong. We suffer because man as a species rejected the true path to union with God, desiring to be “like God” while living in disobedience to Him. In this sense, separation from God is a reality. Recognizing this reality is fundamental to redemption. Christ came to solve this problem. It is no illusion!

Perhaps the most basic idea underlying Centering Prayer is that we need to have a new awakening, a new consciousness. In his book Open Mind, Open Heart, Fr. Keating defines transformation as:

“a restructuring of consciousness in which the divine reality is perceived to be present in oneself and in all that is.”

Of course, there is a sense in which God is present in oneself and all creation. But ignorance is not our most basic problem. Sin is. When we make overcoming ignorance the central problem of the spiritual life, we inhibit true transformation, in which God changes our actions and desires, in which He makes us holy.

Let me sum up what I’ve been saying by returning to Orationis formas, as it speaks of the the resurgence of pseudognosticism and another early heresy on prayer:

“Both of these forms of error continue to be a temptation for man the sinner. They incite him to try and overcome the distance separating creature from Creator, as though there ought not to be such a distance; to consider the way of Christ on earth, by which he wishes to lead us to the Father, as something now surpassed; to bring down to the level of natural psychology what has been regarded as pure grace, considering it instead as ‘superior knowledge’ or as ‘experience.’

“Such erroneous forms, having reappeared in history from time to time on the fringes of the Church’s prayer, seem once more to impress many Christians, appealing to them as a kind of remedy, be it psychological or spiritual, or as a quick way of finding God.” (OF, no. 10)

Can anyone still maintain that Orationis formas was not directed towards practices like Centering Prayer?

We will continue next time by examining more fully the purpose of Christian prayer as explained in this document.

Read Part 1 of this series here.
Read Part 2 of this series here.

 

 

 

Centering Prayer and the CDF, Part 1

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Buddha Siakianuni (photo by Boryzo, Wikimedia Commons). Is Centering Prayer inspired by eastern religions?

In 1989, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, signed the document. The Latin title is Orationis formas (OF). Its purpose:

“[M]any feel the need for sure criteria of a doctrinal and pastoral character which might allow them to instruct others in prayer, in its numerous manifestations, while remaining faithful to the truth revealed in Jesus, by means of the genuine Tradition of the Church. This present letter seeks to reply to this urgent need, so that in the various particular Churches, the many different forms of prayer, including new ones, may never lose their correct personal and communitarian nature.” (OF no. 1)

It goes on to detail several problems found in modern prayer methods.

Some Aspects of Christian Meditation does not mention any problematic practices by name. Instead, it gives general principles by which the bishops are to help reform prayer movements to bring them into line with the faith.

Contemplative Outreach, the official promoter of Centering Prayer, claims that the document was not addressing Centering Prayer. In this series, which will span several posts, we will examine many points made by the CDF and compare them to statements made by Contemplative Outreach, Fr. Thomas Keating, or other prominent Centering Prayer practitioners. Since these posts will be loaded with quotes, I have decided to color code them to help distinguish which document is being cited. Quotes from the CDF appear below in purple. Quotes from Contemplative Outreach and Fr. Keating, et. al., appear in green.

Non-Christian meditation

Orationis formas begins by addressing the influence of non-Christian religions on new prayer methods:

“The ever more frequent contact with other religions and with their different styles and methods of prayer has, in recent decades, led many of the faithful to ask themselves what value non-Christian forms of meditation might have for Christians… Observing that in recent times many traditional methods of meditation, especially Christian ones, have fallen into disuse, they wonder whether it might not now be possible, by a new training in prayer, to enrich our heritage by incorporating what has until now been foreign to it.” (OF no.2)

Response from the Contemplative Outreach FAQs page:

“Cardinal Ratzinger’s ‘Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation’, written in 1989, was not directed to Centering Prayer, which is the traditional form of Christian prayer, but rather at those forms of meditative practices that actually incorporate the methods of Eastern meditations such as Zen and the use of the Hindu mantras. The letter is chiefly concerned with the integration of such techniques into the Christian faith.” (My emphasis)

Is this characterization correct? Orationis formas never uses the word “mantra.” The first footnote in the document does mention Hinduism and Zen, however, in this way:

“The expression ‘eastern methods’ is used to refer to methods which are inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism, such as ‘Zen,’ ‘Transcendental Meditation’ or ‘Yoga.’ Thus it indicates methods of meditation of the non-Christian Far East which today are not infrequently adopted by some Christians also in their meditation.” (My emphasis)

Now, I would say that the phrase “methods inspired by” eastern religions is not as restrictive as “forms of meditative practices that actually incorporate the methods of Eastern meditations…” This interpretation can be refuted, but the footnote goes on to say:

“The orientation of the principles and methods contained in this present document is intended to serve as a reference point not just for this problem, but also, in a more general way, for the different forms of prayer practiced nowadays in ecclesial organizations, particularly in associations, movements and groups.”

In other words, the CDF is concerned with any forms of prayer that exhibit certain problematic elements, even those that may have not been consciously inspired by non-Christian religions.

So, on this point, Centering Prayer is not off the hook. In looking at Orationis formas we need to examine whether the Centering Prayer method contains problematic elements, rather than ask what the origin of those elements is.

Even so, I find this sentence from OF no. 2 interesting, given the many discussions I have had with Centering Prayer practitioners:

“Other Christians, caught up in the movement towards openness and exchanges between various religions and cultures, are of the opinion that their prayer has much to gain from these [eastern] methods.”

Repeatedly, Centering Prayer practitioners refer to the teaching of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate  that  the “Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these [foreign] religions.” They also accuse me and others who reject Centering Prayer of “fearing” the eastern influence found in Centering Prayer. In fact, I hear words similar to these frequently, “Christian prayer has much to gain from eastern religions.”

So here the Contemplative Outreach FAQs contradict the arguments of many Centering Prayer advocates.

Now let us move on to the actual cautions of the CDF document and see how they apply to Centering Prayer.

It’s personal

What is prayer? The CDF states:

“For this reason, [prayer] is defined, properly speaking, as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God. It expresses therefore the communion of redeemed creatures with the intimate life of the Persons of the Trinity. This communion, based on Baptism and the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church, implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from ‘self’ to the ‘You’ of God.”(OF no. 3)

Centering Prayer rejects the idea of “a flight from ‘self’ to the ‘You’ of God.” Here are a two examples that demonstrate the error.

Fr. Keating writes:

“God and our true Self are not separate. Though we are not God, God and our true Self are the same thing” (Open Mind, Open Heart, 2oth Anniversary edition, p. 158).

In this YouTube video he makes the point even clearer, saying that “You and the Other [meaning God] are one, always have been…”

How can you fly from yourself to God if you are already one with God?

The communion Fr. Keating proposes is not based on Baptism and the Eucharist. If we have always been one with God, what difference do the sacraments make? For Fr. Keating, the significant difference is one of consciousness, for he says that through Baptism:

“our sense of separation from God and from others is destroyed.” (ibid. 159)

Notice, it is not a real separation from God that Baptism overcomes, in Fr. Keating’s view, just “our sense” of it. In other words, our communion with God is not based on Baptism.

What about the Eucharist? Fr. Keating writes:

“The Eucharist is the celebration of life: the coming together of all the material elements of the cosmos, their emergence to consciousness in human persons and the transformation of human consciousness into Divine consciousness…” (Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 128)

Frankly, I’m not sure what Fr. Keating is talking about here, but we see again the emphasis on a change of consciousness, rather than moral conversion.

Where there are no separate people there can be no dialog. It’s no surprise, therefore, that no communication takes place in Centering Prayer. Without words, concepts, ideas, or images, how does one speak to God? While turning away from inspirations and feelings, and making no use of Sacred Scripture or the truths of the faith, how does one listen to God? No speaking and no listening means no dialog.

Now, it’s true that communication between God and the soul can take place at a level beyond words, concepts, and feelings in infused contemplation. Nevertheless, if there is no exchange on some level, there is no dialog. Awareness is not dialog, especially when that awareness is not about someone who is essentially other than oneself.

Christian prayer involves (at least) two persons. Jesus is a Person, God the Son. Christian prayer goes to God through Him, although it often addresses the First or Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Prayer is addressed from a person to a separate Person (or the other way around; God also communicates with the soul during prayer).

Without a “personal, intimate, and profound dialog,” the CDF says there is no Christian prayer. Therefore, Centering Prayer is not Christian prayer, whatever else it may be.

We will continue next week with Part 2 of this series.

Centering Prayer and distractions

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The Difficult Lesson
 by Bouguereau

 

One Centering Prayer practitioner wrote to me in an online conversation, “In this information age of constant texting and tweets I think Centering Prayer is a very practical way to do ‘be still’ and surrender in God’s presence; it’s helped me to detach from negative thoughts and feelings…”

This is a common assertion, one I’m sympathetic to. We certainly do have too much “noise” in our world–not just beeps and drum beats, but also texts and pop-ups and real-time videos. The over-abundance of sensory stimulation distracts us from focusing on God in prayer. How can we be free of such distracting thoughts?

Fr. Keating’s solution

Fr. Thomas Keating responds to the notion that Centering Prayer seeks to make the mind blank in these words:

“Centering Prayer is not so much the absence of thoughts as detachment from them.” (Open Mind, Open Heart, 12)

Later, he says:

“As freedom from the thralldom of habitual thoughts and desires grows, we are able to enter into interior prayer with a quiet mind.” (ibid., 13)

Although this quote makes it sound like a truly quiet mind only belongs to those advanced in prayer, such is not Fr. Keating’s teaching. Throughout his writing is the idea that thoughts are “the enemy” of deep communion with God.

“The method consists in letting go of every kind of thought during prayer, even the most devout thoughts.” (Open Mind, Open Heart,  21)

Now, there is certainly a sense in which one’s thoughts get in the way of intimacy with God. If you are thinking about your latest Facebook post throughout your prayer time, your prayer won’t be very fruitful. Prayer is not about social media. These thoughts are hampering your spiritual growth.

Your thoughts are not the real problem

So, how do you solve this problem of wild thoughts? Centering Prayer tries to solve it by setting aside all thoughts during prayer, both sacred and profane. This is not the traditional Catholic solution. The wayward thoughts are not really the problem; they are only the symptom of the problem. The disorder is not in being attached to one’s thoughts about Facebook, but being attached to Facebook. If Facebook distracts you during prayer, you should spend less time on social media, or take a break from it long before you go to mental prayer, or use it only for the glory of God and not your own pleasure.

God made the human mind. The capacity for thought is a gift. A healthy and fully developed human being thinks. There is nothing disordered, nothing ungodly or unholy, about thinking.

An analogy

Let’s use an analogy to look at this more deeply. Imagine you are praying and you have serious digestive problems. You find it hard to pray, because you are uncomfortable and in pain. The reason for your indigestion is that you over-indulged in greasy foods. So, how do you keep indigestion from interrupting your prayer time in the future?

Do you throw out digestion, or try to set it aside and become “detached” from it? How can you? Digestion is a healthy process that is involuntary. Your indigestion is not due to a defect in your body so much as a defect in your eating habits. So you give up over-eating greasy foods. You eat foods that agree with you and the indigestion goes away, no longer interfering with your prayer.

When you give up bad eating habits in order to strengthen your prayer time, you practice detachment from food. You use food in a way that serves God’s will instead of battling it. You make a sacrifice out of love for Christ. You grow spiritually, as a result of your (response to) indigestion!

What are you thinking about?

 Now, let’s go back to thinking. Unlike digestion, which is always involuntary, thoughts are sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary. You may be able to ignore small aches and pains during prayer, but major discomfort is impossible to neglect. You think about it involuntarily.

What about other thoughts? You might start your prayer time with the right intentions and effort, but still you think about Facebook in spite of yourself. These thoughts too are involuntary. They differ from thoughts due to laziness or carelessness, intentionally daydreaming during prayer. As soon as you recognize them, you try to turn your mind back to Christ.

The mind was made to know. When it thinks, it is doing its job. You must make sure that what you put into your mind outside prayer won’t distract you from God during prayer. Just as you put healthy food in your body to keep digestion working smoothly, you put godly thoughts in your mind to keep your involuntary thoughts during prayer profitable.

In other words, during your day, think of God often. Regulate your thoughts outside of prayer. Are you spending a lot of time daydreaming? Are you thinking judgmental, malicious, or lustful thoughts? Break these habits outside of prayer. Follow the teaching of St. Paul:

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)

If your involuntary thoughts during prayer are of lovely and praiseworthy things, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

St. Teresa’s advice

St. Teresa of Avila writes in Interior Castle:

“We should not be distressed by reason of our thoughts, nor allow ourselves to be worried by them: if they come from the devil, he will let us alone if we take no notice of them; and if they are, as often happens, one of the many frailties entailed by Adam’s sin, let us be patient and suffer them for the love of God.” (Fourth Mansions, Chapter 1, 11)

Now when Teresa talks of “taking no notice” of our thoughts, she does not mean we should try to set aside all thoughts. Rather, she means that involuntary thoughts should not worry us, even if they should come form the Devil. She goes on to say that we will not suffer from wayward thoughts in heaven, and adds:

“Even in this life God delivers us from them when we reach the last mansion.” (ibid., 12)

If you are unfamiliar with Interior Castle, the last (or seventh) mansion is the transforming union, the heights of the spiritual life on earth. Even some saints do not attain this state. Teresa did, and she knew others who did as well. She was well-qualified to teach us about it. Only in this highest stage–long after the beginning of the contemplative life–should we expect freedom from our thoughts.

Teresa herself suffered for fourteen years from a wildly distracted mind in prayer. She writes:

“Some find their thoughts wandering so much that they cannot concentrate upon the same thing, but are always restless, to such an extent that, if they try to fix their thoughts upon God, they are attacked by a thousand foolish ideas and scruples and doubts concerning the Faith… There are a great many other people just like this; if they are humble, they will not, I think, be any the worse off in the end, but very much in the same state as those who enjoy numerous consolations.” (The Way of Perfection, Chapter 17)

Teresa is very practical. She does not ever counsel people to try to put aside all thoughts through their own power. She instructs everyone to strive to keep their thoughts focused on God, but she is understanding towards those who find this difficult.

“[I]t is impossible to speak to God and to the world at the same time; yet this is just what we are trying to do when we are saying our prayers and at the same time listening to the conversation of others or letting our thoughts wander on any matter that occurs to us, without making an effort to control them. There are occasions when one cannot help doing this: times of ill-health (especially in persons who suffer from melancholia); or times when our heads are tired, and, however hard we try, we cannot concentrate; or times when, for their own good, God allows His servants for days on end to go through great storms. And, although they are distressed and strive to calm themselves, they are unable to do so and incapable of attending to what they are saying, however hard they try, nor can they fix their understanding on anything: they seem to be in a frenzy, so distraught are they. The very suffering of anyone in this state will show her that she is not to blame, and she must not worry, for that only makes matters worse.” (ibid., Chapter 24)

What is Teresa’s solution? Not trying to avoid thinking any thoughts at all, but being patient and humble and trusting and doing one’s best.

In fact, Teresa gives the exact opposite advice that Fr. Keating and Contemplative Outreach give when it comes to setting aside one’s thoughts. She says:

“Taking it upon oneself to stop and suspend thought is what I mean should not be done; nor should we cease to work with the intellect, because otherwise we would be left like cold simpletons and be doing neither one thing nor the other. When the Lord suspends the intellect and causes it to stop, He Himself gives it that which holds its attention and makes it marvel and without reflection it understands more in the space of a Creed than we can understand with all our earthly diligence in many years. Trying to keep the soul’s faculties busy and thinking you can make them be quiet is foolish.” (Life,  Chapter 12)

Detachment is not primarily about thoughts

Detachment from thoughts is not the type of detachment that concerned the saints, because thought in itself, as we have seen, does not keep one from God. Emptying yourself of thoughts does not bring you into closer union with God.

“[T]he emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us.” (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, 19)

Instead of trying to ignore all thoughts in prayer, try to live in such a way that your involuntary thoughts glorify God. Avoid thinking about worldly things when you are talking to God. Think instead of godly things. Meditating on Sacred Scripture helps you to fill your mind with thoughts of God so that you can grow in knowledge and love of Him. Follow God’s will in the smallest details of your life outside prayer. Then if you have distracting thoughts in prayer that you can’t control, remain peaceful and entrust them to God. He will free you from them in His own way and time.

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