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Transcript:
Hi, I’m Jim Arraj, and
today we are going to meet Joseph Patchett, a man who has a deep
knowledge of Christian mysticism and St. John of the Cross, and this is
a knowledge that has come through his own conversion and his attempts to
live out the contemplative life, working at a regular job and as a
married man with six children. We visited him here in Manchester,
Massachusetts north of Boston.
Joe: I was born in 1935,
and Patchettland was out in the country and there were six of us
children. I was the second child, and it was a very peaceful, quiet
existence, nothing like we live today. When I was young my mother went
to work during the day and my father stayed home. We lived on a ranch
and we had a lot of time on the ranch. We used to play in the woods and
run wild, so to speak. We didn’t have a lot of chores. As we got older
we did have to help with the cows and we had more chores as we got
older, but I don’t know, it was just a very peaceful existence, happy,
no trauma, you know? Almost hard to describe unless you wrote a book
about it because it was so unusual compared with today’s life. We didn’t
have a lot of money. Mom used to make our shirts. We got one new pair of
shoes a year to go to school. I didn’t like to go to school. I had to
put those shoes on. We ran barefoot all summer. It was warm in
California.
Starting in high school I
can remember thinking that the people who knew what they wanted to do
were the lucky people because they would achieve something. They had a
goal and they would go after it. I never seemed to have one. I even went
to college for a quarter to study mechanical engineering, but I just
didn’t like it. I had no ambition. I liked to party, but I just didn’t
have any ambition. I worked at various jobs, one of which was a
fire-fighting job for the federal forestry, but that was seasonal. So,
having tried a quarter of college, and having worked for the forestry
for a season of eight months, I had nothing to do. I just decided to go
in the Air Force, I don’t know why. I think my dad was relieved. He
realized I was sort of floating, and he wondered what I was going to do
with my life, too. And I liked flying or the idea of flying, but I
didn’t go into pilot training or anything, I guess it was romantic, and
I thought the Air Force would be a highly disciplined, idealistic group
to be involved in, so I joined the Air Force for four years. It was an
easy thing to do, being young and foolish.
In the Air Force it just
seemed to me that people were aimless, and I was very disillusioned with
the Air Force because it was not that idealistic, and there was not that
much training and discipline required, and then the job became very
humdrum. It was radar. I just had this urgency to do something with my
life, to make some meaning out of my life. It was like I grew up the
minute I left home. I began to grow up, and I began to look for
something that is meaningful to dedicate my life to. And I began to read
all sorts of things that had to do with unusual things in science. I
don’t think you would call some of the reading... it was mystical types
of things in the non-religious sense.
I was driving a friend of
mine’s car, which was a big, old heavy Packard, and I was driving down a
road in California that was a two-lane road, it was an old road. It was
concrete, and it had just started to rain, and the first rain in
California on an old road like that is slippery because there is oil and
dust on the road, and it is starting to mix with the water. But I didn’t
know that at the time, and I didn’t know that the rear tires on the car
were bald, they were balonies. The speed limit was 55 and I was driving
about that speed, and I stepped on the gas to pass. I wasn’t driving
recklessly or anything, but as I turned back into my lane the car began
to go sideways down the road. Now, it went completely sideways, and I
tried to correct for it and took my foot off the gas, but it was like on
ice, and I am sliding down the road like this sideways at 60 miles an
hour, and sliding off the road gradually towards this huge tree, and I
could see this tree coming up for me, like I said, at 60 miles an hour,
and it is going to hit me right where I am sitting. So I laid down in
the seat. I was calm enough, and I just laid down in the seat just
before impact. The car sure enough did hit, folded in the car where I
was sitting, hit me on the rump, broke some bones in my lower back,
vertebrae, crushed them, and folded the car in. The car smashed against
that tree, and apparently people coming from behind and in the other
direction, they all saw me and they all missed me because I hit that
tree and the car went across the highway and it didn’t tip over and
landed in a ditch upright. Of course, I am lying in the seat, out of
breath and I can’t breathe. All of a sudden people come over and get the
other door open, and I remember one lady saying, “Oh, the poor man, the
poor person.” Right after that an ambulance came by from the Air Force
base right where I was stationed, and they stopped to see what was going
on, and they found out I belonged to the base, and they said, “Well,
we’ll take him on to base.” So they sort of lifted me out. I couldn’t
bend, and they lifted me onto a stretcher, put me in the ambulance and
took me to base where I laid there for it seems like about three days
until finally they said, “Gee, he’s got a broken back. We’ve got to send
him to the hospital.” You’ve heard about military doctors, at least in
the ‘50s. Sure enough, I did have crushed vertebrae in the lower back,
and the doctor said it was lucky I did not sever a spinal column.
So now I am in the
hospital recuperating, and after a couple of days they need to put a
full half-body cast to keep my spine straight while it heals. There is
no need for an operation, and they had to reset my back with the cast
on, which caused more pain than the original. I was on medication for
two or three days. That was quite severe pain. Anyway, then I was there
in the hospital to recuperate, and I was mainly on my back and not move
too much. Some friends from the base came, and the Master Sergeant
brought his girlfriend who brought me some books to read. Now, I don’t
know if he told her I was reading all these strange books about hypnosis
and mysterious types of things, and scientific things, or what. I don’t
know why she brought me these books, but they were rather unusual books.
One was a book written by a Hindu priest, not a Christian priest, a
Hindu, and he wrote the story of his life and the story of his coming to
America. But the most striking thing about that book, or about that man
was his trust in a living God who was the one true God, and he was a God
of love. And this priest trusted this God so completely, it was like he
had a personal relationship with him, and he trusted him to take care of
him even in miraculous ways if necessary. As I read this book for some
reason I was awed by the possibility of God, a living God who was a
loving God, the one true God, and since he was a God of love, he was
willing because of love to use his power to help anyone who would love
him in return, and trust him. And the more I read this book, the more I
was overwhelmed, really. I was getting more convinced, but I was
overwhelmed with this possibility of a God of love. You would think that
I would have known that God exists, that God is a God of love because I
was born and raised a Christian. I went to church every Sunday with my
folks as a child and as a young teenager, but I don’t remember ever
knowing this, or believing it. But as I read this book I was becoming
convinced and enamored by this God, and at some point while reading it I
began to make personal acts of trust and belief, faith, in this same
God. And as I did so, it was not an experience of I was just a human
being making interior acts. As I did so, it was a living experience that
happened where I would trust this God and he was there, and he would
support that trust, like encouraging me. It was something that was more
than just human, but it was so integrated to my humanity that I didn’t
stop and say something is happening to me, something mystical, something
extraordinary, I just started believing in this God and it was exciting,
and it was real. And the more I believed the more I wanted to believe,
and trust. It was as if the act of believing was also an act of love and
worship. But anyway, that’s sort of looking back on it. At the moment I
was just starting to believe, and as I believed I was entering into the
reality of this God of love who, since he was God, he had infinite
power. Since he was the God of love, he was willing to use this power to
help us as he helped this priest who was not even a Christian. I guessed
I sense that he would help me or anybody who would love him, and I was
very much aware that since he was a God of love, that’s all he wanted,
was love. How did I know it? I don’t know how I knew it. It was just
inside of me. It was like a reciprocal thing. The more I would believe,
the deeper it would happen, and I began to want to do this every moment.
I guess you could say it was like I was making contact with God, this
God, but I didn’t stop and say that at that time.
The first few days I just
wanted to keep reading that book. It was quite a thick book, so it took
a few days, but at the end of it I didn’t go back into the book as if I
needed to go back and get something from it. At the end of the book I
was ready to close the book, but I wanted to do this believing in God
and being aware of him, and in that process I was like entering into him
even though I was staying on the earth in the hospital bed. In my
consciousness, in my awareness I was like somehow entering deeper into
God. I wasn’t going up or away or anything, but in an interior way I was
getting closer to God and I began to want to continue this motion of
believing and loving. I didn’t call it loving then. It was like giving
and trusting, that was everything. I wanted to keep doing this every
moment, and I began not to want to talk to my roommate who was a very
talkative young person. I didn’t want to read any more. I didn’t want to
sleep anymore. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything
anymore but just continue this, I guess nowadays, you would call it a
dialogue. In this act of believing I was giving my heart and my mind to
this living God whose name I did not know other than he was the one true
God and he was the God of love, and he was honest and truthful. I was
giving my heart to him in trust, in belief, and he was giving himself
back to strengthen that or affirm that that act is true. It is
acceptable, and it is true, and it was a reciprocal ongoing thing.
That’s how I would describe it. It was reciprocal. It wasn’t just me
making acts, as I think most people think of making acts. We just make
them but we never get anything back. There is no conscious experiential
reciprocity, but what I went through at that time was a living
experience, so exciting.
So I am in the hospital
and recuperating, and I have all this time to read and more and more
make these interior acts as I am reading this book. Each day I start the
day reading on, and getting more caught up in the living trust rather
than the actual experience of this Hindu priest, and I just want to do
this more and more. I had a very talkative roommate, and he was very
interesting and very intelligent, and had had a lot of experience, but I
got to the point where I didn’t want to spend that much time listening
to his stories because it was taking me away from this interior act
which he could have no idea of what was going on. After being there for
a couple of weeks I could get up and walk around, and I would walk down
the hall and go down to the little library where there were magazines
and books, and I would sit there. I would take magazines off the rack
and look at them. They were magazines I was familiar with, but they were
like from another world. I wasn’t interested anymore. I saw it all in a
different light. I said, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Sort of like child’s
play. Something was going on inside of me that was touching eternity,
and it was far more beautiful than any magazine could ever display, or
anything else that I knew of had ever existed in this world, so I would
spend my time, not very long, there, I suppose time just to get away
from my talkative roommate so I could sit there and pretend to read, but
I didn’t read the magazines even. I just wanted to be in the presence of
this God who was pure love and very friendly and gentle, and because he
was God and unlimited power, that was not oppressive or threatening. He
did not present himself to me or to any other creature in existence in a
threatening way. It was not overwhelming in that sense. It was gentle,
interior presence. So I was just loving this ability. All I had to do
was raise my heart and mind to God, and he was like giving himself to me
in that. Not tremendous each time, but each time a little bit, and then
I would give myself completely, and he would give himself a little bit
more.
This went on until I got
out of the hospital. I had friends come and visit me. I was very happy.
I don’t know if they said, “Gee, he seems awfully happy for being bound
up in a body cast,” stuck away from work and doing all the things people
do when they recuperate and feel enslaved, but I didn’t feel enslaved at
all. I was having a great time, really, and I didn’t care whether I was
there or somewhere else as long as I could do this interior act. I had
friends come and visit me, and I even remember confessing my faults. All
of a sudden I had an awareness of what I thought were sins or faults
from my past life. I very readily asked forgiveness for everything that
I could think of, and then they left and I was back to this inner act of
giving myself wholly and trusting completely in God. And I wanted to do
this every conscious minute of my life and I really didn’t want to take
time out to eat or sleep, but I would get hungry and I would eat a
little bit, and I got tired so I would pass out and sleep. But the
minute I would wake up I would start in again making these acts of trust
and giving myself totally to God. It wasn’t forcing it, it wasn’t
forceful, it wasn’t artificially imposed, it was not something like we
often try to do – I concentrate on this and I work on this and there is
a certain amount of push. It wasn’t like that. It was always like
spontaneous and easy and desirable and coming from within. I was able
from within to do this.
I got out of the
hospital. I had to stay in the body cast for a couple of months. I had
to take leave from the service. I had a month leave for recuperation, I
had another month leave that was given to people who were going to be
shipped overseas because I was going to be stationed overseas, so I had
two month’s leave, and during this whole time, I mean it was great to
have a paid vacation. I didn’t have to work. My friend was free and
wanted to travel around. He was an older person and he had a car and he
wanted to travel around and see places that he had been in the
northwest, and a little farther to the Midwestern states, so I agreed to
go with him, and we just traveled around. But inside of me the real trip
was happening. I don’t like to use the term in the connotations it has
from people taking trips starting in the ‘60s, but it was a different
trip. It was wonderful. And basically it was always this simple act of,
“I give you everything and I trust you completely,” which was one act.
It wasn’t two. And as we spent this time, my friend knew something was
going on, and I began to tell him. And as he was older and had a lot
more experience with religions of the world, etc., he tried to put it in
a religious context, but there was no way I could really describe to him
or to anybody what was going on inside of me. And I liked to spend a lot
of time just looking at things of nature. I remember in San Francisco
sitting out on the edge of the bay of the harbor by the Golden Gate
bridge and looking at the ocean, and rocks. Everything natural was so
beautiful. It really was heavenly, and I loved to spend hours doing
that. So I began to read the New Testament with a voracious appetite
like I had gold in my hands, and I just knew that even though I didn’t
understand, I would understand what God wanted me to understand, and I
was of course learning about the Holy Spirit and about Jesus, and I was
making acts of faith: I believe in Jesus. I believe who he says he is,
the son of God. I believe the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit he sent,
that he said he would send, and he would teach me. I sort of knew that
by intuition, so I began to read the New Testament.
The experience was
getting less intense than it had been of course those first few weeks in
the hospital, and the first few weeks immediately following, but it
still was like the basic thing in my heart that all I wanted to do in my
consciousness. I just wanted to make these acts of completely trusting,
and completely giving myself to the living God who was everything. I
went to this church service, and I felt tears welling up in my eyes,
saying to myself, this is all true. This is beautiful. God in the person
of Jesus established churches, and it just struck me as being so
wonderful that he came and gave his life for us. So I was starting to
become aware of established religion, and before I was shipped overseas
I went on my own one night to the local chapel which was quiet, no one
there, of course, and I was born and raised in the Protestant church so
naturally I went to the Protestant chapel. I didn’t know there was any
other church, actually. The Episcopalian church I went to was a little
bit more ornate Protestant service than I was familiar with. I went to
this chapel that night. I remember there being a plain podium, I
suppose, an altar with a book on it, and some lilies. I think maybe I
was expecting to have some experience because by this time I was
believing that Jesus did establish a church. Maybe I expected his
presence there in a special way with this newfound faith. As I remember,
it was just sort of nothing. I didn’t feel anything. There was nothing
special other than the inner act. So I left. And my folks came to visit
me before shipping overseas, and I told them some of the things going
on, and I think they thought I was a little crazy. (laughs) How could
you describe this? It is impossible. I don’t know what they thought. I
think they did tell me later that they thought I was going a little off
my rocker, but they were glad to see I was back on track.
Well, the next thing that
happened was quite significant. I was going over to Okinawa, and in
those days we had old airplanes with propeller-driven airplanes, a big
4-engine super conie, noisy, couldn’t hear yourself think in the plane,
but that trip over to Hawaii up in the air was just beautiful. We landed
in Hawaii for a short stop-over for fuel, and that was beautiful, and
back in the plane, flying over the Pacific into the sun, and the sun was
taking a long time to go beneath the horizon because we were flying into
it. At that time, even though I was maybe not making explicit acts of
trust at that moment, I was more or less living in this aura by this
time, I would be living in this aura of living in the presence of the
living God, at that moment, an undefined moment, but just at a moment,
it was as though He left.
I could focus in a
different way on the sun. I could see it in a different way like my
senses came alive more definitely, and it was beautiful, but it was only
natural beauty. I was so aware. I can’t tell you how I felt. I felt like
a child who had been raised in love, and all of a sudden for no reason,
no apparent reason, was abandoned by their parents. Analogously, like a
child caught in war, and the parents are killed all of a sudden, and the
child is left alone, crying, why did this happen? Why did my parents
leave me? It was that kind of feeling even though, up there in the air
flying along and it was beautiful, I was so aware that it was only
natural. I was back on earth.
It was like an emptiness
and a loss, and what happened? How could this happen? I never expected
it to happen. I assumed that this new life I had been living was going
to be until I died because there was no other life. This was life with
God, Himself, and it was just beautiful, and this was what it was all
about. This was why He made us. This was what true sonship was like.
This was why Jesus came and took on our own flesh and our own nature, to
immerse us in this life. Where did He go? Why did He leave? Externally
you couldn’t say that anything was any different, but it shows how this
inner dynamism, this inner reciprocal relationship, how deep it was and
how real it was, and how it permeated my whole life in the short space
of – I suppose this whole thing occurred in the space of two months – I
think it was two or three months, total time.
So now I am up in the
plane flying on to my new assignment in Okinawa in the Air Force, and I
am going into darkness, analogously, a term used by the mystics, I was
going into a state of spiritual emptiness and loss, and a certain kind
of pain and loneliness, and wondering what happened, and I stayed in
that during the process of arriving at the new base, and on the way the
trip was still beautiful and exciting. We landed at Wake Island, we
landed at Guam, all new stuff to me, and thinking about the history
during the War and everything. It was all beautiful and interesting, but
it just was not the same any more. Landing at Okinawa, going to our new
base isolated up on the top of a mountain, starting my new assignment,
it was all exciting, and it was all sort of empty, or more than sort of.
It wasn’t hopeless. It was like deep, deep back I knew that this can’t
go on. This God who I was putting my trust and faith in, and who I was
developing a relationship with, I would say, was still there. I knew
that intellectually. I knew it. The basis of this was not despair. It
was just a loneliness, and wondering what happened, and what could I do
to be back in the presence of God?
I completed my first
radar shift, which I remember was a night shift so that we got off at
midnight, and I went down to – we had a little library room in our
barracks, and in that library room the priest from the large Air Force
base had put a lot of literature, he or somebody had put a lot of
literature. I found out later, I didn’t know it at the time, I just went
down and sat down sort of in the sense of emptiness, and I want to say
despair, but it wasn’t that heavy. It was just lost, and this feeling of
darkness and searching. It didn’t help anymore to read the Scriptures as
it had helped. The Scriptures had been so wonderful up to this point,
but reading the Scriptures didn’t help. No warmth, no consolation came
back, no presence. So I was sitting there in this library, leaning back,
sort of in a hopeless way, leafing through the books with my fingers,
and I pull out this book, and it says, The Imitation of Christ.
So, that’s good. The Scriptures weren’t doing anything, I’ll try
anything. I opened The Imitation of Christ. Well. This man
started talking about things that were – some life started coming back.
I said, “Oh, my goodness,” I was there for the whole night because what
this man talked about I said he could not have learned this except from
God, the God that I knew, had known, and of course some of this warmth,
pabulum, for a starving child was coming back. And in this book he was
talking about things I had never heard of, the Eucharist, communion that
was actually God, Himself, in His body and blood. What a fantastic idea.
I had never heard this in my life, but this man of holiness was talking
about this as if it was part of his religion, his denomination. And the
Mass. I had never heard of the Mass, and Confession, Penance. I didn’t
know exactly what he was talking about, these were all new things to me,
and I said, “Wow, this is really some religion,” but I read back to see
that the author lived back in the 1300s, which is centuries away, a long
time ago. I sort of was very enamored that this man had this holiness
that allowed him to speak such wisdom as he spoke in that book, but it
was a little sad that he lived in a religion that was so old. Maybe it
wasn’t around any more.
So I went to sleep
exhausted and got up in time to go back to work in the afternoon shift,
and did my shift, and after work went back down to the reading room.
Since I had had such a good experience the night before just picking out
different books, I went to the same section, and I tried it again. I
leafed through, I fingered through some more books there, and I am
pulling them out. I pulled out one, The Story of a Soul. Hmm.
Sounds good. I open it up, start reading. Again, this person is really
talking about things that really come from holiness and from the living
God. I knew this time it was a woman, and she was living in the same
kind of context as the author who wrote this other book, which I now
know is a monastic context, but I never knew about monks and cloistered
sisters when I read this book, but this sister was a young person, she
was writing about these holy things, and she was especially talking
about Communion as being the actual living God, Jesus, by a miraculous
transformation, existing whole and entire in this bread, and her
devotion and her faith were such that I could see it was true. I got
even more excited when I read when she lived – late 1800s! I said, “Wow,
now this is getting close.” Maybe this religion is still here. Maybe it
is still around. My idea was denominations, they come and go, and there
are hundreds of them. I didn’t have an idea that Jesus established a
church which He said was going to remain until the end of the world
because He was going to protect it. Now I am really getting excited. My
heart is pounding, you know, because reading these books of holiness was
a process of seeing that there existed in the concrete what I had
experienced in my heart over an extended period of time, and then of
course for unknown reasons I lost for a few days, and I was devastated
in a way, but now that I am finding something like this in the concrete,
this is very hopeful. There are other people over a period of centuries
who have experienced these kinds of things and have written about them,
and if there are these two, there are probably more. It was very
exciting.
I looked around the
library and I found a magazine, I think it was The Sign magazine,
and from that I got the idea that this church was still here. It has the
Eucharist, has the Mass, has saints. I found out these people were
saints. They called them saints. So it was after that that I said to my
friend, what about this Catholic Church? Are there any around? Do you
know anything about them? And he mentioned it to John Hawkins, and John
Hawkins said to me, “I hear you are interested in becoming a Catholic.”
Well, I never did form those words in my mind before, but the minute he
said that, something clicked, I guess. I said, “Yeah.” (laughs) He said,
“OK. I’ll introduce you to the priest when we get down to the main
base,” and I said, “OK.” A little bit of fear and trepidation, but I
said, “OK, let’s do it,” which he did. We went to the chaplain, Fr.
Rooter, I think was his name. I said, “Hi, Father,” and we were
introduced. I said, “My name is Joe Patchett, I am living up there in
the radar site, and I want to become a Catholic.” He told me later, he
said, “Wow, what am I going to do? I have a convert on my hands here,
and I don’t know how I am ever going to instruct him up in that radar
site,” but he said, “OK.” He gave me book, and then another one, and
then he started looking, and said here’s another one. And pretty soon he
had a pile of books that high.
Two months the father
came to our site. He said, “Joe, I came to see how it is going. How is
it going?” And we talked for a while, and at the end of our talk he
said, “I think you are ready.” “Wow. All ready so soon? Fantastic. If
you say I’m ready, OK.” So we made a date that I should receive
conditional baptism because I didn’t know if I had been baptized or just
christened in my church, so I was to receive conditional baptism. First
I needed to go to confession because I was older, and then I could
receive Eucharist. So we made the date. I went down to the main base.
Actually the Confession was a lot easier than I thought. “Oh my
goodness, I’ve got all these years of sin that I have to confess.” I had
never been to Confession, and I didn’t know. I thought this was going to
take hours, too. It was a piece of cake. The father would say, “Now this
is the first commandment,” and he would repeat it, and ask, “Now did you
ever worship false gods that you know of?” I said, “No.” He just went
down the list. He would ask me questions, and I would say yes or no, and
how many times. It was a piece of cake. It was great. Then I received
First Communion. I was learning about faith from all the reading, but I
suppose I expected maybe when I received Communion heaven and earth
would open up for a moment. After that experience I think it was natural
to expect something fantastic, and instead it was just the gentle,
peaceful presence of the Lord, but not the same as that really dynamic
conversion experience, but it was just a gentle, presence of the Lord,
and it was wonderful.
Well, very soon after my
entrance into the Catholic Church I began to read more books available
written by Catholics, and one of the first I read was The Seven Story
Mountain, which was the story of the conversion of a person about my
same age. So that was very interesting to me, Thomas Merton, and from
there I read other books that were in existence that he had written, and
in these books, one of them, I don’t know which book it was, Ascent to
Truth perhaps, he mentioned St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the
Cross, and something of what they said. And as I remember, when I read
about those saints and what they said, I was so overwhelmed. I think my
heart beat so hard, I was so excited that I cannot really describe in
words how excited I was. I think my hands became sweaty as I held those
books and I read about that, that existence of what John of the Cross
was calling contemplation. To me that was just a word, but it was
describing this inner reality of God touching us and our response to
him, and he was describing it in such a solid way that one of the first
things I was impressed with was this kind of life, this dynamic
relationship, very intimate dynamic relationship with God can be an
ongoing thing. It is not going to be a conversion experience that is
going to stop and then I am going to be back, or any of us are just
going to be back in our old humanity.
I must have seen that
this contemplation is an extension of the very relationship that I at
first took for granted would be the basic relationship we have with God.
I assumed that everybody who was Christian would have this very deep
experience of God that I had during my conversion years, but going
through that period of darkness and then that period of starting to
learn what faith is and trying to live in faith and coming to a new
Catholic Christian, I suppose I was looking at the possibility that we
live for a time with human consciousness only, but when I began to look
at the possibility of contemplation, I am sure instinctively I said,
“This is that touch of that life, or I have had a touch of this life,
and I want to live this life.” And I couldn’t really see what other kind
of life there would be to live as a Christian. It was like an inner
attraction, I would say. I didn’t say explicitly, “Oh, I am called to be
a contemplative, or I am called to be a monk,” or anything like that.
That never came to me at that time. It was just an inner attraction.
Because of that
experience, I think I expected to have experiences like that again,
maybe even deeper. Perhaps at first I expected contemplation to be like
that, a continuation of that experience. And so often, more often than
not, the literature that you read on contemplation can give you that
impression. It is an altered state of existence. It is an experience of
God where you see God alive in nature and beyond. I probably from having
come to God through this tremendous experience expected to experience
God again.
Like I say, after all,
the literature encourages you in that direction. And I must honestly say
that God treated me like a child, and gave me some experiences from time
to time, sometimes moments that were so deep that I could relate to what
St. John of the Cross was saying and Teresa of Avila, moments that they
described that are moments of contemplative prayer which only served to
fuel me and encourage me on towards contemplation.
I suppose because of the
experience I was hoping to someday live in an altered state of
consciousness perpetually. (laughs) You know? I mean, if you’ve been to
heaven, who wouldn’t want to go back and stay there? I understand that
from that experience. I understand St. Paul saying, “For me to live is
Christ, but to die is gain.” You know? “And I don’t know which I want,”
he says, “because I know I’m doing a lot of good here, but I’d really
rather be with Christ.” I understand that from the experience, and when
John of the Cross talks at length about what it is like to live in the
state of union, transforming union, he has a lot to say on that. I could
relate to that as one looking, and say, “Yes, I believe. I see that it
is possible.” I would like to do it, and I could relate to it as
something very real. As John says, it is the most wonderful thing
that could happen to mankind, to any human being. It is the highest
state of man. I could relate to it that way, but I couldn’t relate to it
and say I’ve been there and I’m just waiting to get back. I couldn’t say
that. I knew that that is a different state than my conversion
experience, but that was a taste of it, a very real taste. It wasn’t an
artificial taste. It was a real taste, so naturally that affected my
whole outlook as it would anybody that I can think of.
I did what most people
who have tried for any length of time to live a contemplative life
wherever they were, have done. I tried everything. (laughs) I tried so
many things you wouldn’t believe it. I’d hate to catalog them all.
Anything and everything. Let’s see. What have I actually tried to do? I
tried to go to a monastic community, but I felt clearly God wasn’t
calling me, so I wouldn’t go if God wasn’t called me, but I would have
gone. I would have tried. I would have been happy to be a Camaldolese
monk. I would have been happy as a lark because then all I would have to
do is seek contemplation, right? (laughs) I mean, to me that’s the best
of all worlds to be a Camaldolese monk. But I did go into religious
life, thinking that was my calling. While I was in religious life
luckily the founder of our Order was a man who though very active, a St.
Paul type of missionary person, his spirituality was very conducive to
contemplation if you understand it rightly, and as I lived out the
religious life I was always trying to be a contemplative although I
never sat down and said I want to be a contemplative, or I didn’t say,
“God, please grant me contemplative prayer at this moment,” but I was
always in that attitude of trying to be quiet and be a contemplative. I
began to read with more hope and very definite intention John of the
Cross and Teresa of Avila while I was in religious life, especially
Teresa of Avila. I depended on her. She was so practical and helpful for
me in the first few years of religious life in novitiate. And John of
the Cross was difficult to absorb so I would set him aside except I
would read “The Canticle of Canticles” and “The Living Flame of Love” to
see where I’m going – give me hope for the journey, right? Even though
people would say, “You shouldn’t read that stuff. You are just a novice,
and you might go off the deep end.” But to me it was like taking a
little taste of the cake before you could eat the whole thing, you know,
to give me some strength and inspiration of where I was going. But I
would in a practical way read the beginning parts of John of the Cross,
but it was very tough to take, so I would read Teresa of Avila, and for
quite a few years I did that in religious life.
Then towards the end of
religious life things in a way became chaotic. It was the beginning of
the Vatican Council and all sorts of changes began to occur. It was very
exciting, all these new things, but for me, being a convert and seeing
all the fantastic beauty that had existed in the church up until this
point now, for 1900 years, that was 99% of the wonderful, beautiful
substance that I wanted. Wisdom was there. So I couldn’t get that
excited about all the new stuff that everybody seemed to be excited
about. In a lot of ways I had the opposite reaction. While everybody was
running here and there to do all this new wonderful stuff, I was looking
more into, this is what I really want. I want this wisdom that John of
the Cross talks about, that my own founder, St. Louis de Montfort, talks
about. This is what I want. I began to pray more and more in religious
life, and spend time, hours and hours and hours that maybe other people
were spending studying, or recreation, I would spend just praying. I
literally stayed in my closet. Literally. I don’t know why, but I just
wanted this, and I read John of the Cross, and by this time I had
received the gift of his completed works, and I was wearing that book
out. So I did that with a very lively hope.
It took several years for
me to find out, because I resisted it very greatly, but when I found out
I was not called to religious life, I think at the same time I suffered
an inner despair which I never acknowledged or put a name on. I think I
despaired of contemplation, and the goal of union that John says is the
natural goal of contemplation. I mean, that’s why people become
contemplatives is to become in union with God, to have an intimate
relationship with God. I think I despaired of that without, like I said,
putting a name on it. But deep down inside, in that murky area of the
psyche, I think I despaired of it, and didn’t actively seek the
spiritual life in my first years of marriage. As I look back, it was a
kind of despair. Well, that’s not very good faith, I know, but that’s
what happened. Rationally if someone had said to me, “Are you despairing
of the spiritual life?” – I still was a Christian, a Catholic Christian,
I still went to Mass and so forth, did the basics – but I might have
said on the surface, “Well, you know, I still want the same things I
ever wanted,” but deep down inside I think I despaired of contemplation
and the goal of contemplation. And so in a way that was a devastating
period. It had a tremendous effect on my marriage, but then, on the
other hand, being caught up in all the beauties and wonders of marriage
and children takes a lot of your time and attention.
Now, during that time,
sort of like I guess an expression of despair, which was one of these
heavy, depressing, painful despairs, I got to drinking wine. It was like
an outer symbol of the inner thing that was lost, being happy and high.
Right? The wine of the vine and not the wine of the spirit. I finally
went to excess where I had to stop and change my lifestyle. Now the
period between getting married and seeing that I had to stop and change
my lifestyle was about, I’d say, five years, and at that midpoint I
began to say, “I have to put the spiritual life first. That’s all there
is.” I didn’t at that point immediately start saying I’m going to be a
contemplative. I was too far away from it at that point. But the path
back towards desiring to be a contemplative, now I’m married and in the
world, there’s no question or even thought of monastic life or anything
like that, but I said as many people were saying since the age of
renewal, contemplation must be possible for the layman. Contemplation is
for the layman. That was a loud voice in the renewal, and still is a
loud voice.
So I began to try to lead
a spiritual life again, and experience the wine of the spirit instead of
the wine of the vine, become sober and be more faithful. I began reading
John of the Cross again, and I began reading The True Devotion to Mary,
the spirituality of our Order, and rededicating myself to God and to Our
Blessed Mother. This was a step-by-step slow process that went on for
the next five years.
I began to gain a real,
definite, practical hope for the first time in my life of living the
contemplative life as described by John of the Cross, and I began to
read John of the Cross in my spare moments, and devour him. And I began
to see things that I had read many times over the years before that I
had never seen before. And it was amidst times of darkness and anxiety
and trial and a certain kind of suffering that this came about. The
troubles of a very active ministry was the context where I could for the
first time solidly, definitely, look at John of the Cross and say, “This
is practical. I can do this with God’s help.”
Contemplation is
essentially indescribable. That’s very important to realize from the
beginning. Because of that, anybody who talks about contemplation is in
a real way going to always talk around it and about it, and that’s the
best we can do because contemplation in itself is God, himself, in his
inner being touching us in our inner being. You might say soul to soul,
spirit to spirit. It has no form. That’s why you can’t describe it. It
is God, himself. John of the Cross uses crystal clear analogies, like he
gives the analogy of a light. It is like a ray of light striking the
soul. It is the pure love of God touching the soul, and of course if you
understand that the soul of man is an integral reality of intellect,
will, the spiritual soul, anything that touches the soul is going to
have some effect on the mind, the spiritual intellect, the will and the
memory.
But anyway, he describes
it as a ray of light, the pure love of God being poured forth into the
soul of man. The mystical tradition, the Catholic church, uses the term
infusion, infused love poured in. It is an immediately contact with God,
initiated by him. It is divine, so you cannot initiate it. It is beyond
human nature to initiate it, only to receive it.
Some people will describe
contemplation in such general terms that they will say everybody is a
contemplative, and there is truth to that when you describe
contemplation as being divine love that is infused into the heart and
soul of man because we know that divine love is infused into our soul
even at baptism, and then it increases as we live the Christian life, in
that sense. But in the sense that John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila
describe, not even half of people who are sincere, intent, totally
dedicated, consecrated to God, completely intent on loving God above all
things, seeking perfection in all terms, not even half of those are
called by God to contemplation. And they have to be called because God
is the initiator. You cannot initiate contemplation, yourself. You will
hear people talk about contemplation as though you could, like, at one
point John has the description, well, this beautiful light which is God
is living in us all the time. All we need to do is get rid of the
impediments and it will shine forth through us into our faculties, etc.
He has an expression like that, which if you take that in the universal
interpretation, you would say, yes, and therefore we can all become
contemplatives if we just get rid of the impediments, or attachments,
etc. This light will shine forth and we will become contemplatives. But
John does not give it that kind of universal interpretation. He says in
his overall descriptions and works and his intention, he affirms what he
says, that not all are called by God to contemplation, not even half,
and nobody knows why except God. God alone knows why.
Now if you want to find
somebody who you think is a contemplative you can find quite a few
people. They seem very contemplative, but if you go ask them, most of
the time they will say, “No, I don’t think so,” even though they might
really be. If you ask some people who are knowledgeable about what
contemplation is, “Are there many contemplatives?” they will say, “Yes,
I think there are.” At the same time they will often admit, “But they
don’t know it.” And neither does the rest of the world. They suspect it.
So are there a lot? I think there are, but can I point them out, no. I
can’t even point to myself and say for sure, “Yeah, you’re a
contemplative.” I wish I could in a way. I did have one person say to
me, once, “I’m a contemplative, and I’ve been through the dark night of
sense,” – this person was familiar with John of the Cross and had been
through the dark night of spirit – “and I am a contemplative.” It is the
only person I have ever met that would say that to me. (laughs) But I
could not affirm or deny that they actually were. I hope there are many.
I suspect there are many.
You ask God for this
gift, and you do everything you can to prepare for it. John of the Cross
has quite an explicit asceticism, and Teresa of Avila complements that.
She gives advice as to what to do as far as preparing yourself to be a
contemplative, but much of their advice could be taken, too, for just
how do you live a good Christian life. How do you seek union with God
whether you are called to be a contemplative or not? That advice could
be used. But anyway, you do that. You try to prepare yourself. You try
to get rid of the things in your life that are impediments, and you try
to open yourself to the gift and be totally dedicated and committed to
God. And to me that means committed to his church, after the example of
the saints and the teaching of the church, seeing in that an act of
faith in Jesus, himself, who is embodied in the church and his
authority, too, so I do that, too. I think many people do. I think that
many people who do the same thing. They are totally committed to the
church, not because of external, human authority, but because of
internal faith where they are saying, “This is Jesus embodied, this is
his church. He is teaching us, and so I need to be faithful.”
Teresa describes
contemplative prayer, using the really neat analogy of the person who
goes to the well to get water. In those days you had to dip the bucket
down and crank it up, and carry it back and pour it in its receptacle.
And I relate to that having been raised on the farm before we had
electricity and we had to go pump the water. We had to pump it in a
bucket and somebody always had that chore, and it becomes a chore,
especially in the cold mornings and late at night when you are tired and
you have to go get the water, and that’s what they had to do in Teresa’s
day. While she’s talking from the experience of religious life, they are
praying every day, they are trying to get – you could say they are
trying to get close to the Lord and experience his love and devotion.
And they have different ways of doing it and experiencing it through
their reading and their meditation, and the saints are calling that
active effort, like the person who has to go get the water.
All of a sudden something
happens in their prayer where they don’t have to do all this effort. You
don’t have to go get the water. God brings the water to you in the
bucket, pours it out. (laughs) All of a sudden you just be quiet, and
the Lord is there and he is absorbing, maybe in a very mild way at
first, very gentle, but he is absorbing your mind and your will. Or
sometimes he is just absorbing your will, and you know it. Your will is
gone with him – it seems funny to say at first that the will can be
separated from your intellect, or that there are levels in the
intellect, and one part can be distracted and floating here and there
like it is used to, and still the will is absorbed by God. But that can
happen in this prayer of contemplation, and the saints describe that. So
the analogy that now God brings you the water and pours it is a good
analogy.
John has another
description of the prayer of quiet, but it is absorption. You are
absorbed by God. You may not know what is going on, but you know
whatever is going on is very good, and you just want to stay there and
be there with God for as long as it takes. Sometimes time disappears.
Your consciousness of time is only a few minutes, and a half hour or an
hour disappears, just like that. And you know when you become conscious
of time again that something wonderful was happening, but you don’t know
exactly what. You just know it was peaceful, and God was the cause of
it. You know an evil spirit was not the cause of it. Some people have
experiences of false prayer because they are trying so hard, and the
deceptive spirit sees that, and God allows him to take over, and they
are going into sort of a thing where they feel they are absorbed in, a
sort of rosy feeling, and they might stay for a half hour in this, and
there is a certain amount of conscious effort in it, but afterwards it
is not peaceful and they are upset and they are more egotistic and
agitated. If they have time and grace to reflect on it, they realize
that was not God, even though the externals of it if they know about
being absorbed in prayer, they might have thought, “Oh, I am absorbed in
prayer now,” and they really focus their attention on it.
Now some people pray
simply. They have come to the point where they pray simply over long
periods of their life and they take for granted that that is the way to
pray. If you were to ask them, they would say, “Well, I did all the
words and the meditation. I just like to be quiet now.” There is the one
man in the Curia of Ars story goes, “I just sit there and look at God
and God looks at me.” Probably a contemplative prayer. You meet a lot of
people that probably pray simply. It’s probably contemplative prayer
because contemplative prayer of itself is obscure and not perceptible to
our senses, but we go by our senses, so how do we know anything about
it? It’s not conceptual. It doesn’t come through concepts. So that’s why
I say there is no description possible for it. But as it intensifies
different affects happen to us, and then we identify, and we say that
probably it was contemplation.
Contemplation in its
essence is mysterious. We just know from the masters, and thank God he
gave us those masters, to speak clearly. He gave them the insight and
the ability to speak clearly of what it is, masters that were doctors of
the church now like John and Teresa, and they do speak clearly. I don’t
think that God gives us, most of us, or anybody who is a contemplative,
he gives them that clear knowledge. Maybe in a moment here and a moment
there, but the rest of the time he leaves them in obscurity, and John
describes a reason for that, so they can live in the merit of faith and
increase in faith because that is like the pearl of great price. The
greater is their faith, the greater is their union with God. It is
intimately linked with love, divine love and faith. They always grow
together in this life.
So that’s one of the
reasons, at least, you can see that God would keep people who are
contemplatives in obscurity about their contemplation. Plus, like I say,
it is naturally obscure by nature. Contemplation is obscure. Now as
contemplation intensifies it causes actual pain. At that point the pain
is of such a nature that people need support and help from a good
director who knows what is happening, or from other people around who
are contemplatives and who can be supportive. If they don’t have this
support they are very tempted to slow down or stop. In Teresa of Avila’s
case, every time she would go to pray she would be attacked by all sorts
of terrible pings and noises, and temptations, “What are you doing? This
is stupid. You are wasting your time.” Or maybe more sensible things.
She would be attacked so she would give up prayer. “I don’t want to do
that because, good heavens, all the trouble it is causing me.” Right?
That happens to contemplatives in that when the contemplation that God
is giving intensifies, it is such a bright light, it brings to light all
their faults, and they feel more horrible about themselves than they
ever did in their whole life. And they say, “Something must be wrong. I
must be doing something wrong or I wouldn’t be having all these horrible
experiences.” They want to stop and go backwards, and for that reason
John of the Cross goes to great lengths to describe this so that people
won’t go back. They won’t go backwards. At the very moment they are
becoming more intensive contemplatives, they think just the opposite and
they want to quit.
But I think the most
enduring, substantial sign is that you want to be a contemplative, and
of course by that I mean you just don’t want it once and then you forget
it. You want it the first day, and the second day, and the third day,
and you even do things to increase that desire. And after going through
all the troubles that you go through that happen to you through the
normal course of life, you still want to be a contemplative, and that
want is not only in the intentional realm, most people who really want
something do all they can about it. If all they do is read, or talk to
somebody, or spend a little snatch of time here and there just being
quiet and saying, “Oh, God, I wish I could be a contemplative,” but it’s
the desire. Where did that desire come from, that enduring, persevering
desire? That was a gift of God.
I tend to say I would not
want to put any limitations on the way God calls people because it seems
to be so diverse anyway. You meet people from all different experiences,
and how they come to contemplation, the desire of it, it seems to be
different in every case. I do think, though, that if somebody keeps
trying, which is going to include, now, they are doing their best to
lead a Christian life, they will have experiences that will encourage
them to continue on.
It is interesting that
the author of The Cloud of Unknowing advises people to pursue this
contemplative life only after they have pursued what he calls the active
life, which means, as I understand it, they have done their best to lead
a good Christian life, acquire the virtues, do the active works of a
Christian, not necessarily be a missionary or in ministry, but led a
good Christian life in whatever their vocation is, and they have done
that for some time where they become mature Christians. And I think the
reason why he advises that is that he knows that once the contemplative
grace comes, now you’ve got to understand what I am saying, but it could
destroy you. You know? (laughs) It could really destroy you if you don’t
have maturity. You read John of the Cross as far as the darkness comes,
you could understand that, “Oh, yeah, wow. What if this happens to me,
is that what contemplation is?” So good solid...
On the other hand, I
think that the grace of divine love, of itself, causes the virtues to
increase, and maturity to happen, and strengthens you in every way, and
John will describe that in his treatment of beginners. He will say
divine love does cause humility, but then you will have these faults,
and you’ve got to work on them.
Do everything you can to
be faithful to God in your Christian life. Cut out all impediments. Give
up all attachments that you have seen are an impediment as best you can.
And on the positive side you will start doing everything you can to be
faithful if you are not yet doing it like you will pray on a regular
basis. You will pray the prayers of the church. You will go to Mass, you
know? Confession. You will do all the basic things. At the same time you
will nourish this desire for contemplation by reading the masters
according to your own ability. Some people could not even begin to read
John of the Cross. They just could not. Forget it. But they might be
very inspired by reading the example of St. Therese the Little Flower,
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, The Cloud of Unknowing. It is very
simply written, but they would do reading. They might if they have the
availability, they might go talk to contemplative nuns, the Carmelite
nuns, or the Trappistines or they might talk to someone they’ve heard
among the priesthood or religious life who they heard was contemplative.
I don’t know. I imagine
there are a lot of things other people will say you can do for
contemplation, but mainly it is a gift of God. I think the main thing is
to ask him and dispose yourself for it. A lot of people will get the
idea that it is being quiet. I have to be quiet. I have to be away. And
then once they are away they will try to be quiet in their senses and
their faculties by in a way holding their breath. “I’ve got to hold my
breath.” It is a natural thing, but we all do that at times. But that is
not going to gain you contemplation.
I think that one of the
first things they’ve got to overcome is to say, “God is not going to
give me the grace to be a contemplative because if he was, why would he
have me living in this world? It’s chaotic. Gotta go to work every day.
It is very mundane. I’m just a cog in the wheel. No one would miss me.
Why do I have to be here? I want to be a contemplative.” That’s one of
the first things that you have to overcome is that you may not be able
to know God’s plan as far as... You may have to overcome the thing that
if God wanted me to be a contemplative he would have put me in a
monastery, and therefore I am not called. You have to get over that,
that God will grant you this most marvelous gift that he has that I know
of of contemplation if you want it. OK?
Now, practical things.
You have to nourish that desire as best you can like reading and doing
the basic things of Christian living, being faithful to Christian
living, but you have to take the snatches of time that are necessary to
pray, and included in that is the meditative spiritual reading. You have
to take that time. Now, you might not find much time. I know people who
find it nearly impossible to take a half hour a day of mental prayer.
They have a half hour a day of Vespers and Lauds, Vespers in the morning
and Lauds in the evening, 15 minutes per time, and that’s the only time
they can get. Or if they are in the right context they get away during
lunch hour to Mass, but they can’t get that half hour just to be quiet
and do their mental prayer. Active people. I don’t think that’s
uncommon.
I am of such a
disposition and my work habits are such that I often can get my half
hour in, but what if you are tired? I work the night shift. What if
you’re tired and exhausted and you have other things to do? It can be
difficult. Or if you force it in a way. Say, “I don’t care. Everything
just has to drop. I’m going to take my half hour just to be with God
because I want to be a contemplative.” You might take the half hour and
you might fall asleep. (laughs) And you might say, “Gee, if I hadn’t
taken a half hour I could have gotten this work done.” You just have to
do it on a regular, disciplined basis. The discipline of it is to do it
on a regular basis. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is to
not get discouraged that God will not grant you this marvelous wonderful
gift. He will always encourage you, too. So you just have to do it. Now,
it is interesting that the author of The Cloud of Unknowing gives a
practical description of how to be a contemplative, and he will say,
“Now you might think from what I have said that this takes a long time.”
He says, “It doesn’t take a long time. It takes only an instant.” Now,
that’s interesting, because what he is talking about is contemplation.
God infuses this. The God who lives outside of time and is not bound by
time, he infuses something infinite just like that. (snaps his fingers)
So it doesn’t take time like you think. And you talk to people and you
see that they do experience these things like out of the blue. It might
be during lunch break at work, or it might be when they are exhausted at
night and they are thinking of going to bed, or it could be any crazy
time. All of a sudden, it happens, you know, and that’s encouraging. And
they ought to say at that point, “That was contemplation. That was
contemplative.” Or they will just know it without even saying it, but
sometimes you have to tell yourself to encourage yourself to keep
trying.
The best way that I know
of, the most important thing if you can take it, is to consecrate
yourself to the Blessed Virgin, consecrate yourself to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, consecrate yourself as completely and entirely as you
can. A good example of how complete this can be is The True Devotion to
the Blessed Virgin Mary by St. Louis de Montfort. Or a condensed work of
the same message called The Secret of Mary by St. Louis de Montfort.
This is the best, most perfect way anybody that I know of can obtain
contemplation because she holds this gift, as all the gifts of the
redemptive gifts of the body of Christ, figuratively, in her hands to
give to whom she wills, when she wills, as much as she wills. Like I
say, this might sound strange and be hard to take, but if you can take
it, this is the best way.
Very really you must
understand that this is not something anybody can do. There is a whole
thrust of effort out there of people who are going about it as though
there is something you can do – centering prayer – and spend these
hours, and be passive, and quiet the senses, and concentrate on this,
and use this Eastern method of Zen, and it will bring you to this other
consciousness, and that’s contemplation, and so forth and so on. There
is a whole ton of stuff like that. I would say, “No. None of it.” I
mean, you can do those things because they are good and healthy, and it
can be the context that since it is good, it makes it easier for God to
infuse this gift, but in itself, no, there is nothing you can do. God
grants this gift when he wants to, and how he wants to, and how much he
wants to. Ask him. Try to be as best disposed as you can. Use the
discipline of the basic Christian life of commitment. Go as far as you
can with it. But ask him. Continue to desire it. God loves a person of
desires, like David. “David, you are a man of desires. I am going to
grant your heart’s desires.” Do that.
The second thing, be
aware of the obvious, that God is everywhere all the time. He is
present, loving us all the time. He wants to love us. He wants to grant
us this gift. That’s why he gave the desire. When we start to be
contemplatives, all of heaven rejoices. All the angels and saints
rejoice the moment somebody becomes a contemplative. And the moment they
overcome all their faults and enter into betrothal, all of heaven
rejoices again, (laughs) because the grace of union that comes from
contemplation is so great that one moment of it is worth more for the
salvation of the whole world, and for the benefit of the whole church,
than anything you have ever done all your life no matter how much it
was, no matter how heroic and sacrificial and blood-letting, this one
moment of divine union through contemplation is worth more. And that’s
why all of heaven rejoices. You have to realize that’s true, and go for
it. Why, you’ve got the greatest person on your side wanting you to go
for it, which is God, himself. |
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