Are you unclear about what the spiritual journey is, feeling overwhelmed in a dark night, or fear that you are not “making progress” in contemplation?
We encounter (difficulties on the spiritual journey) because there is a circular structure to a spiral staircase and hence horizontally we seem to meet the same old problem. But vertically we are now dealing with it at a more mature level....
By leading us gradually (the way human things work), through growth in trust and humility, we are able to make an ever deeper surrender of ourselves to God. In this way we reach a new level of interior freedom, a deeper purity of heart, and an increasing union with the Spirit.
Thomas Keating
The Ladder of Divine Ascent
I live not now with my own life but with the life of Christ within me. Gal 2: 20
...one should know that a soul must ordinarily pass through two principle kinds of night (which spiritual persons call purgations of purifications of the soul) in order to reach the state of perfection. Here we shall call these purgations nights, because in both of them the soul journeys in darkness as though by night. Saint John of the Cross
Enter eagerly into the treasure-house that lies within you, and so you will see the treasure-house of heaven; for the two are the same, and there is but one entry for them both.
The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within you, and is found in your own soul. Dive into yourself and in your soul you will discover the rungs by which to ascend.
Saint Isaac the Syrian
Christ’s Ascension
The final mystery that makes available the fullness of His life’s revelation to those who follow him on the contemplative journey
The difference between the beginning and the end of the journey is simply that we are fully conscious at the end.
Fr. Lawrence Freeman
When the path was unclear, God gave me a compass,
When the path darkened, God gave me a new way of seeing,
When the path seemed endless, God let me find fullness right where I was.
David Frenette
A Spiral Path
Thomas Keating uses the dynamic and “incarnational” image of a spiral staircase to describe the spiritual journey. Like other traditional images such as the ladder or mountain, the spiral staircase has a vertical dimension -- the stages of the journey as the divine life of Christ unfolds in us. Yet the spiral also includes the horizontal, human dimension of the spiritual journey -- the existential experience of going through and repeating emotional and life issues.
“Practicing According to your Spiritual Stage” presents the teaching of the spiral and then brings forth its practical implications for those on the journey. It helps you better understand how to navigate the vertical stages as they unfold in you, gives you insight into how to work with the horizontal challenges, and makes the spiritual journey a little easier.
This branch of The Path of Centering Prayer emphasizes practicing according to the specific stage of the journey you are at, suggests guidelines for avoiding becoming trapped in the dark nights, and offers ways of responding better to the common human experience of “not making progress.”
Learning the tasks of each of the traditional stages -- purification, illumination and union -- knowing their sub-stages, understanding how our own uniqueness comes into play, and experiencing how to include your humanity in each new transcendent stage will help you grow in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of your human life with God.
The Third Branch:
