The contemplatio: in order to be immersed in the divine mode
This is perhaps the point least understood, the hardest and also the one which can appear most indistinct or evanescent. Also because the mind, usually taken up with many worries, is not sufficiently free to reach it easily.
Here St. Teresa of Avila’s view of prayer could be better understood: “An intimate relationship of friendship, a staying completely alone with the One by whom we know we are loved.” In the lectio God speaks to me and in the oratio I answer Him.
But it is at this point that I perceive that that Word is a message which comes from his heart and intends to touch my heart. The One who loves me is conversing with me and I respond to him, opening my heart to him, experiencing the emotion of being the object of his attention, feeling all his tenderness for me, his remembering me, his love: Look: my Beloved is talking to me and my heart leaps!
This, therefore, is a very important moment, because it permits entry into the divine world, from which the Word comes and to which the Word wishes to bring one.
The Word is given us not only so that we can answer the question “what to do”, but also to answer the question: “what to hope for’”.
Christianity is not or primarily an ethics, but a promise: the promise to possess the Kingdom, to enter into communion with God, to be immersed in Him beginning with the present moment in order to reach fullness beyond death where God will be our fulfillment, our All.
And all of this which corresponds to our heart’s deepest desire, only the Word of God can announce and communicate it. Only the Word can immerse us into the eternal, the infinite, into our homeland, where our identity lives, and where the full revelation of the divine reality awaits us.
Being immersed into the infinite and the eternal: “thus among this immensity my thought drowns and the drowning in this sea is sweet to me”... this is one of the fruits of contemplatio!
A few indications on this point:
a) Contemplatio arises first of all from amazement and admiration for le mirabilia Dei, the
marvels of God. It is the excitement, the letting oneself be enchanted and seduced by the mystery of God, the divine realities that precede us, accompany us and await us.
Contemplatio is necessary in order to get out of ourselves, to burn our omnipresent narcissism, in order not to withdraw into or hover in vain over our own problems.
These basic attitudes spring from silence, a silence that sometimes can appear empty or boring, that can push you to close the book and move on to something else, because it gives the impression that by now everything’s ended. Instead, this is the favorable moment, the “kairos”, the time of illumination and salvation, the space left to the Spirit. We will never insist too much on this aspect, which accompanies the appropriation of the Word and which permits us to make the necessary qualitative leap from the human dimension to the divine dimension One could say better: it permits the Spirit to take possession of us.
b) In a moment of difficulty and aridity it turns out to be very useful to connect “with Mary,
who kept all these things in her heart”. The presence of Mary helps us to cultivate amazement, to encourage it from the comparison of the Word of life just meditated with one’s daily life.
The growth of the Word (“Parola”) and the Divine Word (“Verbo”) within us and in our religious family, is similar to that of the Virgin and of the Church. One would need to rediscover the patristic doctrine of the conception of the Divine Word in the depth of those who listen to the Word of God, patiently and perseveringly, similar to the event of the annunciation of Mary. What happens in Mary, happens in the Church and happens in the faithful soul.
Regarding the generation of the Divine Word (“Verbo”) “is said in a general way for the Church (who in the remission of sins gave birth to a body for the Head), in a special way for Mary (who without any sin generated the Head for the body), in a particular way also for the faithful soul... In the tabernacle of Mary’s womb, Christ lived nine months, in the tabernacle of the Church’s faith until the end of the world, in the knowledge and love of a faithful soul, for eternity”. These are statements of Isacco della Stella, a Cistercian Father.
c) Contemplatio allows the recitation or singing of the Magnificat, every day. With this
statement I do not mean that it is possible “to contemplate” in an enjoyable and savory way every day. It means that one can daily be immersed in the divine environment, which thanks to the Word and the Spirit, works at times silently, at times noticeably, for the construction of the new person, regenerated to new life, destined to inhabit the new heavens and the new earth.
In addition it allows a glimpse, with serene eyes, of the deep meaning of the present
situation. “The eclipse of God is not God’s withdrawal, as though He had left the world in isolation and had retires into his blessedness. It is an act of discretion which promotes a conversion of heart in the human being, a condition in order to grasp the invisible of the Kingdom in the daily visible. In such a way, the Reign becomes, already in this world, an object of contemplation.” (Duquoc)
d) Contemplatio additionally places one in condition to look at things and persons with new
eyes, not moved by passions like concupiscence, ambition, a spirit of possession or dominion, but in the freedom of a chaste and undivided heart. (Canopi)