The Christian Contemplative Tradition

Although one can find traces of certain forms of mysticism in the New Testament documents themselves, the Christian Contemplative Tradition is typically seen as having more substantial origins in the deserts of 3rd Century Egypt.  As Christianity became the official religion of Rome, martyrdom, often thought to be the “most perfect way of following Christ,” became a relic of the past.  As an alternative to literally dying for the faith, hermits like St. Anthony the Great (usually seen as the “first Christian monk”) entered the desert to live lives of radical simplicity and seek God in nearly complete solitude.  Desert spirituality was characterized less by official meditative practice and more by a way of life – asceticism, internal (sometimes referred to as hesychast) and external silence, solitude, unceasing prayer, battling temptation, and seeking absolute obedience to one’s conscience before God.  Many of the Apophthegmata Patrum (“Sayings of the Desert Fathers”) seem harsh in retrospect, even to those of later developed Christian monasticism, but these original Christian monks were performing the first experiments in monastic and solitary life within their tradition.  Many of their excesses, especially in regards to severe asceticism, would be moderated as the tradition developed.  

A desert monk’s home was his cell:

“A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word.  The old man said to him, ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you all things.’”

It was these desert cells – the original Christian solitary and small monastic communities – from which more fully formed Christian monasticism would develop.  

As the centuries progressed, Christian monasticism gradually became more structured.  Various forms of community and “Rules” were developed, with one form eventually achieving overwhelming prominence – that of the Rule of St. Benedict.  Very little is known about Benedict of Nursia, our only account of his life coming from St. Gregory the Great (Pope 590-604).  From this source we gather that Benedict lived in sixth-Century Italy, became a renowned holy man, and eventually established a large group of monastic communities.  His Rule describes an orderly way of life – a “school for the Lord’s service” – the community being led by an Abbot, who stands in the place of Christ as overseer of souls.  The Rule is practical, describing how to welcome visitors, hours of spiritual practice, performance of manual labor, and discipline for wayward monks.  While specific enough to establish an actual community, the Rule is also general enough to be adapted as various monastic communities would develop in different contexts. The Rule of St. Benedict is still used widely today as a source for the development of monastic communities, especially in the Christian West. 

From its beginnings in Italy, Benedictine monasticism spread and flourished throughout Western Europe into, and through, the Middle Ages.  During this time, other monastic, or quasi-monastic, orders developed within Catholicism, including the Cistercians, Trappists, Carthusians, Carmelites, Franciscans, and Dominicans among others.  Admission into these religious orders typically included (and still includes) taking permanent vows (usually “poverty, chastity, and obedience”).  These orders each have a distinct flavor or focus, and often draw from the Benedictine tradition to varying degrees.  

The core communal spiritual practice of the Rule of St. Benedict is Psalmody – singing, chanting, or praying the Psalms.  In the Rule, Psalmody was to be practiced eight times a day.  This daily structure of spiritual practice is sometimes called the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours.  As the tradition in the West continued to develop, other spiritual practices such as Lectio Divina, and more purely receptive forms of prayer/meditation also came to prominence.  During Lectio Divina (“Divine Reading”), a monk uses a scriptural text to ascend through four mental stages – Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, and Contemplatio.  In the stage of lectio, the monk prayerfully reads and re-reads a short text from the Christian scriptures. In meditatio, he “meditates on” or “chews on” the text, analyzing what it may mean for his spiritual life.  This stage is sometimes conceptualized as having a conversation with God about the text or opening oneself to how the spirit of God may address them personally through the text. After meditatio, the soul is eventually drawn to oratio – prayer. As oratio deepens, the soul gradually leaves the text behind and seeks God alone. Finally, in contemplatio, the monk opens him or herself up to the direct and unmediated experience of God.  In the Christian tradition, the terms “contemplation,” “infused contemplation,” or “Union with God” are used to refer to this apex, unitive spiritual experience. 

Outside of Lectio Divina, Christian mystics in the Middle Ages such as St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing also spoke of purely receptive forms of spiritual practice which could lead to this unitive experience.  Each with their distinct vocabularies, Teresa speaks of the deepening experience of the Prayer of Recollection, Prayer of Quiet, and Prayer of Union as leading her to a place where the soul and God are like “water in water” and “all becomes one;” St. John speaks of the movement from meditation to contemplation “when individuals have finished purifying and voiding themselves of all forms and apprehensible images,” and “abide in this simple light (to) be perfectly transformed in it;” Eckhart speaks of the “birth of God in the ground of the soul” to attain which one must “sojourn and dwell in (their) essence, in (their) ground” beyond image and form; and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing describes entering and dwelling in a place beyond thought – “the cloud of unknowing, within which one is united to God.”

Each of these prominent Western Christian mystics describe contemplation from their own cultural viewpoints and using their own unique language. Rejecting self-will and personal attachments in the service of developing a pure dedication to the will of God, in Eckhart’s words “a going out of one’s own,” is also heavily emphasized by each as a non-negotiable part of the spiritual journey and as preparation for the unmediated experience of God.  

Just as the Christian West developed their monastic traditions and documented their spiritual experience, so did the Christian East.  While both Western Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox tradition share the common heritage of the original desert monks and, to some extent, the Benedictines, after the Christian Church officially split in the 11th Century, the East developed its own unique way of speaking about the spiritual journey. 

Centered on Mount Athos in Greece, Eastern Orthodox Monasticism is known for emphasizing Hesychasm – outer, and especially inner, stillness (parallels can possibly be drawn here to Western mystics’ descriptions of “contemplation” above) – as well as the practice of the Jesus Prayer, during which a monk silently repeats the phrase “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  The Jesus Prayer can be thought of as a way of maintaining recollection, or the awareness of and submission to God’s presence at all times.  The Eastern Orthodox tradition is also well known for interpreting the doctrine of salvation in terms of Theois, or deification.  In this interpretation, spiritual practice is designed to lead the soul towards “becoming like,” or even “becoming,” God.  Salvation, on this view, is spiritual transformation, in contrast to the Christian West’s more legal/transactional view of the doctrine.  The most prominent sourcebook for Eastern Orthodox Monastic practice is The Philokalia (“love of the beautiful”) which is a collection of writings from Christian monastics and solitaries dating back to the Desert Fathers. Other forms of Eastern Orthodox monasticism exist, but the largest community remains on Mount Athos.  

The final major branch of Christianity, Protestantism, is not unified structurally and thus does not have a true monastic tradition.  One form of modern Protestantism which emphasizes spiritual experience above and beyond the interpretation of biblical texts is the Quaker tradition.  A typical Quaker service simply consists of an hour (or more) of silence.  Quakers have developed their own language around their experiences, especially regarding the “Inner Light.”  Quakers range theologically from conservative to liberal, with many claiming no allegiance to traditional Christian doctrine at all.  

Modern voices from the Christian Contemplative Tradition broadly include Thomas Merton, Basil Pennington, Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating, David Frenette, Parker Palmer, Andrew Louth, and Richard Rohr. Thomas Merton was perhaps the last American contemplative “celebrity.” Merton was a member of the Trappist monastery Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky until his death in 1968, and was well-known for engaging with contemplatives from other world religious traditions including Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism. Merton wrote over 50 books during his time as a monk including New Seeds of Contemplation, The Inner Experience, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, and Contemplative Prayer. His Journals were also published after his death.

Richard Rohr is also of particular note as his writings are widely distributed in the United States. Rohr runs the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico.

The most widely-known modern attempt to summarize the Christian Contemplative Tradition in the form of a daily practice for laypersons is represented by the Centering Prayer movement associated with Thomas Keating, which draws heavily from The Cloud of Unknowing.

For more on Centering Prayer, click here.