Salesian Literature

Chapter 1  :  Mystical Theology – another name for prayer

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We express our love for God chiefly in two ways – spontaneously (affectively), and deliberately (effective; or, as St. Bernard puts it, actively).

 

In the first of these ways we grow fond of God, of what he likes; in the second we serve God, do what he enjoins.  In the first we find God pleasing, in the second he is pleased with us; by the first we become pregnant with virtue, through the second we give birth to it.

 

We love God, in the first of these ways, principally by prayer.  So many internal impulses are involved in this, it is impossible to put them all into words; not only because of their number, but also on account of their nature, their characteristics – being spiritual, they are inevitably subtle, almost beyond the reach of the human mind.  That is why this is a difficult book, especially for one who is not deeply prayerful.

 

I am not taking the word “prayer”, in this context, merely in the sense of “petition” or “the request for some benefit which the faith express in God’s presence”, as St. Basil describes it.  I mean what St. Bonaventure meant when he said that prayer, widely speaking, embraces the whole of contemplative activity; what St. Gregory of Nyssa meant when he taught that “prayer is an interview or conversation between the soul and God”; also what St. Chrysostom had in mind when he asserted that “prayer is talking to God”; and finally, what St. Augustine and St. Damascene meant when they said that prayer is “an ascent, or uplifting of the mind towards God.”

 

If prayer is a talk or conversation between the soul and God, then in prayer we talk to God and God also speaks to us, we aspire to him and he inspires us, we are alive to him and he lives in us.

 

But what do we talk about in prayer?  What is our topic of conversation? God, Theotimus; nothing else.  After all, what does a lover talk about but his beloved? Prayer and mystical theology, therefore, are identical.

 

Prayer is called theology, because it deals with God as speculative theology does; only there are three differences … First of all, speculative theology deals with God as the supreme being – the divinity of the supreme goodness; mystical theology deals with him as supremely lovable – the supreme goodness of the divinity.  Secondly, speculative theology is concerned with God and man, mystical theology with God alone.  Thirdly, speculative theology leads to knowledge of God – turning its pupils into learned scholars and theologians; mystical theology leads to love of God – turning out intensely affectionate lovers (now a Philothea, now a Theophilus, according to sex).

 

Prayer is called mystical, because of the hidden nature of the conversation: God and the individual speak heart to heart, and what passes between them can be shared with no one else.  So personal is lover’s talk, it has no meaning outside the two who engage in it.  No need, however, in the realms of love, for the spoken word, for appeal to the sense, when lovers share their thoughts.  After all, prayer, or mystical theology, is simply a loving talk between the soul and God, where the topic of conversation is the attraction of God’s goodness and how to achieve union with him.

 

Prayer is manna (cf. Rev. 2:17), since those who feed on it never come to the end of love’s delight, of charms beyond price; but it is hidden too, falling upon the mind’s solitude – before ever knowledge dawns – where the soul is alone with its God.  That is why the saintly Mother Teresa of Jesus, taking here first steps in the spiritual life, used to find it more helpful to think of our Lord in those incidents of his earthly life where he was most a lone figure – in the garden of Olives, for example, or waiting for the Samaritan woman.  As he was by himself, she used to imagine, he would promptly let her come close to him.[1]

 

Love craves privacy; even when lovers have no secrets to keep, they still prefer to talk in private.  For one thing, if I am not mistaken, they feel that intimacy is lost when their conversation can be overheard; for another, their love for each other invests even ordinary topics with a new meaning, a different atmosphere.  Although the language of love consists of a vocabulary in common use, its intonation is so personal as to be intelligible to no one but the lovers themselves.

 

What a different language they speak, those ancient lovers of God – Ignatius, Cyprian, Chrisostom, Augustine, Hilary, Ephrem, Gregory, Bernard – from theologians whose love for God is not so great!  We use the same words as they did: coming from them, however, these words held warmth and charm; coming from us, they are cold and stilted.

 

Love is not limited to lips alone for its expression; eyes, facial movements, sighs also have a part to play; even silence and reserve can deputize for words.  Obviously the chief activity of mystical theology is to talk to God, and to listen to him as he speaks deep down in the heart.  Since this dialogue consists of hidden aspirations and inspirations, we call it silent speech.  Eyes speak to eyes, heart to heart, and none but those blessed lovers understands what passes between them.

 

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[1]  Cf. Life, Chapter 9.

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