Mystical Prayer Research Articles

Teresa of Avila and Jonathan Edwards on Prayer and Spirituality

Contemplative prayer has been a major source of contention in evangelical spirituality. Contemplative prayer is frequently mentioned as one apparent spiritual activity that is foreign to the scripture and Christian worldview and more resembling the New Age Movement and pantheistic Eastern religion by people who are skeptical of the mystical Christian tradition. This article will examine Teresa of Avila’s thought on mystical prayer, which is sometimes misinterpreted as a notion incompatible with evangelical theology of prayer. Hence, Teresa’s ideas of mystical prayer will be examined and compared with Jonathan Edwards’ concepts of prayer, which is considered to reflect evangelical theology of prayer. The comparison suggests that the contemplative, mystical prayer of Teresa is compatible with evangelical theology of prayer in its progress and purpose. Teresa and Edwards both understood prayer as an experience and progress that leads to the complete union with God, mediated by Christ and his words in scripture. This spiritual union with God will transform the devoted one with tremendous passion and strength to love and help others in their struggle and suffering. This study of Teresa’s thought of mystical prayer is expected to reinvigorate evangelical theology and praxis of prayer by learning from the rich spirituality of the Christian mystical tradition.

The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Aakanksha Virkar Yates

Reviewed by: The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins by Aakanksha Virkar Yates Winter Jade Werner (bio) The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Aakanksha Virkar Yates; pp. ix + 180. New York and London: Routledge, 2018, $149.95, £105.00. Aakanksha Virkar Yates’s nimble and well-researched The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins gifts its reader with a genealogy of the intrinsic mysticism of the Tractarian religion, showing its profound influence on Hopkins’s theology and poetics. Yates does not simply demonstrate Hopkins’s indebtedness to this tradition, especially as it informed “The Wreck of the Deutschland” (1918) (the primary focus of her book). She also challenges under-interrogated presumptions regarding mysticism’s character and reach. Both the slimness of this volume and the relatively niche topic implied in its title thus belie an impressive breadth of terrain covered: from the theology of the Greek fathers to the meditative practices of St. Ignatius; from St. Augustine’s Confessions (c. 397–400) to John Henry Newman’s The Via Media of the Anglican Church (1877); from the tradition of Christian exegesis of the Song of Songs to the tradition of the baroque heart emblem. Weaving together this patchwork of religious practices and thought, Yates argues that Hopkins’s poetry must be understood in reference to mysticism’s dedication to spiritual perfection, even as she shows how mysticism was not solely or even primarily “a disregard for the physical world in favour of an immaterial spiritual realm”: an understanding of mysticism that helps account for “how Hopkins can be a mystic and yet be wholly engaged in the world” (31). Though in some ways resonant with the themes and issues explored in Dennis Sobolev’s The Split World of Gerard Manley Hopkins: An Essay in Semiotic Phenomenology [End Page 154] (2011), Yates ultimately diverges from Sobolev’s conclusions when it comes to “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” Sobolev deems Hopkins fundamentally analytical instead of mystical; Yates, by contrast, contends that the poet is “preoccup[ied] with divine union and the vision of God achieved through the sacraments and mystical body of Christ, and the soul’s contemplative ascent” (159). Over the course of ten chapters, she shows us how this is the case. The first few chapters (re)construct the discourses of Christian contemplation and meditative practice that historically informed the Oxford Movement. Chapter 1 examines Clement’s and Origen’s writings on contemplation to achieve gnosis to show how they inform Newman’s idea of “conscience and the real apprehension as the intuitive vision of God” (16): an idea that finds an analogue in Hopkins’s understanding of the heart. The excellent second chapter turns to the relationship between contemplation and Aristotle’s energeia (activity) as apprehended in a Pauline tradition. Yates notes Hopkins’s understanding of energeia as the “motion” or “outworking” that bridges the gap between “pure matter” or “pure form,” and discovers the extent that it overlaps with his definition of stress in his famous Parminedes essay (the first instance in which he uses the words inscape and instress) (17). Hopkins’s view of the material world as fundamentally dynamic finds a likely basis, then, in energeia and contemplative practice as conceived in the Greek patristic tradition—hence why Hopkins’s mysticism involves rather than precludes keen attention to worldly engagement. Subsequent chapters examine Newman’s “belief in the baptismal gift of the divine indwelling [as] the seed and centre of Tractarian mysticism” (37) and “the symbolic vocabulary of baptism” to lay the groundwork for typological and allegorical readings of “The Wreck of the Deutschland” in reference to the Song of Songs, Augustine’s Confessions, and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century heart emblems in Ignatian meditation (61). Chapter 9 turns to the nature poems of 1877: “The Windhover,” in particular, but also “Hurrahing in Harvest,” “The Valley of Elwy,” “Ribbesdale,” “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo,” and the final chapter returns to “The Wreck” to assert that the poem ultimately is “Hopkins’s incantational, mystical prayer of the heart; a hymn to divine love” (165). As she herself asserts, Yates is interested in a hermeneutics enabled by typology and allegory. Everywhere in “The Wreck of...

Un-Speaking in Tongues: Glossolalia as Ascetical Prayer

One of the next steps of integrating Pentecostal spirituality with the wider Christian spiritual tradition is to consider further glossolalia’s relationship to forms of prayer with a longer and more firmly established history. While some initial attempts to do so have connected glossolalia more closely to mystical prayer, there is ground for seeing some occasions of glossolalia also as ascetical prayer. Pentecostals and Catholics are particularly equipped to support this claim, if they can transcend some of their own typical views of glossolalia and accentuate other tendencies within their own traditions. The result may be a clearer understanding of glossolalia for all interested parties, an understanding marked by new insights about glossolalia’s value as an unintelligible form of prayer that is widely available for regular use.

A New Approach to the Apocryphal Ladder of Jacob

For a long time the apocryphal Ladder of Jacob was accessible only in arbitrarily selected translations. Without a critical edition and a comprehensive study of the whole textual segment, scholars were unable to evaluate its significance for Early Jewish and Christian literature. Since 2015/17, with the publication of a new critical edition and German translation (accompanied by a detailed introduction, footnote commentaries and appendices with related texts), a new approach to this important but hitherto widely unknown text has been made possible. This approach verifies the different layers or strata in the text, which are: a supposed Jewish apocalypse (mid-second century), a Christian expansion of the angels speech in light of the praeparatio evangelica tradition (fourth–seventh centuries), a Jewish mystical prayer (eleventh century) and the incorporation of this narrative block into the Tolkovaja Paleja together with a series of exegetical commentaries (end of the thirteenth century). In the light of the new approach, it can be said that the Ladder of Jacob is most of all an outstanding example of mutual relations between Jewish and Christian theology.

Abhishiktananda (Henri le Saux, O.S.B) 1910–1973: Pioneer of interspiritual mysticism

There is no doubt that we live in an interspiritual age, although this is not unequivocally accepted in all sectors of religious and non-religious discourse. However, although, in the past, theological debate was primary, there has now been a welcome shift to shared experience. Interspiritual engagement has as its aim a deep appreciation of, respect for and engagement with the spiritual experience of the ‘other’. In order to glean some insights regarding interspiritual mysticism, the aim of this article is to turn to a contemporary mystic for wisdom and guidance: Abhishiktananda (Dom Henri le Saux, O.S.B) (1910–1973) was a French Benedictine monk who left his homeland to live and work in India. Deeply Christian, he nevertheless entered profoundly into the mystical thought of Hinduism. A pioneer of mystical prayer, Abhishiktananda ventured into the realm of advaita, which leads to interior silence. Contemplative silence, in which a state of translucent emptiness occurs, effects a life of unceasing prayer, moment by moment; emanating from the silence of this state of consciousness, compassion, service and energy flow to the benefit of all.

Personality, religiousness and spirituality – interrelations and structure – in a sample of religious Jewish women

ABSTRACTThe relations between measures of personality, mystical prayer experience, religious behaviour and multidimensional spirituality were examined on a sample of 121 young religious Jewish Israeli women. Bivariate correlations indicated that while all dimensions of personality were significantly related to some aspects of religiousness and spirituality, conscientiousness and agreeableness were related to most measures. Openness to experience was related to all experiential measures and extroversion was related only to Spiritual Well-being. These results provide support for the generalisability of past research with predominantly Christian samples of varied levels of religiousness and indicate the importance of using multidimensional measures for researching complex constructs such as religiousness and spiritually. In addition, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses did not provide conclusive support for the notion that religiousness and spirituality constitute a sixth dimension of personality.

Poetry and Prayer: The Power of the Word II ed. by Francesca Bugliani Knox, John Took

Reviewed by: Poetry and Prayer: The Power of the Word II ed. by Francesca Bugliani Knox, John Took Francis X. McAloon S.J. (bio) Poetry and Prayer: The Power of the Word II. Edited by Francesca Bugliani Knox and John Took. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015. Hardcover. 249pp. $120.00. Never has there been a doubt about the Christian community’s reliance upon the practice of praying with the poetry of the Bible: The Psalms. However, early in the twentieth century, the relationship between poetry and prayer—their seemingly shared practices of attentiveness, contemplation, imagination, and intuition—became a source of literary, theological, and mystical/spiritual debate. The French literary critic and theologian, Henri Bremond, is generally credited with launching the modern debate with his work Prère et Poése (1926), in which he argued that both poetry and prayer share a common grounding in the human capacity for contemplation, such that, when we read or listen to poetry, we potentially move into a psychological space of quiet reflection. According to Bremond, the significant distinction between these two experiences is that while poetry may point in the direction of prayerfulness, only prayer itself, with its requisite divine grace, leads us into the higher realms of mystical prayer. Bremond’s text inaugurated a century-long debate among theologians, literary critics, philosophers, and scholars of Christian spirituality over the shared (or not) sources, practices, and outcomes associated with both poetry and prayer. Are the poet and one who prays with poetry [End Page 284] on similar paths? Can non-biblical poetry serve to lead to mystical experience? In furtherance of this ongoing dialogue a disparate group of scholars, representing multiple disciplines, have gathered in recent years under the moniker of “The International Power of the Word.” The second of these conferences, hosted by the University of London in 2012, provides the material for Poetry and Prayer: The Power of the Word II, edited by Francesca Bugliani Knox and John Took. This excellent collection of articles offers theoretical and practical engagements with the topic at hand. Especially noteworthy is the editors’ decision to include separate sections on pre-modern and twentieth century case studies of individual poems and poets. Given the rich diversity of materials included in this volume, I will highlight a representative sampling of articles; however, I assure you that none of the thirteen articles included in this volume disappoints with its content, expression, and conclusion. The first part of the book considers five theoretical perspectives. David Lonsdale, who surveys representative approaches to the twentieth century disputes concerning poetry and prayer, offers the first point of view. Beginning with Bremond’s central claim that poetry and prayer, qua experience, share a common mystical quality even though the latter is of an entirely different order from the former, Lonsdale proceeds to survey some of Bremond’s subsequent interlocutors, including T.S. Eliott, William T. Noon, Karl Rahner, and Enda McDonagh. Most notable here are Lonsdale’s careful reviews of (1) Noon’s general objections to Bremond’s perspectives and, (2) Rahner’s take on prayer generally and a theology of the Word in particular. In his article entitled “Poetry at the Threshold of Prayer,” Antonio Spadaro, SJ, draws from an interesting collection of sources, including the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Samuel Coleridge, John Donne, and Michelangelo, to propose that “God can even be present through His absence, the empty form of an unrecognizable presence . . . These are poets who have experienced, in one way or another, a profound connection between their poetic inspiration and the form of expression that is prayer” (64). Jay Parini, in his article “Poetry as Immanence: How Language Informs Reality,” proposes that poetry and prayer are cousins, which “are intimately involved in ‘seeing’ nature, and therefore in working with the spiritual aspects of reality” (68). In short, both forms of expression provide a sort of incarnation, putting into words unspoken things and offering material images for spiritual truths. Parini borrows from the logos tradition in Christian scripture and history to assert that poetic language offers a sort of incarnation, an enactment of spiritual creation. To support his claim, he cites...

Spiritual Elders. Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy (review)

Reviewed by: Spiritual Elders. Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy William G. Wagner Spiritual Elders. Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy. By Irina Paert. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2010. Pp. xiii, 286. $43.00. ISBN 978-0-875-80429-3.) In Spiritual Elders, Irina Paert provides a theoretically well-informed and impressively researched account of the revival, evolution, and social and cultural significance of spiritual eldership (starchestvo) in Russian Orthodoxy from the eighteenth century to the present. In the process, she perceptively discusses many of the main challenges confronting, and developments [End Page 132] within, the Russian Orthodox Church across this time period. By structuring her analysis around the questions of the tension between charismatic and ecclesiastical—particularly episcopal—authority, authenticity and the invention of religious traditions, the adaptation of religious institutions and practices to modernizing change, and the role of gender in shaping religious sentiment and behavior, Paert also offers valuable insights into a number of important issues of interest to scholars of religion generally. Contending that the evolution, character, and significance of spiritual eldership in Russian Orthodoxy have been influenced strongly by changing historical circumstances, Paert organizes her study chronologically. She argues that, although long a strand in Russian Orthodox monasticism, the practice of spiritual eldership had largely disappeared by the seventeenth century. The foundations for its revival paradoxically but not coincidentally were laid during the eighteenth century, at a time when monasticism in Russia was in sharp decline due to a combination of state policies, cultural Westernization, and centralizing trends within the Orthodox ecclesiastical administration. In response to these developments, some Russian monks retreated to remote regions and adopted a severely ascetic and pious mode of life while others such as Paisii Velichkovskii emigrated abroad, seeking to discover a more spiritually fulfilling form of monastic life in communities such as those on Mt. Athos. Velichkovskii eventually developed an ideal of communal monasticism that was structured on a conception of eldership based on asceticism, mystical prayer, and the guidance of younger monks by experienced spiritual fathers. This ideal was embodied in the monastic communities in Moldavia founded by Velichkovskii and was promoted by him as the authentic form of Christian monasticism both in his own writings and in the compendium of early Christian and Byzantine theological writings (the Dobrotoliubie, or Philokalia) that he produced. Hence, Paert demonstrates, when in the first half of the nineteenth century state policies toward religion became more favorable, Russian Orthodox hierarchs seeking to promote a revival of monasticism both for its own sake and as a means for religious revitalization generally adopted Velichkovskii’s ideal as a model for reform and embraced—albeit not unambiguously—isolated practitioners of spiritual eldership. At the same time, Slavophil writers fashioned spiritual eldership into a symbol of Russian cultural particularity and spiritual superiority in comparison with the Catholic and Protestant West. The result of these developments, Paert shows, was a growth in the number and the visibility of spiritual elders; an expansion under their influence particularly of female religious communities; and an increased flow of lay believers visiting elders in search of spiritual guidance, advice with their concerns, and divine intercession in their lives. This latter phenomenon grew dramatically after 1861, due both to the increased mobility and access resulting from the abolition of serf-dom and improvements in transportation and to an apparent increase in demand arising from social and economic dislocation and cultural flux. Expanded literacy and developments in publishing, moreover, enabled spiritual [End Page 133] elders to offer guidance and advice remotely to an even wider number of believers through personal and published collections of correspondence. By the last decades of the Old Regime, Paert argues persuasively, although growing only modestly within monastic communities, not only had the practice of spiritual eldership contributed significantly to the revival of Russian Orthodox monasticism but also its reach into lay society had been extended through adoption by prominent parish priests and lay leaders of informal religious groups. Meanwhile, its image had become a medium of cultural and political discourse, serving as a symbol inter alia of Russian national character, the deep spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Church and the uncorrupted Russian peasantry, and the mystical union...

From Prayer Activities to Receptive Prayer: Godly Love and the Knowledge that Surpasses Understanding

Research on prayer, even when using measures beyond simple prayer frequency to create typologies, has ignored the dynamic relationship between God as a “divine other” in interaction with the pray-er. Using statistics from surveys on prayer as a backdrop, qualitative accounts that demonstrate the relational nature of prayer are explored through the lenses of the Godly love model. Based on data collected as part of the Flame of Love project, prayer is conceptualized as integrating active and receptive streams, with tributaries of prophetic and mystical prayer experiences. Taken together these dimensions of prayer play an important role in describing what the Apostle Paul calls “knowing the love that surpasses understanding” and are confirmed by multivariate analysis of new survey data. Although active prayer has received much scholarly attention, our findings suggest that a closer look at the receptive forms would provide a more complete picture of what people actually do when they pray.

Book Review: Mystical Prayer

Book Review: Mystical Prayer

Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism: An Analysis of Ma'aseh Markavah (review)

Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 227 Reviews (The Ashkenazic Jews, p. 116). What would Spolsky and Cooper say about Yiddish Hebraisms that denote non-Jewish versions of a general concept , like !eygec (Christian boy), which comes from the Hebrew seqec (abomination)? At one point Spolsky and Cooper offer a choice of two unfelicitous formulations : "Judaeo-Greek...was...replaced by Judaeo-Romance and later Yiddish" (p. 30) and "Judaeo-Romance...developed from [Judaeo-Greek)" (p. 32). The first implies that Greek-speaking Jews switched directly to Yiddish (when, where?), while the second calls for the genetic reclassification of "Judeo-Romance"! The topic of Hebrew "revitalization" has no place in this volume, since it took place largely outside of Jerusalem in the newly founded agricultural settlements. Moreover, Modem Hebrew is not a revitalized form of Old Semitic Hebrew, since unspoken languages cannot be resurrected in the total absence of native speakers; in reality Modem Hebrew is a form of Yiddish which was relexified to Biblical Hebrew (see my "Yiddish-the Fifteenth Slavic language," The Ashkenazic Jews, and The Schizoid Nature ofModern Hebrew, A Slavic Language in Search ofa Semitic Past [Wiesbaden, 1990]). Some interesting remarks are offered only in passing, for example, that North African Jews "adapted" (how, when?) their native language to local Jerusalem Arabic (p. 35). The authors say a discussion of Jewish multilingualism in Jerusalem at the time of Christ is a prerequisite to understanding the contemporary scene (p. 18). Possibly, but why? The specialist will find nothing new in this book, while the uninitiated reader will be left in a daze. Its only value is to show how not to do sociolinguistics . Paul Wexler Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978 ISRAEL MYSTICAL PRAYER IN ANCIENT JUDAISM: AN ANALYSIS OF MA'ASEH MARKAVAH. By Michael D. Swartz. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 28. pp. x + 268. TUbingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1992. Cloth. Michael Swartz' Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism translates and analyzes Ma'aseh Merkavah, one of the loosely-defined corpus of hekhalot Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 228 Reviews (palace) or merkavah (chariot) texts once championed by Scholem and now the focus of a flurry of scholarship. This dense and often mystifying text includes both ascent hymns and rituals for summoning angels presented in reported dialogue between Rabbi Ishmael, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Nehuniah ben HaQannah. Swartz explains that the study's purpose is "to illuminate the historical question of the development of Merkavah mysticism as a system of apprehension of and communication with the Divine in Judaism of Late Antiquity...and] also an assessment of the role of prayer in this process of development" (pp. 4-5). The method he uses is a version of form criticism, breaking the dialogic frames and the embedded prayers into individual lines and then looking for evidence of the methods of composition. This is very difficult material to work with, and Swartz has produced a careful and thoughtful study. He argues that the text has four main sections, the first and last consisting of ascent material while the middle two contain angel-summoning rituals. He is able to correlate these divisions with variations in the manuscript tradition (for example, Section 3 is lacking in some versions). His analysis reveals the "seams" in this composite text and shows the strategy of the editor who tried to give some semblance of order to the liturgical material by means of the narrative frame. Some of the most convincing points he makes are based on his observations about composition. For example, he can point to the lack of agreement between some narrative frames and the prayers they introduce, arguing that these disjunctions are evidence that the prayers and frames were not composed simultaneously. Thus, the frames in Section 1 do not appear to have been written specifically for the prayers they introduce, while in Section 2 Swartz finds closer coordination between the frames and the prayers. He explains, ''The passages which frame these names...explicitly mention that a name is to be recited, and that the practitioner is to receive protection or benefit from this recitation," and the material framed fits with this description. Here he strengthens Scholem's struggle to see this abstruse text as...

Book Review: Guidelines for Mystical Prayer

Book Review: Guidelines for Mystical Prayer

RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION AND PRAYER EXPERIENCE

Sunm~y.-86 participants with at least nominal religious affiliation completed a questionnaire on experiences during All participants were identified as to religious orientation using Allport's well known typology As predicted, no religious types differed on minimal phenomenological experlcnces during However, as predicted, intrinsic and indiscriminately favorable persons were more likely to interpret their experiences in relevant religious terms than were either exrrinsic or indiscriminately anti-religious persons. It is a curious fact that prayer, common to all religious traditions, is little smdied by psychology. As Finney and Malony (1985, p. 104) have noted in their critical review of the empirical literamre, Nowhere is the longstanding breach becween psychology and religion more evident than in the lack of research on prayer. Our own concern with the study of prayer was based upon our research with mysticism and the fact that standard measures of mystical experience distinguish between the minimal phenomenological experience of mysticism and its possibility of religious interpretation (Hood, 1975; Spilka, Hood, & Gorsuch, 1985). Among persons who pray or meditate we anticipated similar distinctions. This seemed especially likely given Heiler's distinction between prophetic and mystical prayer as discussed by Finney and Maloney ( 1986). Under prophetic prayer Heiler includes various verbal petitions, for which there are at least some empirical studies (Finney & Maloney, 1986, pp. 106-110). Under mystical prayer Heiler includes silent contemplation, that may occur in religious traditions as a form of prayer or in ocher traditions as a form of meditation. Yet this form of prayer or meditation has not been studied at all in relatiooship to religiosity. Our anticipation was that among persons who pray or meditate similar distinctions found in mysticism research would hold, especially since mystical prayer or silent contemplation is itself often utilized as a mystical technique. Hence, among persons who pray or meditate we anticipated differences in religious interpretation across religious types, but with no differences in the minimal phenomenological experiences of the mystical aspects of prayer or meditation, a finding common in mysticism research (Spilka, et al., 1985). Religious types were identified by the widely used Religious Orientation Scale which allows classification of participants into intrinsic, extrinsic, indiscriminately favorable, or indiscriminately unfavorable religious types (Donahue, 1985).

Poet, Mystic, Reformer

A strict ascetic mystic belonging to a religious reform movement in the heady atmosphere of counter-reformation Spain; a writer of treatises on the techniques of contemplative and mystical prayer; esoteric, strict, demanding, even dry and humourless—strange for a close intimate of the great Teresa, so human, witty and compassionate—but undoubtedly at the same time a man consumed by the love of God. This is most probably the image conjured up by the name of John of the Cross.And yet he is also well known, even famous, for his poems—you will find them tucked in at the back of Professor Allison Peers’ magisterial presentation and translation of the Complete Works, though you will also find them published in the Penguin Classics series. What sort of poet is he? A real poet, or one of those religious versifiers who present their ideas on the life of prayer in this superficial, yet attractive, form for the sake of their simpler listeners? There were many of these to be found in 16th Century Spain.A real poet many will claim; but those who take this side of him seriously and acclaim him as one of the peninsula’s greatest poets are more likely to be found amongst the unreligious, the secular, students of Spanish literature than amongst those who follow his doctrine.John of the Cross was indeed a poet of stature, together with being most of the other things mentioned; but not many people have attempted to present this so that it can be seen as a whole, so that we can get what he has left to posterity in perspective.

Some Aspects of Mystical Prayer in Islam

To be deprived of prayer (duz'') would be for a much greater loss than to be deprived of being heard and granted 1). This word of Abu H.azim al-Makki, an early sufi, is the keynote for an understanding of the moderate sufic point of view concerning prayer. Prayer is an intimate conversation 2) between man and God which consolates the afflicted heart even if it is not immediately answered. Only the stern quietist mystics-in Islam as well as in all other religions 3)-have put the question if it is possible and lawful to utter any prayer at all: God, they thought, is too mighty to be joined by prayer, or to be separated from by omitting to pray 4), and there is no recollection worthy of Him. 5) They hold that silent patience in all afflictions would be more suitable than prayer 6). It is about fifty years that I have not prayed nor wished that anyone should pray for me 7), said 'Abdallah ibn Mubarak, who belongs to the Persian school of asceticism and is famous for his book of self-denial (kitdb az-zuhd) 8). All things follow the course preordained by the Lord in eternity, and may

Some Aspects of Mystical Prayer in Islam

Some Aspects of Mystical Prayer in Islam

The New Light

Richard Rolle has been called ‘The Father of English Mysticism and it is to him we turn for the first introduction to mysticism in its strict sense among English writers. He was born some hundred years after the Ancren Riwle was written, and yet he is historically the first of the group of English mystics who experienced and wrote about the higher degrees of mystical prayer. Perhaps the greatest era of English sanctity had already passed when he was born in the last decade of the 13th century. There had been a succession of men and women from the time of Venerable Bede who had been led by the Spirit of God to transports of divine love and wisdom. But they had not been reflective in the way that the men of the 14th century were reflective so that the description of their lives does not enlighten later generations as to the nature of their prayer or their manner of reaching high degrees of contemplation. Rolle, amidst a profusion of Latin and English writings, did proclaim these hidden experiences, and his message was received with enthusiasm.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article:Letters to a Doubter. By Paul Claudel. Translated from the French by Henry Longan Stauart.The English Martyrs. Edited by Dom Bede Camm.The Evidence of the Catacombs for the Doctrines and Organisation of the Christian Church. By Oratio Marucchi.Pius X. By René Bazin. Translated from the second edition by the Benedictines of Talacre. With a preface by the Rt. Rev. Francis J. Vaughan, Bishop of Menevia.The Catholic Question 1688–1829. By Philip Hughes.Manning's Work for Children. Compiled by Canon Edward St. John.Doria's Ring and Gallipoli. By A. D. Russell and Jacqueline Stoer.The Dominican Saints. By Father Raymund Pius Devas, O.P.The Coming Age and the Catholic Church: A Forecast by William Barry, D.D.The Child in the Church. By Maria Montessori.Death of My Aunt. By C. H. B. Kitchin.The Masterful Monk. By Owen Francis Dudley.The Life of St. Francis de Sales. By the Rev. Harold Burton.St. Francis de Sales. By Henri Bordeaux. Translated by Sister Benita.A Duel of Wits. By F. M. Harrison.One Lord One Faith: An Explanation. By Vernon Johnson.Mr Blue. By Myles Connolly.Peter's City. An Account of the Orgin, Development and Solution of the Roman Question. By Thomas Irving Moore.The Secret Places. By R. Francis Foster.Mystical Prayer According to St. Jane de Chantal. (92 pages). Mystical Prayer According to St. Francis de Sales (59 pages). By Auguste Saudreau.The Treaty of the Lateran. By Benedict WilliamsonDeutsche Mystikertexte des Mittelalters. Zusammengestellt und bearbeitet von Dr. phil. Joseph Quint, Privatdozent an der Universität Bonn.Little Lives of Great Tertiaries. By Marian Nesbitt. With a Preface by F. Anselm Keane, O.F.M.The British Church from the Days of Cardinal Allen. By Father Paul, O.S.F.C.In Newness of Life. Short Chapters on the Spiritual Life by Robert Eaton, Priest of the Birmingham Oratory, with a preface by Rt. Rev. Bishop Barrett.