Types

 

There is prayer, then there is contemplative prayer. The latter is a precious gift. God gives it for a reason. One reason is that He must grant a greater degree of intimacy in order obtain from us, what He needs, and the soul that embarks upon a quest for intimate prayer must be terribly brave and unselfish. 

I had a time of many years of very intimate contemplative prayer. When that period ended, the current one began - a walk with Christ to the Cross, and to the passion-life. It can be a terrible spiritual dessication, interspersed with moments that are not so much illuminated with light, but lit on fire in a holocaust of love that is guaranteed to purify, and sanctify.

The solitary life is not devoid of human contact, but much of the contact can be on the spiritual plane. The kind that is on the earthly plane cannot hold a candle to the contemplative life on fire with God's love and the catastrophe of His touch.

Pray for your contemplatives, and prayer for your souls. If they are taken from our midst, we must do without the sweet fruits they win for us, except when God wishes to consume us entirely. If you chance upon a pierced soul whose wounds burn like the most awful fire, pause for a moment at least long enough to offer a drop of water for those souls who are in so much torment.