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Two New Doctors of the Church to be celebrated October 7

St. John of Avila and St. Hildegard of Bingen will be formally declared Doctors of the Church on October 7 of this year.   Even though they were separated culturally and historically, both of these great saints were part of efforts to renew the practice of mental prayer and the reform of the life of the Church.  St. Hildegard from the Benedictine tradition founded monasteries in Germany while St. John worked with the early Jesuits to reform the priesthood in Spain.

Mental prayer or contemplative prayer is a deep engagement of the heart and mind with the mystery of Christ.   This devotion to Christ is always fruitful in wonderful and mysterious ways.   Those who spend themselves in silence pondering the Word of God through passages of the Bible and before the Blessed Sacrament open themselves to a general loving knowledge about God and the things of God.   This mystical wisdom not only changes their lives and motivates them to do something beautiful for God, but it also infuses the whole Church with new life.

St. Hildegard and St. John discovered this in their own day when the Church most needed it and today we are still blessed.   Hopefully, their teachings and examples will inspire many more to a deeper devotion to Christ, a time when the Church needs the wisdom of God more than ever.

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Pope Benedict and the Question of 16th Century Christianity

Over at http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/ is Pope Benedict’s address to the representatives from the Council of the Lutheran Church of Germany at the ancient Augustinian Monastery at Erfurt where Martin Luther studied theology.   The Holy Father’s words include a great examination of conscience for anyone engaged in the task of theology, especially for those who know that prayer and theology must not be separate enterprises, who strive for a theology to help build up the Church.  He observes:


“Most people today, even Christians, set out from the presupposition that God is not fundamentally interested in our sins and virtues. He knows that we are all mere flesh. Insofar as people today believe in an afterlife and a divine judgement at all, nearly everyone presumes for all practical purposes that God is bound to be magnanimous and that ultimately he mercifully overlooks our small failings. But are they really so small, our failings? Is not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the small, who think only of their own advantage? Is it not laid waste through the power of drugs, which thrives on the one hand on greed and avarice, and on the other hand on the craving for pleasure of those who become addicted? Is the world not threatened by the growing readiness to use violence, frequently masking itself with claims to religious motivation? Could hunger and poverty so devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbour – of his creatures, of men and women – were more alive in us?  I could go on. No, evil is no small matter. Were we truly to place God at the centre of our lives, it could not be so powerful. The question: what is God’s position towards me, where do I stand before God?”

Pope Benedict’s question which he attributes to Martin Luther, is a question of prayer, and this question was the driving question of the 16th Century — not only among protestants, but also for Catholic saints and mystics like Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri, and Catherine of Genoa – to name only a few.   We constantly find in the witness of 16th Century Christians how much they loved prayer.  They gave the highest priority to seeking and attending to the Lord for extended periods of time every day.  Prayer seems to have opened them to a deeper encounter with the Savior because through it they learned how much they needed salvation.  The Holy Father’s reflections suggest it was in prayer that they opened their heart to the truth about sin in all it’s horrific dimensions – great and small, malicious and petty.  These holy men and women also realized the price the Lord suffered to free them from this reality and in the Cross they also glimpsed the vast horizons of His unsurpassable love.  They clung by faith to the  Risen Lord, radically trusting that He is personally concerned about each of us in the most tender of ways.  They loved virtue and though they stove for it with all their strength, they always attributed any growth or development in it to the gracious goodness of God.  They loved the Word of God and those that could read were convinced that prayerful study of the Holy Bible provided an irreplaceable means of attending to the Lord.  Prayer, conversion and theology went together for them.  It is in things such as these that good Christians still hold so much in common.  Just as such friendship with God was a source for the renewal of the Church in the 16th Century there is little doubt that the restoration of the Church in our own time will be accomplished by a return to such radical and honest prayer: a prayer that imbues the way we live and the way we understand our faith.

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St. John of Avila’s Life of Prayer

      St. John of Avila (1500-1569AD) knew many of the 16th Century mystics and in fact had a hand in the conversion of some of them including St. Francis Borgia, S.J. and St. John of God. Yet spiritual writers like E. Allison Peers note that this parish priest does not present a doctrine of contemplation as such. Rather, one finds in his writings concern mainly with ascetical practices, penance and meditation. This raises a question about whether John of Avila was a contemplative and whether he himself had mystical experiences.

      Whereas some might be inclined to the position that he was not a great contemplative himself because he did not write about this kind of prayer, it must be observed that his pastoral responsibilities rather than his experiences in prayer inspired most of the direct content of his writings. In other words, simply because he wrote about beginning to pray for the sake of those entrusted to him does not mean he did not have an intense life of mental prayer or contemplation. In fact, his friendships with other great contemplatives suggests otherwise, and sprinkled in his writings are insights which suggest a very intense prayer life supported his apostolic work.

      In fact, the more intense one’s own prayer, the more difficult it is to write about. St. John of Avila was an important voice for the renewal of the Church in Spain precisely because he was a man of prayer. One indication of this is that after Law School but before beginning his studies for the priesthood, he spent two years in solitude. Some of his contemporaries believed his doctrine of the spiritual life too mystical, and he was subjected to the Inquisition as were many others who advocated the importance of mental prayer in the Christian life. Indeed, in reading his writings, if he is discreet about contemplative prayer, we must remember the irrational fear gripping many leaders of the Church of his day. At the same time, when addressing the renewal of the Church, he does not fail to advocate a return to deep personal prayer among the clergy. Why would he advocate something if he did not experience it himself?

     In the Catholic tradition of spirituality, although it acknowledges many kinds and degrees of supernatural encounters with God, an effort is made not to identify experiences in prayer with the quality of one’s friendship with God. Although the stirring of warm affections in prayer are considered a good thing, emphasis is put on the loving resolve to pray come what come may. This is because the perfection of holiness in the Christian life consists operationally in supernatural love – a love produced by the Holy Spirit through whom the human person participates in the eternal love of God. Thus, periods of dryness can actually be experiences of the most intense kind of mystical prayer – precisely because without the soul realizing it, God is producing a greater love in its depths.

     We find a tension in the writings of Teresa of Avila, especially in her autobiography, where she acknowledges, humbly, that was she was being favored with in prayer was not commensurate with her actual devotion to the Lord. This fact not only disturbed her but also disturbed those closest to her. In the case of John of Avila, rather than describing mystical experiences (he is aware of what these are and can even affirm that Teresa of Avila’s experience of the prayer of rapture is authentic), he describes to a student the quality of love one must persevere with in taking up a life of prayer:
   (as cited by E. Allison Peers, Studies of the Spanish Mystics, vol. 2, London: SPCK (1960) 105-106.)

The profit of the soul consists rather in a man’s denying his own will, and courageously doing that which he feels to be pleasing to the Lord than in tenderness of heart and sweetness of devotion. For in the former is revealed the true love which a man has toward God, wherein consists the perfection of Christianity, whereas in the latter may be concealed love of self, which befouls all things. Wherefore do not be dismayed by the dryness which you say is in your heart, but press on through the desert, though there be no green trees, nor shade to give refreshment, nor water to gladden you.

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St. John of Avila – Master of Contemplation and Renewal of the Church

During World Youth Day, Pope Benedict announced his intention to declare St. John of Avila a Doctor of the Church.  This means that the Pope believes his teaching contributes to our universal patrimony in an important way.  I must admit, up to now, I mainly know him as a theological consultant for St. Teresa of Avila, also a Doctor of the Church.

A statue of St. Teresa of Avila – just outside the walls of Avila

When she wrote her autobiography, she submitted the work to him to find out whether her experiences were authentic and whether her doctrine was true.  Although he found her experiences to be authentic, he was concerned that not everything she described applies to all Christians.  He also affirmed that her teaching on prayer was true, especially what she had to say about the prayer of rapture.  Like St. John of the Cross, he was wary of extraordinary mystical phenomena – like visions and locutions.  As great a mystic as he was, he insisted that the ordinary and surest way to intimacy with the Lord is by love imbued faith.

The Walls of Avila

St. Teresa of Avila had picked a reliable source to review her life experience and understanding of prayer.  He had already guided many of the early Spanish Jesuits as they attempted to bring the practice of mental prayer to bear on the mission of the Church. St. Ignatius invited him to join the society, but his health was frail.   Instead, he supported the mission in Spain confident that the Jesuits would lead souls to Christ.  His own preaching had moved more than one saint to embrace of life of conversion and deep prayer – including St. John of God whose conversion was so dramatic, everyone thought he was crazy.   Like St. Teresa, St. John of Avila too had faced an Inquisition which was not favorable to the practice of contemplation, which would have preferred the practice of the faith to be limited to liturgy and good morals.  He was able to affirm for her and for those Church authorities questioning her the primacy of contemplation and grace in the discipline of life Christ calls us to embrace.

What is wonderful about these Spanish mystics of the 16th Century – whether St. Ignatius and his St. Francis Borgia or St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila or St. John of Avila and so many others – we find the integration of deep prayer, ascetical vigor, solid doctrine and a love for the whole Church.  Devotion to liturgical prayer, an inspiring moral life, a hunger for deep silence, great spiritual friendships, concern for the poor and love of the poverty of Christ — one finds in teach of these saints an integration of these elements.  They realized the importance and primacy of contemplation but did not neglect the mission of the Church.  Nor did they ever fail to love those the Lord entrusted to them.  They realized the primacy of grace in the spiritual life but did not fail to make every effort to cooperate with the Holy Spirit by their strict discipline of life.

Avila – fortifications over one of the gates

In the case of St. John of Avila- we have a parish priest dedicated to the art of spiritual direction deeply concerned about the failures of his brother priests and bishops at a critical moment in Spanish and European history.   He met this concern by following Christ into all kinds of apostolates with every fiber of his existence deeply convinced that the only path to renew the Church was through promoting the practice of mental prayer and the discipline of the Christian life as widely as possible, starting with his brothers in the clergy and going out to every level of society.   His efforts bore great fruit not only in Spain but throughout Europe.  He had an important hand to play in the institution of the modern seminary as a place of strong community life, mental prayer and intense study of the faith.  In other words, he helped the fathers of the Council of Trent realize that building seminaries that were genuine centers of Christian spiritual formation was the key to the reforms most needed in the life of the Church.  It is fitting that in the midst of the challenges the Church faces today, Pope Benedict should direct our attention to this particular reformer, a reformer who calls us to depths of prayer.

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