It is with great hesitancy I write this blog entry, for reasons I cannot explain. But, it is necessary and fitting to do so. This blog entry is primarily about the song (below) and, a whole lot of explanation to go with it.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION…
It was late 2017 when I first learned about this song. I heard it. I loved it and I learned how to sing it. It was early 2018 that I began to sing it daily, in the little chapel, where I use to go to pray. In fact, there is a life-sized print of the Divine Mercy in that chapel, and sometimes I stood in front of the picture and sang this song out loud, when nobody was there.
Then, in May 2019, I stopped going to that chapel and my prayer life changed drastically. I also stopped singing the song, except occasionally during Mass at the church I now attend.
THE PRAYER OF THE HEART…
This past summer, I obtained a book called “The Watchful Mind,” which introduced me to the idea of praying The Jesus Prayer as a prayer of the heart. However, I used the The Jesus Song as my prayer of the heart out of personal preference because it has the same words as the prayer. And, I found great comfort in it.
In fact, I had gone to confession, while reading this book (probably in August, 2019) and was given the penance to ask God to “have mercy on me.” Needless to say, I went back to my pew and prayed the song, in my head, only to discover that it literally warmed my heart and brought me to tears. The feeling was a real feeling of warmth around the cavity of my heart, so much so, that it surprised me.
But, at the onset of taking a six-week course in Contemplative Prayer, this past October, I turned away from the book because of time constraints. And, I also stopped praying The Jesus Song.
THE WAY OF A PILGRIM — ANOTHER BOOK…
A couple of weeks ago, my pastor mentioned a book called “The Way of a Pilgrim,” during one of his weekly homilies. This book is about a pilgrim who travels throughout Russia in search of the perfect prayer. It has many of the same ideas as “The Watchful Mind” and is based on the same book, “The Philokalia,” an ancient Greek textbook about prayer, written between the 4th and the 15th centuries.
I began to read “The Way of a Pilgrim” this past Wednesday, January 8th, and found it profoundly enlightening, achingly moving and extraordinarily appropriate to my own spiritual journey. I read about 85 pages. On page 72, the anonymous author speaks of an encounter with a blind man who asked the author to “show him a practical method of locating the heart with the mind, introducing the name of Jesus Christ to it, and thus experiencing the joy of praying with the heart.” The blind man had been able to see in the past, so he could imagine with his mind’s eye many material things. The author told him to “…imagine your heart; direct your eyes as though you were looking at it through your breast, see the heart as visibly as you can, and listen attentively to the rhythmic beat.” The author also told the blind man to recite The Jesus Prayer.
Since I was accustomed to singing The Jesus Song, I sang it instead of praying the prayer. In my own mind’s eye, as I looked down at my body, I saw a vivid image of my heart beating in my chest. And, I heard my heartbeat’s loud thump, thump thump as well. This encounter gave me an eerie feeling, almost frightening.
You, the reader, should be told that I am a wuss when it comes to blood and/or bodily organs. I was in pre-nursing, many years ago and dropped out when a cadaver was rolled into our lab for the class to dissect.
MY VIVID IMAGINATION…
So, this vivid image in my “imagination” was a turnoff for me. I squirmed and broke my contemplative-like state. It didn’t exactly scare me, but it was exceedingly uncomfortable and I made a mental note of that. On Thursday night, I conjured up the courage to try again. Once again, I saw and heard my heart beating in my chest as I silently sang The Jesus Song. And, once again, I felt a jolt of discomfort.
I had also met with my spiritual director on Thursday afternoon, January 9th. I told him I was having problems with my prayer life. I think I used the words “confused” and “mixed up,” but it was more in relation to the Contemplative Meditation course I took this past autumn. I forgot to mention to him, the incident with The Jesus Song. Nevertheless, he explained to me that sometimes new prayer is accompanied by a little discomfort, until you get used to it. This made sense to me, and in my mind, I also attributed his words to the discomfort of The-Jesus-Song incident. And that is why I tried again on Thursday night.
CONFESSION, ON SATURDAY…
While driving to confession, on January 11th, I began to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. And right from the start, during The Creed, I wept. When I got to church, before confession, I went into the Adoration Chapel and began thanking God for so many gifts of my life. And there too, I wept.
After confession, my penance was to ask God to fill me with the Spirit of Christ. This was a new concept for me. I’m not proud of it, but I had never used the term, “Spirit of Christ.” In my head, I had always used the term “Holy Spirit,” something I had never specifically put together with the Spirit of Christ because I often think of God the Father as the Holy Spirit, as well. Somehow, I was able to separate the Holy Spirit from the Spirit of Christ. This time, though, I walked into the Adoration Chapel, and thanked God for my blessings and asked God to “fill me with the Spirit of Christ,” as directed by my confessor.
Then, in an expectant move, while also thinking I was getting more used to seeing (or imagining my heart) I went into the Prayer of the Heart. But, when I looked down at my chest with my mind’s eye this time, all I saw was darkness. The image of my beating heart was gone. I became confused. Alarmed, I asked myself, “Where is my heart?” Not seeing my heart seemed to exacerbate the whole situation. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing it and this disturbed me because I didn’t recall *actually* asking not to see my heart. I only squirmed at it.
Then, I heard, from that still small voice, a notion something about “Well, you didn’t want it.” This confusion over the lost vision stopped me from reading any further in the book, until tonight. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t concentrate on the words. I think it was a sort-of mental block. I realize, now, that it was not my imagination at all that caused me to see my heart. It was a vision, and Saint John of the Cross teaches NOT to accept visions, nor to grieve over their loss. How quickly we forget what we have learned?
TONIGHT’S QUEST…
As I turned to prayer earlier tonight, I asked God to give me some kind of explanation about what happened in all these events, and this was my answer. I opened the pilgrim book to page 114 and took up where I had left off. But, on page 119, the author met a man who showed him “how to use the New Testament to pray.” In the last paragraph on that page, the man, systematically began to state all the Bible passages in the New Testament, about how to pray.
As I read the next couple of pages, I highlighted all the chapters in the New Testament that he discussed and turned to each one of them, in the Bible. When I got to the place, in the Pilgrim book, where he mentioned Chapter 7 of Matthew, I read the words “…how we can succeed in prayer and why we should be full of hope when we ‘ask, seek and knock.'” In my Bible, there in verse 8, I read, “For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds…” This was my answer to prayer. It became somewhat clear to me that this is how I understood in my heart of hearts that I had a moment — twice — when I did not truly want to see my own heart beating in my chest. And so, the Spirit of Christ took the vision away from me. And, now I’m left, once again, in darkness. Answer received.
Peace!
Additional Note: January 14, 2020
As of this morning, I am still having trouble reading and concentrating on the Pilgram book. I have barely progressed past the pages on “how to use the New Testament to pray,” and I cannot seem to concentrate on the Prayer of the Heart.