EXTRACTS FROM BOOKS

THE PROPHET - The Inner Meaning of Prayer

Once again I opened Peter's 'diary' and began to read about the first genuinely mystical experience that had such an influence on the future direction of his life.

"It was while I was at Citeaux one weekend that I met a priest who so impressed me that I began to go to him regularly for spiritual direction. His name was Pere Jacques Le Bec.

"There was no change in the general pattern of my prayer. It was still as dark as ever at the best of time, and I always had to battle against thousands of distractions that prevented me from attaining the inner peace that I desired more than anything else. However, you can bear almost anything if it has meaning and Pere Le Bec had shown me quite clearly the meaning and purpose of travelling on bravely in 'the dark night of the soul'. Then a new and startling development took place that was to have a determining effect on my spiritual journey.

"It had been my custom to go to the chapel in the university or to a favourite corner in Notre Dame. It was in early June of my last year with my friend Boris in Paris that something happened when I was at prayer in that famous cathedral, that had a determining influence on the rest of my life. Although I got nothing out of my daily prayer, I nevertheless persevered as Pere Le Bec had taught me, using the Jesus prayer as best I could to ward off the distractions and the temptations, that were my faithful companions. As I tried to keep my gaze fixed on God as best as I could things suddenly changed dramatically in the space of a few days.

"For two nights on the run I found myself wrapped in a deep inner recollectedness that was quite clearly not of my making. Then on the third night I experienced a lifting sensation inside of my head that raised me up above myself, or rather raised my consciousness to a high degree of awareness. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had nothing to do with this new development in my prayer life. For the next three nights the same experience enveloped me.

"On the fourth night the lifting sensation that I had experienced before was intensified ten-fold. This time I soared, spiralled upwards in my mind to such a high degree of consciousness that I knew I would have experienced complete oblivion if the intensity had increased by a single degree. I was so totally adsorbed in God that I had for the first time in my life no distractions at all. This was the pattern of my prayer life for the next week or more, as the awareness of God's action within me rose and fell with varying degrees of intensity, that had nothing to do with my puny efforts.

"The effect of these experiences on my spiritual life were as dramatic as the experiences themselves. I felt humbled not proud by the power of God, totally unworthy and yet at the same time utterly grateful for what I had received. I wanted to commit myself to God and to his will more perfectly than ever before, even if it meant Gethsemane for the rest of my life and Calvary at the end of it. I knew that as long as the power of God worked in my weakness I would be able to do anything, just as without it I would be able to do nothing. Pere Le Bec showed no surprise at all, took it all as quite normal and to be expected. He could have taken the opportunity to introduce me to St Teresa 'Interior Castle', but he was too wise for that. Instead he pulled out a copy of the Confessions of St Augustine and read out the following passage:-

"' When first I knew you, you lifted me up so that I might see that there was something to see, but I was not yet the man to see it, and you beat back the weakness of my gaze, blazing upon me too strongly and I was shaken with love and with dread, and I knew I was far from you. It was as if I heard a voice from on high. I am the food of grown men, grow and you shall eat me.'"

"Pere Le Bec took both of my hands in his and gazed at me with eyes laden with love and compassion, and said ' Peter, you have been given these graces not because you are strong but because you are weak, to strengthen you, to journey on the way that will lead you further into the desert to be purified more fully for the union that you now desire more than anything else.'"

"Although the experiences continued for a few more weeks, they stopped almost as suddenly as they started. I blamed myself at the time and no doubt I was partially to blame, but I had no choice. The academic year was coming to it's end, I was busy helping my friend Boris to return to Russia while at the same time looking for new digs for the following year. The experiences that had inspired me to journey on would return but not as soon as I would have wished and only after travelling for much longer in 'the dark night of the soul."

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