Infused Contemplation
There is a mystical beauty to what is termed infused contemplation, i.e., the rare grace that instils in the mind a supernatural understanding of the Divine (as much as can be fathomed by the human mind, of course).
When He created all things, the Lord ordained that all natural things would forever remain as He created them: The birds of the air would never become the fish of the sea, the grass would never tower above the mountain, and so on. However, to Man He said that such cooperation with Divine order would vary by each person’s reasoned choices. One may choose to heed the call of God by marrying and rearing children in imitation of His Fatherhood. Another may choose to quiet the yearning of their heart for something higher by smothering it with lustful distractions and a flooding of alcohol. Still others might choose the demanding way of the ascetic monks, rejecting anything that might draw away their gaze from heaven. One such man of contemplation, a great Desert Father named Abbot Antony, said that prayer must not be subject to the frailty of the human condition: “That is not a perfect prayer, wherein a monk understands himself and the words which he prays.”1
When our own plans, desires, and awareness are involved in contemplation or prayer, we are often limited by our own spiritual capacities in what we might learn—though the Lord can reveal to us whatever He wills. Whatever insight He deigns to allow us, nevertheless, is often curtailed by these same limited faculties.
Let us imagine a student of law who has spent hours amid a mountain of dry books in his frantic search for a thorough rebuttal to a professor’s prompt. By some mirific happening, he suddenly encounters a text in a foreign language that he knows holds the answer he has been searching for. He now has the answer, but he does not yet know what this answer is because he does not yet know the book’s language. If this student were to unexpectedly understand the language in full—its grammar, syntax, even colloquialisms—this could be analogous to the idea of infused contemplation. By no effort or doing of his own, this student was supernaturally granted an insight that was previously foreign to his mind’s capacity.
A man who sang the praises of these elevated meditations was Jacques Maritain. It is agreed that Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., was a pioneer of bringing orthodox Thomism to modern thought in the early 20th century. No one would put up a fuss if we were to claim that Maritain was the same beacon for the mid-20th century.
I would like to borrow one of his thoughts on the effects of such contemplation:
If his [St. Thomas’] sanctity was the sanctity of the intelligence, this is because in him the life of the intelligence was fortified and completely transilluminated by the fire of infused contemplation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit…. He prayed without ceasing, wept, fasted, yearned.2
The Angelic Doctor did not only reason his way to his various spiritual practices, and he did not only use rational speculation to guide his prayerful aspirations toward the Divine. Perhaps for his piety and certitude in his exhortations to the Catholic world, he was granted a gift that he could never have perfected by reading the prayers or writings of those who had come before him: An unbridled passion for He Who granted Man the gift of Reason and Truth.
If you ask someone who has been allowed the experience of this more perfect contemplation why they have such love for God, they will likely not be able to provide a reason—at least not a reason that they find sufficient. One might say that such persons love because God first loved them, but even this suggestion would fall short because it would seem to involve human reasoning (i.e., that we love because it is the reaction to being loved). Infused contemplation transcends all such reasoning: Such persons love because it is unthinkable not to love.
When we contemplate in prayer or study, we must always be mindful that what we shall be able to reason and understand will be limited to our own frailty. And if the Spirit of God grants us additional wisdom, we ought certainly to use such an increase to praise His mercy. But if we, by some holy mystery, are imbued with an eternal contemplation and supernatural love for the Lord, we will never struggle to discern how we ought to use such a love because we will have been accorded a treasure that cannot be studied, understood, or described—only exercised.
Though there is nothing we can do to bring about this private devotion, we must ceaselessly live in complete holiness. When we think, we must think solely of God as we go about our tasks. When we speak, we must begin each interaction with the intent to bring the topic to the beauty of God. When we act, we must declare by every action that we are mere vessels of Him Who causes all things. We must intoxicate ourselves on the sweetness of Him, zealously rid ourselves of anything that takes our thoughts from Him, and remain in perpetual conversation with Him Who cherishes our every word.
1 Quoted by St. John Cassian, Conferences, Conf. IX, Chap. XXXI.
2 Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 20.
Joseph Walkowski is a member of the Salve Regina Fraternity in Grand Junction, CO, serving as Vice-President and Alternate Delegate to the Provincial Council. He made his Temporary Profession in March of 2023. He has been approved for Perpetual Profession; just waiting on a date!
"I know I am called to this life because I would do most anything for the nurturing of souls and the proclamation of the Lord’s glory, and I require order to live a disciplined life. I love the Dominicans, and I cannot think of a better impetus than love. I am not holy, but I wish to surround myself with those who are. I am not as wise as I should be, so I wish to be near those who have found such wisdom. I am not a good lay Dominican, so I wish to make those who are my company."