Spiritual Combat Revisited by Fr. Jonathan Robinson

Author:Fr. Jonathan Robinson [Robinson, Fr. Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898709308
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-06-04T05:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRAYER

Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean himself and none of his gifts.

—The Cloud of Unknowing

Spiritual combat is undertaken because we desire to know Christ Jesus and him crucified; and the ascetical life must be seen within this framework of preparing ourselves for sharing in the divine nature. At every Mass the priest says, “may we come to share in the divinityof Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity”,1 and Scupoli’s outline of prayer is oriented toward this sharing in the divinityof Christ through purity of heart. Yet knowledge of the final goal does not suddenly make the combat disappear or mean that prayer as a weapon in the war against sin and in the campaign to acquire the virtues is no longer necessary. Any effort to make a detour around ascetical prayer usually ends in both failure in Christian living and frustration of the search for union with the divine.

Asceticism is an indispensable aspect of Christian living, and prayer is an enduring element in this effort to fight sin and draw closer to God. But just as asceticism does not constitute all there is to the spiritual life, so prayer cannot be restricted to its role as a weapon in spiritual combat. Living of any sort involves change, and spiritual combat is based on the belief that change for the better is a real possibility. Inevitably development in the spiritual life will entail development in the life of prayer, even though this necessity often goes unrecognized by those who are satisfied with the particular form of ascetical prayer they have achieved.2 Scupoli provides us with a practical guide to prayer as related to fighting sin and working at acquiring the virtues. Furthermore, his outline of prayer is oriented toward purity of heart and union with God and so escapes the criticism that his teaching is as narrow and unimaginative as has been suggested.3 On the other hand, his treatment is so condensed that it is easy to lose sight of this final end of our prayer, and, to compound this difficulty, there are important discussions of some forms of vocal prayer in the section on spiritual exercises.

In order to make up in some way for this situation I have placed his discussion within a larger context, a context that shows both how Scupoli’s outline of prayer is related to other types of prayer and how the serious practice of ascetical prayer points the way to a greater freedom in the spiritual life. St. John of the Cross says that “God leads each soul along a different road and there shall hardly be found a single spirit who can walk even half the way which is suitable for another.”4 This should not be understood to mean that St. John is recommending we ignore ascetical prayer, but he is saying that ascetical prayer leads to an intimacy with God that is not bound by rules.5

In seeking to provide

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