Study Guide for Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boston: Shambhala Press, 2009).
Chapters 8-9
Read Chapter 9, “How even the holiest thoughts
obstruct rather than help contemplative prayer” (30-31).
Where, in particular, does Anonymous stress the
importance of not confusing good and lovely thoughts “about” God (or anything
or anyone else) with entering the cloud
of unknowing”?
Locate and underline the three times that
Anonymous in this chapter calls what we do in contemplative prayer “work.” Then take a look at Butcher’s comment on page
137 (Chapter 3, note 4) and ask yourself, “Does it help if I consider Centering
Prayer “work”? If so, how? If not, why not?
Read Chapter 10, “How to tell which thoughts are
sinful, and which are mortal or venial” (32-33).
Here Anonymous wants to
consider how we handle “bad” thoughts.
We are to be aware, he says, that not all thoughts, especially “bad”
thoughts are the same. As Butcher
explains in her endnotes, Anonymous was accustomed to dividing sins into two
categories: venial and mortal. He
assumes that as contemplatives who have “honestly renounced the world,” we do
not have a overly serious problem with mortal sins. We should, however, be on guard against their
dangerous entrance and presence in our lives, and consequently he gives us
examples as to how the so-call “seven” deadly sins my inveigle their way into
our thoughts and actions. As you look
over the list, which one or ones do you consider personally most dangerous to
your spiritual life? Why so? When and how in your work of contemplative
prayer do you handle them?
For next Tuesday, July 24, read Chapter 11 (34)
and Chapter 12 (35-36).
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