Morals of the Church
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Article — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Article I. On Meditative Prayer

581.

Meditative prayer is when someone piously thinks about divine things. It is divided into speculative meditation, or simple meditation, and affective meditation, according as either the consideration of the mind or the affection of the will prevails.

Meditative prayer is called contemplation when man meditates on divine things by a simple intuition of truth and without discourse. Contemplation is called passive when the soul, aided by grace, in contemplating behaves passively, that is, when God himself infuses into the soul the species to be formed, which happens chiefly through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this passive contemplation properly seems to consist the mystical union of the soul with God (cf. St. Alphonsus, Prax. Conf., n. 126 sq.).

Mystical union admits different degrees, which several reduce to four: simple union, full or perfect union, the union of ecstasy, and the union of marriage. Simple union consists in such a union with God as still admits wanderings of the mind; full union, in such a union as no longer admits wanderings of the mind, although the external senses and the motion of the body are not yet suspended. The union of ecstasy consists in such a union with God as not only does not admit wanderings, but also holds the external senses and the motion of the body suspended. The spiritual or consummated union of marriage consists in such a union with God by which the soul seems, as it were, to have been transformed into God, or in the fact that the soul senses that it has a participation in the acts of the divine nature (cf. St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

Authors dispute whether or not the soul, by a long exercise of active contemplation, can arrive at the lower degree of passive contemplation or mystical union; in other words, whether or not mystical contemplation is the normal evolution of the supernatural life.1

1 Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection chretienne et Contemplation, I, pp. 1-45; Maumigny-Richstaetter, Katholische Mystik, pp. 40-44; Van den Tempel, Wetenschap der Heiligen, chapters 10 and 11; Tanquerey, Precis de Theologie ascetique et mystique, 4th ed., p. 973.

PrayerMeditative Prayer