ON RECOLLECTION AND DESIRE BY FRANCISCO DE OSUNA IN HIS TREATISE “THE THIRD SPIRITUAL ALPHABET ”
Introduction
Francisco de Osuna lived during the early period of sixteenth-century, a period of religious renewal and reform that touched the lives not only of priests, fri ars and nuns, but also lay people in Spain. he was a Franciscan, in the Order of of Friars Minor of the Regular Observance attracted to a simple, Christ-centered, inner spirituality practiced by St. Francis of Assisi. As an Observant Francisco emphasized in prayer the role of the will more than that of understanding, and encouraged a spontaneous and simple prayer of the heart. Francisco combined elements of Franciscan spirituality, the affective way of the heart, with the Augustinian philosophy of love. Osuna stands out as a vital intermediary in the development of Spanish Mysticism. His influence on Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross are indeed remarkable. As a prolific writer, Francisco in his seminal work the third Spiritual Alphabet clarifies the nature of false and true mysticism. In order to develop one’s inner prayer life, he formulated maxims as a guide for meditation, which he arranged alphabeticall y.
1. The Spiritual Alphabet
It was first published in 1527 in Toledo. Originally written in his native Spanish, the title “Tercera “ Tercera parte del libro llamado Abecedario Abecedario spiritual” . To aid in developing a practice of meditation and contemplation. The Alphabet is Alphabet is full of spiritual wisdom and insights from a masterful prayer guide. He insisted on recollection as an inevitable means to obtain the objective. 1.2. Recollection
In his teaching on recollection Francisco was alert and keen to avoid the passive quietism that denied any role for reason. To support on the inner process it is necessary to have a rigorous intellectual reflection. He emphasizes that recollection is not only a gift received but something we do by ourselves. However, he says that the exercise of recollection, ‘is not achieved by force but by skill’. skill’. It is a process of prayer which ascends from the lower stages of recollection to higher or deeper ones. It is prayer: It includes vocal prayer, to the extent that mental concentration is employed: mental prayer, and, more importantly, passive prayer. Given the ideal of one’s total life being lived out in conformity conformity with God's will. 1
Rrecollection is our constant alertness and receptivity to God, punctuated by moments of intense awareness of the divine, experiential union between union between creature and Creator and wisdom is poured into the soul without our understanding how and whence.’ For Osuna, becoming spiritually spiritual ly ‘collected’ was best achieved through a process of prayer consisting of three major forms of prayer, from lowest to highest: 1. Vocal prayer (active) 2. Prayer of the heart (active) 3. Mental or spiritual prayer (passive) Disturbing thoughts can plague even the most experienced re-collector, hence, Osuna recommends disciplining the soul gently and lovingly. It consists of disciplining the interior faculty, memory. A ccording to Osuna the faculty of memory can be distorted and corrupted due to continually remembering hurts, it in t urn stirs vengeance. Another cause for the disability is hidden attachment to the symbols of pleasure/security/esteem – continual preoccupation with evil. (11:1:292-293). As a consequence consequence spiritual spiritual recollection is distorted and blocked. Hence there comes the need for a therapeutic healing inside the memory that we have. For Osuna, this healing takes first of all through the way of Self forgetfulness.
1.2. Self-forgetfulness
The human capacity to recall and retain information that creates self-awareness takes place through the approach of ‘self -forgetfulness’. Openness to self-forgetfulness is initially nurtured by recalling and retaining the scriptural promises.
2. The Spiritual Transformation Transformation of Memory
Osuna reflects at length on the impact of spiritual recollection on the capacity to remember. Once one is purified by self-forgetfulness in his memory, a new law operates.
2.1. Memory That Both Retains and Creates
Memory is the place wherein the wisdom is stored. s tored. It is the ark of truth, the th e living book of man.
2
2.2. Memory That Holds the True and Essential Identity of the Self
‘The idea for every single thing and the seminal reason for every possibility exists in his memory better than on a plan, so that even if something were to die in itself, it would not perish in God's memory where all things are recorded and comprehended in such a way that the angels can read as if from a perfect book what God wishes them to know. In that book alone the essence of individual people is found, and there they are immortal, participating in the immortality possessed only by God, to whom and through whom and in whom all things live.' (11:2.295)
2..3. Memory Needs to Be Trained
Osuna recommends that we train our memory through exercises of spiritual remembering, Some examples he gives are, recalling our religious commitment, recalling our baptism, recalling the passion of Christ, recalling the religious experience, and recalling the action of God in daily life (11: 2.295-8).
2.4. The Highest Purpose of Memory Is to stimulate Love
Osuna then suggests a deeper purpose for these practices of remembrance. Remembering increases desire for the presence of what is remembered.
2.5 Memory Transcending Transcendi ng Recollection
Although the natural memory has been engaged and gathered into the process of recollection, the spiritual memory presupposes and transcends it.' Remembering presupposes recollection: the memory of God based on recollection is a spiritual resurrection.'
2.6. Memory – A Way of Transformation of the Whole Person
The memory based on recollection raises him from death to life and vitalizing his innermost being and heart and eyes, so that he lives not for anything else but God because his memory is of naught else but God.' ( 11.3.301)
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2.7. Memory – Capable of Spiritual Knowledge
In a lofty way, we remember God as unlimited being, immeasurable kindness, beginning without beginning, end without end, fullness that leaves nothing empty, invincible power, knowing that ignores nothing.
2.8. Memory Strengthens the Will
'If we clearly remember something good, we usually desire it eagerly: thus the memory of some good moves our will to desire it. Call out to him with sighs so that the memory may serve the will, which is the power nearest to God and most intimately in communion with him.'
3. Recollection and Pure Desire
Desire for God originate in the heart, however, the heart is secretly moved by one who can move it: by God, in whose hand it rests. Purer desires are unqualified by the sensual nature but a desire is infused or caused by pure love.
Conclusion
Osuna insists that recollection in God can be attained only by detachment from the senses and that the perfection of the prayer of recollection consists in thinking of nothing in particular so that the soul can be completely absorbed in God. To comprehend God withdraw from created things.
ALFONSO MARIA DE 'Liguori (1696-1787 1. Biographical He was born in Marianella (near Naples), September 27, 1696, 1726 - priest "Evening Chapels"-It was poorly organized groups of lay people, artisans, traders, unemployed workers, who gathered in the evening at the "chapels", for catechism, devotions, prayers and penitential practices.
all the baptized who have responsibility in faith and are called to a holy life
4
Founder
He knows, in Scala, the Ven. Celeste Crostarosa, then Visitandine (+1743), who in 1731 founded the
Order
of
nuns
of
the
SS.mo
Redeemer.
The second achievement is the innovative foundation (in 1732) of a religious congregation dedicated
to
evangelization
through
popular
missions
in
the
countryside.
was founded the Congregation of the Redemptorists, with the approval of Pope Benedict XIV, "the SS. In
Redeemer. 1762
he
was
elected
bishop
of
S.
Agata
dei
Goti
(Benevento)
Characters
Spirituality
1. His apostolic concern and his pastoral experience pointed the realistically his asceticism. 2. God loves all the things he has created. God loves everyone and wants everyone to win eternal salvation. 3. All souls are called to perfection and holiness, the essence of the term and take root in the love of God 4. True love must have its manifestation in effective accession to the divine will, and in the exact fulfillment
of
its
precepts.
5. 2. To get to the real and effective love of God the way most ordinary is the fear of God 6.
Thus,
the
meditation
of
the
eternal
truths,
must
inspire
a
healthy
fear
7. The feeling of fear, according to the Holy One, has no reason to be in itself, but in its supreme purpose
and
in
its
formative
function
of
love.
8. The feeling of fear, according to the Holy One, has no reason to be in itself, but in its supreme purpose
and
in
its
formative
function
of
love.
9. 3. Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sacraments, the Saints are means, which should lead 10.
us The
to
Ghost
is
the
the tireless
pure
preacher
of
love
those
tender
and
of
God
effective
devotions.
11. In this field he has no competitors among the modern masters of spirituality. 12.
4.
A
key
point
of
the
whole
ascetic
Alphonsus
is
prayer.
13. Prayer not only great means of salvation, but also an instrument of spiritual perfection. 14. It has been said that the doctrine of St. Alphonsus with regard to the prayer already belongs to the
history
of
Christian
thought
and
practice.
15. In two basic directions should get the message of St. Alphonsus than prayer. The first might be said to be oriented in the pastoral and apostolic, because prayer is the great means of salvation for 5
all
Christians.
16. The formula: Who prays is saved, and he who does not pray is condemned. 17. Do not pray means to break the chain of thanks, lose trust in the Lord and failing to love. 18. At St. Alphonsus belongs the glory of having restored the practice of prayer in general, and meditation in particular, as an ordinary and popular current exercise of Christian piety. 19. "From this absolute need we have to pray, there is the need of mental or moral meditation." 20.
In
his
spiritual
life,
mysticism
occupies
a
very
small
space.
21. For him, holiness does not necessarily need extraordinary gifts of the mystical life, you may find the perfect union also active as an outcome of mental prayer in the Christian faithful of the town. 22. For him, holiness does not necessarily need extraordinary gifts of the mystical life, you may find the perfect union also active as an outcome of mental prayer in the Christian faithful of the town. 23. His doctrine in this respect, and almost always traditional, or rather, it is the greatest tradition reworked
and
heated
SPIRITUALITY
breath
'of
Two
lines
a
the
SPIRITUALITY
•
of
spiritual
fate
personality.
nineteenth
'THE'
of
strong
century
Restoration
all
'inside
of
the
Christian
'
community
itself:
• an uncompromising opposition to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and in the movements of the French Revolution. This opposition can be summed up in the well-known formula of the Syllabus: •
an
"The
attempt
to
church recover
is from
incompatible all
of
the
new
with cultural
modern currents
civilization"; than
it
appears
• 1800 ushers in the beginning of a new era. The new civilization is fundamentally anti-Christian and anti-religious
proclamation.
As a result, its growing propagation led to a new rhythm in the life of the Church and in the development
of
spirituality.
The radical transformation of the West, religious and political will begin with the French Revolution
(1789).
Other •
The
revolutions Old
Regime
can
be
said
now 6
gone
in
almost
all
Western
nations.
•
Liberalism
as
a
philosophy
affects
every
aspect
of
life.
• The different philosophical systems determine the progress of culture and modern science (relativism,
positivism,
rationalism,
existentialism,
fenomenologismo).
• We require both the liberal ideas of democracy, constitutionalism and parliamentarianism, both the secularization of the state and the usurpation of ecclesiastical property, leading to the gradual emancipation of the local churches by the state and the new configuration of the legal relationship between •
We
Church can
find
in
this
and
period
the
separation
State. of
state
and
church.
• We are witnessing the ever -clearer -clearer separation between believers and non-believers, convinced Christians and followers of naturalism, conservative Christians and liberal Christians, right and left. •
In
this
regard,
we
can
detect
that
within
Catholicism
two
currents:
• The current restoration. Concerned about the pri vileges and temporal goods of the church. • The current restoration has been able to promote religious orders already abolished and stepped up missions
to
the
people
calling
it
asceticism
and
piety.
• It has enhanced the traditional popular devotions that appeared inserted in the Christian mystery (Way of the Cross, devotions to the passion, the blood of Christ, the cross, to the hearts of Jesus and Mary). • The Council reiterated that revolutionary explosion can be avoided, if the Christian community self-giving to charitable charitable. He made the condemnation of the new ideologies. 2. The current progressive, instead, look with some complacency prudent bourgeois civil autonomy and
the
They
want
socio-liberal.
a
new
spiritual
path.
His desire is to see a liturgy understandable and partecipabile by the faithful, clergy educated and distracted by political maneuvers, an opening social-democratic politics and the overcoming of the claims
of
the
temporal
power
of
the
Church.
The
Restoration
• The "restoration" of 1815 represented a starting point in the awakening of the Christian conscience towards •
They
a were
soon
overcome
new the
obstacles
coming
spirituality. from
the
political
upheaval.
• The Christian life began to develop everywhere with renewed commitment, commitm ent, so as to be able to speak
•
of
There
a
are
true
two
lines
rebirth.
of
development:
• on the one hand there is the "restoration" with a return to traditional religious events that had 7
suffered. • At the same time appear new sources and new expressions of spirituality inspired by the new conditions
of
life.
• The restoration is not a time of speculation or its expressions in science or doctrine. •
It
is
a
time
of
spiritual
life,
rich
and
varied
spiritual
practice.
• In this environment dominated by practical prac tical concerns the determinants of spiritual restoration are as
follows:
• the intensification of traditional practices of the Christian life with a renewed spirit; • participation in the growing of the Catholic laity in all areas of church activity; • the extraordinary flowering of religious life in new forms and more dynamic than in the past. • All these forces renewed join the movement of reaction to provoke an authentic spiritual revival that had his moments of greatest splendor in the second half of the nineteenth century.
1.
Romanticism
and
spirituality
• The Romanticism movement is a very complex and with many aspects of philosophical, political, artistic
and
cultural
heritage.
• It is basically an artistic and cultural movement and then, according to t o religious order, but important
for
its
universal
diffusion.
• Born as a reaction against the Enlightenment and the Revolution that choked certain natural needs of
man,
such
as
religion,
the
link
with
the
past,
tradition,
etc..
• Romanticism proved the need ne ed of the religious phenomenon and consecrated as the classical era of the Christian faith, the Middle Ages. Romanticism committed to reconcile faith and culture, God and
man,
fully
drawing
on
the
philosophical
and
artistic
heritage.
• Begin to manifest such su ch a reaction towards the end of the eighteenth century and becomes consistent
and
universal
during
the
first
half
of
the
s.
XIX.
• The current literature is original of England, though it is stated culturally and religiously in Germany. • The word romance seems to derive from the English, who spoke in 1765 Borwel the romantic aspect of Corsica, and then was translated into romanesque, romance and romantic. • Romanticism is current artistic reaction against the Classicist style, current cultural and philosophical against rationalism; religious movement against the Enlightenment and its ideas. •
Romanticism
is
not
a
movement
specifically
Catholic,
but
generically
religious.
• Initially does not have a proper expression, is an atmosphere, an attitude opposite to the arid and vulgar
Enlightenment. 8
• In the religious takes shape when you begin to give prominent place to the mystery or mysterious in
any
form.
• The dominance of the subjective, intimate, personal and emotional of the objective and rational in life. •
Primacy
of
feeling
and
imagination
over
the
canons
of
reason
and
science.
• The Romantic feels in the depths of spiritual reality-oriented, reality -oriented, not to investigate the extent theological but rather to savor his inspiration in imaginative, emotional and aesthetic. • He feels intimately prepared to receive the inspiration from the gospel, to live the feeling of adoration and atonement, to venerate the sovereignty of God in liturgical prayer, to situate themselves
in
an
atmosphere
of
inner
emotions.
• They are the t he most spiritual authors who speak of the heart. Romanticism has threatened to reduce spirituality
to
pity
emotional
and
sentimental.
• The anxiety of full freedom of thought and expression in every field of
life.
• In some ways it looks like liberalism taken t aken to its extreme consequences, even if the doctrinal roots are
very
different.
• The importance of the singular values of nature, like the virginal aspect, rural, and the value of the mythical,
mysterious
and
wonderful,
honor,
love,
woman,
etc..
• L'ideale-religious L'ideale-religious need and looks like natural tendency of man, the glory of the past and why the basis of artistic inspiration, a bond of social unity and political reaction against the misery and decay. • The value of tradition, both cultural and religious, as it corresponds to the social necessity; • It is a need for continuity and at the same time link with the glorious past of culture and religion. B.
Oxford
a.
Movement
Roots
and
origin
o The situation of the Church in England began to change dramatically after the American Revolution
(1775-1783)
and
the
French
Revolution.
or begins then liberation of Catholics from a situation that has been the most oppressive that existed in the West since the sixteenth century. The steps that led to the so-called emancipation of Catholics are
as
follows:
or 1. Equality of Catholics and Anglicans in civil matters since 1823, thanks to the work of Daniel O'Connell
(1775-1847),
the
liberator
of
Ireland.
or 2. Statement of Catholic Bishops that infallibility and the primacy of the Pope in temporal matters is not Catholic dogma. As a result, the government pushed through by the two chambers in 1829
the
emancipation 9
of
Catholics.
or 3. Concession to the Catholic Church in Ireland to own real estate as the Anglican church. Early promoters or Religiously or the Oxford movement is the result of spiritual awakening that is produced
through
the
Wesleys
between
the
eighteenth
and
nineteenth
centuries.
The great figures or promoting the revival since 1830 can change the situation and to infuse new vitality
into
the
traditional
Anglican
Church.
Promoters
• The Oxford movement extends into almost natural form in the Catholic Church for two basic reasons: • 1.for the close pr oximity oximity of doctrine and attitudes between the two churches at that time. • 2. Then for the fact that the best representatives of the movement were converted to Catholicism. • The Catholic Church gets a very strong spirit on the part of converts who awakene d spiritual consciousness
and
mystical
in
many
environments.
• John Keble was considered by Newman himself as the initiator of the movement. • Keble sought to embody in himself the ideal church and priesthood of the Anglican church. With the press and propagation of his famous Christian Year did nothing but sing these ideals and propose to his countrymen. The testimony of his small rural community and his personal zeal conquered
the
hearts
of
those
first
followers,
as
Froude
and
Newman.
• In preaching, he wanted w anted to teach the Anglicanism of the XVI-XVII century, as a purified Catholicism by the return to the original sources. This vision went quite elementary deepening. So Hurrell Froude in his Remains proposes a very extensive restoration pastoral and religious to the Anglican
church.
• Pusey made a synthesis of the ancient sources, medieval, then the Catholic reform. • With the great John Henry Newman (1801 -1892) we arrive at a perfect balance between the sources, the living reality and the actual situation of the Church in different moments of cultural history. • Contributions-Institutions, Contributions-Institutions, Writers
10
