The Nine Grades of Prayer - 3rd and 4th Grades

05-03-2020Weekly ReflectionJen Arnold, M.A. in Theology and Catechetics

You were hopefully able to find some opportunitiesto practice more meaningful verbal and meditativeprayer in the last week. Continue to keep comingback to those simpler forms throughout your prayerlife. This week, we will explore the 3rd and 4thgrades of prayer.

3rd Grade of Prayer – Affective PrayerThe majority of the development ofthis grade of prayer comes to us fromSt. Francis de Sales. If you are interested,his book, Introduction to the DevoutLife, is an excellent resource writtenspecifically to help lay people seek outholiness in their everyday lives.

Remember in the 2nd grade ofprayer meditation – we activate ourintellects and imaginations to try tomore deeply penetrate the meaningof a supernatural truth. Now, in the3rd grade, we move out of our headsand more into our hearts. Affectiveprayer is reflecting and meditating onwhat God’s love means to you as anindividual. You still need to engageyour mind a little bit to do this, butthere will be much less thought overall.In this grade, you are not asking foranything or trying to figure out anything.Your mind is not busy trying to tell God everything youneed to tell him. There should be no journalinghere. There is a certain peace to this form of prayerbecause there isn’t anything for you to do except tojust simply sit and bask in the love God has for you.

This grade of prayer is known very much forbringing about spiritual consolation. Consolation inprayer is when we feel God’s close presence to usand can feel His response to our gift of love forHim. Receiving consolation in prayer can be soothing,comforting, and peaceful. We rest in the fact thatall is well because of God’s love and close presence toour soul. Spiritual consolation helps with affectiveprayer as we feel God dwelling in our hearts.

We do need to be careful about becoming tooattached to consolation in our prayer life.It is not always guaranteed. Relying onconsolation in prayer also endangersour disposition to only go to God tomake us feel good, when in fact, weshould be going to God in prayer out oflove for Him. Love is doing somethingfor the good of the other, not becauseof what it can do for you. I will talkabout this more at length in the nextarticle, but you will have to go through adark period of no consolation to achievethe 5th grade of prayer. So, appreciateand enjoy any consolation you receive inprayer, but do not expect it as if youare owed it.

While this grade of prayer often(not always) brings about consolation,what if it doesn’t? We must look atthe other fruits of our prayer life todiscern how our union with God is growingthrough our prayer efforts. Do we experiencean increase in our practice of virtue? Do you havean increase for love of God and love of neighbor?Do you handle suffering better? If you join yourcross to Jesus’ and carry it better as a result, yourprayer life is growing. Even if God does not offer youconsolation for any period of time, be thankful toHim for it. Know that He is there. Rest in the factthat He loves you. And know that He is using thattime to bring about something good in you andyour relationship with Him.4th Grade of Prayer – Acquired RecollectionAcquired recollection is the highest grade of prayerwe can achieve by our own work and practice.

After this one, God alone, can move us through thefinal grades, if He so wills. To get to and throughthis 4th grade takes a lot of self-discipline on ourpart and we should work on it as much as possible.Acquired recollection is also known as the prayerof simplicity or the prayer of simple vision. It iswhere we apply our simple loving gaze on a divineor supernatural truth. Similar to the earlier grade ofmeditation, we choose any truth, mystery, or otherdivine attribute to focus our attention. However inthis stage, we remove all imagination and emotion.We just gaze lovingly on whatever object we havechosen through the eyes of our heart. Controllingyour imagination and emotion takes quite a bit ofself-mastery and this is not something that can beachieved easily or without perseverance.

Arguably the best place to practice this grade ofprayer is in the Adoration Chapel before theBlessed Sacrament. Can you quiet your mind andall that is inside of you and just gaze lovingly atHim? This is no easy feat for some people, myselfincluded. Paragraph #2715 in the Catechism sharesa story told to us by St. John Vianney. St. John cameupon a peasant who was in the church sitting beforethe tabernacle. When St. John asked the peasantwhat he was doing his reply was, “Nothing. I look atHim and He looks at me.” This is exactly whatacquired recollection, or the prayer of simplicitylooks like.

So, using some of our previous examples ofobjects of our meditative prayer, we can see howthey would look in this grade. The first mystery of theJoyful Mysteries of the rosary is the Annunciation ofJesus' conception in Mary’s womb. Can we simplygaze lovingly at God made flesh as a tiny baby? Canwe simply gaze lovingly on the woman He chose asHis living tabernacle for nine months? Can we gazelovingly at the pain he endured for us in bearingthe crown of thorns on His head? Can we each gazein simple love at a crucifix because He suffered for loveof each of us? We talked about using paragraphsfrom the Catechism as objects of meditation asthey contain divine truths. Can we gaze on thosestatements of truth with love, simply because theycome directly from God in love?

Both of the grades of prayer we’ve discussedhere require us to get out of the busyness of theworld and out of our own, often tumultuous, headsand emotions to meet Jesus in our hearts moreintimately. This week, can you seek out opportunities– even a few minutes – to practice turningeverything off in order to be at peace in the loveof God, no matter what else is happening in yourlife? Practice this as frequently as you can, and itwill grow and bring about great fruit in your life.