The Cloud of Unknowing

in our technology-driven world today we hear a lot of talk now days about the cloud seems that we no longer store things in in folders and drawers filing cabinets or floppy disks or hard drives or flash drives it's more and more becoming the cloud where we store all of our information the cloud is apparently some sort of amorphous warehouse somewhere out in cyberspace we restore everything that we know well this evening I'd like to talk to you about another type of cloud a cloud that not isn't involved not so much with knowing but with unknowing a cloud which is involved in what we might call learned ignorance the Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous treatise of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the later half of the 14th century an internal evidence suggests that the author had a monastic impossibly priestly background with a deep experience of the solitary life the treatise is addressed to an aspiring contemplative who already made some progress in the spiritual life and was probably a monk himself interested in learning to contemplate by the way of unknowing the treatise is significant not only as a classic of Western spirituality in its own right but also as the inspiration for the centering prayer movement founded by the Trappist monks Thomas Keating William Menninger and basil Pennington according to Keating centering prayer is simply an attempt to present the teaching of earlier times in an updated format and to put a certain order and regularity into it it is the experience of interior silence or resting and God it focuses on a sacred word and follows this basic principle resist no thought hang on to no thought react emotionally to no thought and whatever image feeling reflection or experience attracts your attention return to the sacred word now the clouds approach to Christian prayer has its roots in a work called the mystical theology the treatise written in Greek in the late fifth or early 6th century by an anonymous Christian possibly Syrian monk under the pseudonym of dionysius the areopagite the person converted by the Apostle Paul at the Areopagus of Athens in the Acts of the Apostles chapter 17 the key insight of this work is the inaccessibility of God through human thought and the importance of approaching him by way of negation the author of the cloud presents his work as a faithful summary of the Areopagus mystical teaching he says whoever reads the Unisa's work will find that he clearly endorses all that I have said or shall say from the beginning of this treatise to the end now although he did not have access to the full Viennese en corpus and came to know much of it only through secondary sources his deep reliance on this ancient form of Christian mysticism is clear and indisputable the author of the cloud preface is his treatise with a prayer and opens his prologue with the sign of the Cross making it clear from the very outset that he embraces the classical Christian doctrine of the Trinity and he also affirms his belief in the Trinity of in the divinity of Christ and accepts the revealed truths of Christian revelation as his starting point and views mystical experience as a gift that God bestows on certain individuals for the good of the whole the treatise must be read against this backdrop of Christian truths regarding the nature of God humanity's creation in God's image and likeness the consequences of his fall from grace its redemption made possible by the passion death and resurrection of Christ and it's mediation to us through the church and it's sacraments these beliefs lie at the very heart of the work and cannot be stripped from it like some external veneer that reveals some deeper truth or hidden beauty to do so or even attempted would lead to a seriousness reading of the author's intent and purpose rather than denying these truths the author of the cloud embraces them and shows the reader how to derive from them a deeply contemplative outlook on life the ultimate goal of which is the face-to-face experience of the Divine although he recognizes that not everyone is called to a life of pure contemplation he offers clear instructions for those who are he begins by identifying four degrees of the Christian life the ordinary the special the solitary and the perfect and while the first three begin and end in this life the fourth begins in the present and ends in the world to come for our anonymous author the life of pure contemplation offers a foretaste of the beatific vision and thus represents the highest form possible of earthly existence all other forms of Christian life point toward it in ultimately surpass it in the vision of God now two of the central themes of the cloud or the divine transcendence and its inaccessibility through human thought knowledge of God comes not through the catyph attic or positive way of ideas but through the apophatic or negative way of self emptying and hence the phrase the way of unknowing those of us who wish to experience the divine essence must abandoned the way of the intellect and approach God through the way of the heart and we do so by casting every thought that comes to us into the cloud of forgetting and by beating with persistent heartfelt love on the Cloud of Unknowing that separates us from God reason has no hope of penetrating the impermeable cloud of darkness separating us from our Creator love for God alone has any hope of piercing it and it happens if at all only because moved by our heartfelt expressions of love God Himself reaches out to us from the other side the author's constant refrain in the cloud is to cast all thought into the cloud of forgetting and to beat constantly against the Cloud of Unknowing with the heartfelt longing within their hearts and the way we do this we do so by focusing our minds on a single word such as God or love and using it as a shield against all distracting thoughts and images and when we find ourselves distracted as often happens with beginners and even the most accomplished contemplatives we are directed to simply let go of the distraction and return to the word we have chosen repeating it again and again as a means of knockin against the door of God's heart this constant beating against the Cloud of Unknowing reveals the depths of our love for God and the more we love God the more will we desire to contemplate his face and the more we will beat against the dark impermeable cloud that separates us from him now the author whoever he is claims that the spirituality of the cloud is not for everyone but only for those who have already made progress in the life of prayer and feel called to living the gospel on an even deeper level of awareness the work it describes cannot be achieved through intellectual study or the imaginative faculty and should only be practiced by those calls to it and it requires deep humility and total commitment of one's life those pursuing pure contemplation must pursue the threefold way of predation illumination and union these stages in the spiritual life have three emphases the purgative focuses on the cleansing of sin the illuminative on growth in the virtues and the unitive on the gifts of the Spirit and on mystical union with God the author of the cloud makes it clear that the person who undertakes the work of pure contemplation must have a clear conscience seek forgiveness through the prescribed means and make a point of judging no one dedication to this work of love requires the gift of God's grace and will eventually calm our sinful inclinations and instill a life of virtue in developing his spirituality the author often refers to Martha and Mary to New Testament figures who in the church's tradition respectively symbolized the active and contemplative lives like Mary who sat at her Lord's feet instead of helping her sister prepare the meal those called to a life of pure contemplation are often misunderstood and at times even criticized by those in the act of life the author explains the roots of this muscle understanding and encourages contemplatives to be understanding and compassionate in their dealings with those who neither understand nor appreciate their calling those who receive the grace of contemplation moreover must not presume that others will have his or her own exact experience finite minds cannot contain the infinite nature of the divine and words used to express mystical experience often conceal as much if not more than they reveal the way of pure contemplation lies in casting all thought into the cloud of forgetting and impounding incessantly on the Cloud of Unknowing and when sinful thoughts and impulses come the author advises those just beginning the work of pure contemplation to beyond them as though searching for something else or to tremble in their presence and surrender humbly to the power and mercy of God beginning contemplatives moreover should devote themselves to the reading reflection and prayer of Lexi o Divina and use short fervent prayers as a way of piercing the cloud and touching heaven this method calms reason and will the principal powers of the soul and quiets the secondary powers of imagination and sensuality which have become unruly as a result of original sin the author also shows how the grace of contemplation was prefigured in the Ark of the Covenant through Moses the Prophet who was instructed about how it should be made through the Isabel the craftsman who constructed it and Aaron the high priest who could enter its presence at will the author places himself in the office of bezel Bezalel that is as someone who constructs something for the benefit of others and he then lists a number of concrete signs by which a person may test whether he or she is called to the work of pure contemplation besides cleansing one's conscience one must have the approval of one's spiritual director a continuous pressing desire to practice it a deep sense that nothing else one does is as important and an even deeper desire to practice it when the experience returns after a long absence and having more joy in finding it than in losing it and the author ends his treatise with the words of st. Augustine the life of a good Christian consists of nothing else but holy desire now the author of the cloud provides some very specific instructions about who should read his treatise and how it should be read he states in his prologue that he wrote his book not for the merely curious whether learned or unlearned or or those who bicker flatter blame gossip paddle tell pals or steal and even if they are accomplished in the active life such people will gain little from what he has written but he wants his work to find its way only into the hands of those who are determined to be perfect followers of Christ into our preparing for contemplation by cultivating the life of the virtues those in the active life may benefit from it but only if they are genuinely interested in deepening their experience of God through the exercise of contemplation and later in the prologue and again in chapter 74 he states that his work should be read several times over and in its entirety since some things are not fully explained until much later and in keeping with the contemplative nature of the work moreover he suggests that his work be read in the fashion of Lexia Divina and only by those with a true affinity for a life of pure contemplation this slow meditative reading goes to the text not merely for content but for the deep spiritual wisdom beneath its surface and for this to happen we must chew the text and digest it by reading it reflecting upon it praying over it and resting in it now this present addition and commentary which I am presenting this evening adapts Evelynn Underhill's 1922 edition of the cloud to our modern English idiom this adaptation seeks to remain faithful to the text while making it more accessible to today's readers introductions and background information and reflection questions have been added to the opening prayer the prologue in each of the treatises 75 chapters to help readers engage the text in a more dynamic and personal way readers should go through the work slowly and use the introductions and reflection questions as a way of entering more deeply into the text and following it to open their minds and hearts to the way of Unknowing and they are also encouraged to read the text not for information but as a topic for meditative reflection and they will benefit from it more by spending 20 minutes in quiet reflection East each day on a single chapter than by going through the entire work quickly and then a single setting this quiet meditative reading of the text will help foster in them a contemplative attitude towards life and help them follow the way of Unknowing in their daily lives and now to conclude our purpose in reading a book such as the cloud is not to lose ourselves in a nostalgic recreation of a distant and ultimately irretrievable medieval religious landscape but to explore that past in order to help find helpful insights for dealing with our present spiritual struggles such insights encourage us to enter into a dialogue with the text to enter into a dialogue with the text still further and to become aware of our own feelings and judgments about the meaning of our own spiritual journey in doing so we will doubtless find ourselves at times both questioning its teaching and being questioned by it this dynamic relationship between the text and its reader touches the very heart of spiritual reading and is extremely important when dealing with this classic of Christian spirituality some 20 years ago Trappist monk William Menninger one of the founders of the centering prayer movement paid this eloquent tribute to the treatise he says for over 25 years I have been giving retreats and workshops on contemplative prayer as taught by a fourteenth century book called the Cloud of Unknowing by an unknown English author inspired myself by the loving union with God that the cloud teaches I have been blessed with the privilege of teaching it to thousands of others I have read the cloud over a hundred times and each time I find it a new book a new inspiration a source of new ideas about the work of love the descriptive phrase the cloud uses to describe contemplative prayer or the loving search as I call it here in I have dedicated this new edition and this spiritual commentary on the cloud this way for all who yearn to see the face of God my hope is that this new addition and commentary on the cloud may be for you at all times a new book a new inspiration a source of new ideas about the work of love may it guide you in the way of Unknowing may it fill your heart with love and bring you to the threshold of a face-to-face encounter with the divine I thank you you

Channel: St. Charles Borromeo Seminary

Views: 20,491

Rating: 4.7978339 out of 5

Keywords: The Cloud Of Unknowing (Book)

Id: B7gpLxoSndI

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 06 2015