Infused Prayer: God-"Poured" Prayer

What is infused prayer? In response to a comment I received about a week ago, I posted this:

Infused prayer is not a technique; rather, it refers to who the acting agent is. In discursive prayer, we are the acting agent, and in infused prayer, God is the one primarily acting. He infuses Himself into us to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how prepared we are to receive Him. We have no ability to influence the infusion, for it comes from and is initiated by God; we are only able to prepare ourself.

Thomas Dubay says, "Infused contemplation is by no means a dry or sterile intellectualism, a platonic gazing upon abstract essences. Nor is it an oriental, impersonal awareness. Rather, it is a 'loving awareness of God...a loving contemplation...a loving wisdom...a loving light and wisdom'. Indeed, it becomes 'a fire of loving wisdom'. When we put these traits together, a yearning or delightful loving with a cognative contact touching the divine, we have, as John [of the Cross] so well puts it, an inflow of God Himself. Contemplation is a deepening self-communication of the Trinity, a self-communication that we are given to experience."

He continues his explanation: "Though we have said it already, the point must be made explicitly and with some development: the prayer of which we are speaking can in no way be originated, intensified or prolonged by anything we can do. It is divinely given in its entirety. This is the literal meaning of infused, a word stemming from the Latin infudere, infusum, to pour in, that which is poured in. John therefore writes of a 'tranquil reception of this loving inflow...the touch of burning in the will...the touch of understanding in the intellect...an inflaming of love'. These expressions make it clear that the prayer is not a result of our efforts, our reading, imagining or reasoning. It is not of human origin" (p.63 of Fire Within).

In the beginning stages of this prayer, people usually do not even know that it is happening. It is so subtle and gentle that for those just beginning down this path, it doesn't seem like anything.

I will write more on this topic in the days to come.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
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