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II. A Spiritual Life Managed on Business Principles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
In my first article I suggested that the reader of Dom John's spiritual letters lost much because they are not arranged chronologically, I suggested that he should begin with the first three letters to a Jesuit, in which Dom John developed his rounded theological theory of the world, and then attempted to outline this theory; its outstanding characteristics seemed to me to be the importance given to God's will, both as ‘permissive’ and as expressing his good pleasure, and the importance given to contingency. In this second article I propose to follow the development of Dom John's theory and practice of contemplative prayer. In a final article I hope to be able to show how Dom John's study of de Caussade's writings enabled him to coordinate his spiritual life with his theological theory.
Towards the end of the long letter written to his Jesuit friend expounding his theological theory, Dom John said: ‘I always tell people that our spiritual life must be managed like the War Office on business principles.
1 The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman, O.S.B., 2nd edition, 1935. My references are to this edition (reprinted 1954).
2 p. 233.
3 p.45.
4 Introduction, pp. 12-13.
5 p. 247.
6 p. 113.
7 p. 116.
8 p. 117. The reader is referred again to Dom Christopher Butler's essay in English Spiritual Writers, edited Charles Davis, London 1961, and for this passage in particular to p. 185, note 1.
9 p. 248. In a note Dom Roger Hudleston gloses ‘irrational’ as meaning ‘above reason, not contrary to it’.
10 Book I, Chapter 9 in Complete Works, Vol. I edited and translated by E. Allison Peers, new edition, London, 1953.
11 Book II, chapter 13 in ibid, Vol. I.
12 Stanza III, section 34 in ibid, Vol. III.
13 Spiritual Letters, p. 68, from a letter of 1925.
14 p. 247.
15 p. 118.
16 p. 127.
17 pp. 287-294.
18 p. 288.
19 p. 259.
20 Dark Night, Book I, Chapter 9.
21 Spiritual Letters, p. 333.
22 p. 37.
23 p. 85.
24 p. 23.
25 p. 37.
26 pp. 40-41.
27 p. 36.
28 p. 37.
29 p. 42.
30 p. 294.
31 p. 47.
32 p. 53.
33 p. 135.
34 pp. 141-146.
35 p. 147.
36 p. 149.
37 p. 62.
38 Daniélou, J. Platonisme et Théologie Mystique. Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de S. Grégoire de Nysse, Paris, 1944, p. 203Google Scholar.
39 Hebrews, II.I.
40 Garrigou-Lagrange, V. R., La Synthèse Thomiste, Paris 1946, pp. 515-7Google Scholar.
41 Spiritual Letters, p. 59.
42 Dom Illtyd Trethowan in Downside Review, October 1962, p. 351.
43 S.T.I. 3. 4, ad 2.
44 Pietas urges me to note here that Fr Emmanuel d'Alzon, founder of the Augustinians of the Assumption, devoted though he was to St Augustine, nevertheless recommended St Francis of Sales and St John of the Cross to his congregation as the spiritual writers par excellence. ‘Un Maître des novices, un confesseur, nourris de leurs enseignements, peuvent, sans crainte de s'égarer, conduire les âmes au plus haut point de perfection et dans le cloître et dans le monde’. (Écrits Spirituels, edited Athanase Sage, Rome 1956, pp. 216-7.)
45 M. Gilson's ‘discours’ is printed in La Croix for 15-16 December, 1963. The reader is also recommended Fr Victor White's essay ‘The unknown God’ in his book God the Unknown, London 1955.
46 Spiritual Letters, p. 95.
47 p. 291.
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