Contemplative Prayer and the Whole Person

By Jonathan Montaldo In the introduction to his In Time of Temptation, Ladislaus Boros urged his readers to realize that prayer involves their entire lives, the dynamic pattern of the building blocks of their existences, the real places where their own God was hidden but waiting to be discovered through spiritual exercises of attention and honesty by them to realize, as they could, who they were and had become, their personalities transformed in Christ. “Contemplative prayer involves the whole person: we concentrate our entire being upon the central meaning of our life. The concerns of everyday living, so various, superficial, and disturbing, we let fall away. The basic experiences of life rise to the surface — hope, joy, fear, silence, solitude, good fortune, longing for love and friendship. In contemplative prayer we do not rush to ...