Christianity is not a set of (more or less coherent) ideas. It is not, like Gnosticism, a doctrine of liberation through enlightenment. It is primarily a means of salvation, which is to say a method of integration—the integration of human with divine life, through a series of stages. This does not mean that Christianity is merely an ethical system any more than it is an attempt to explain the world intellectually. The integration it brings about is a genuine transformation; it goes much deeper than the exchanging of one pattern of moral habits for another. Christianity is declining in Europe largely because this essential interior dimension—the spiritual dimension in which we experience a living relationship with Jesus Christ—has been neglected.
The need for ongoing catechesis in the mysteries of Christ and of the Church, a catechesis traditionally known as mystagogia (“initiation into the mysteries”), has been noted in Church circles for years. Mystagogy is the stage of exploratory catechesis that comes after apologetics, after evangelization, and after the sacraments of initiation (baptism, Eucharist, and confirmation) have been received. Baptism and confirmation may be given only once. Christian initiation, though, is a continuing adventure, since the grace of these sacraments is the source of a new life of prayer that must continue to grow if it is not to wither and die.
The modern revival of the ancient Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults by the Catholic Church in the 1960s was an attempt to recapture a sense of the initiatory power of the sacraments as it had been experienced by the early Christians. There is a period of formal mystagogy at the end of RCIA, which continues from Easter Sunday through Pentecost (and sometimes longer). But this does not go nearly far enough. It certainly does not suffice to introduce the catechumen to the full richness of mystical theology.
All too often, the new Christian, having been received into the Church through RCIA, or the young person newly confirmed, is left to sink or swim in the parish. A shortage of priests or qualified spiritual directors means that such a person receives very little encouragement to journey deeper into the Christian mystery. He may not even be aware of the full richness of the spiritual resources that exist within the tradition, resources to help him grow in prayer and holiness and the knowledge of God.
Some people may find help within a parish prayer group or one of the new ecclesial movements (Focolare, the Neo-Catechumenal Way, or Communion and Liberation). They may join Opus Dei or one of the older “third orders,” which were designed for lay people who wished to attach themselves to a religious order (such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, or Carmelites) without themselves taking religious vows. Some may become “oblates” of a local monastery. In fact, there are many such opportunities if you look persistently for them, but it remains true that many people simply settle down into a routine Christianity that often turns into a spiritual wasteland. The danger then is that such a person may drift into a kind of indifference, gradually cease to pray, and eventually lose the sense of faith altogether.
How can we “crack the nut” and find our way deeper into the tradition of living prayer? Everyone has to find his own solution, but the starting point is always the same: the desire to find it. You have to look. But we have our Lord’s assurance that “every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:10).
One of the greatest Christian masters of mystagogy, who wrote under a pseudonym around five hundred years after the birth of Christ, is Dionysius the Areopagite, sometimes called St. Denys. His influence on Christian mysticism, art, and architecture (through, for example, the school of Chartres in eleventh century France) has been immeasurable, his orthodoxy assured by such admirers and interpreters as Maximus the Confessor in the East and Thomas Aquinas in the West.
Trinitarian Model
Dionysius divided the Christian Way into three phases (purification, illumination and union) and linked these to the three hierarchies of angels, who were thought to assist in each of these three phases—to put it another way, the active, inner, and contemplative life. The schema has been well tested over the centuries, and many saints have found it helpful. Of course, it remains only a suggestion, and you may find another approach more congenial. Perhaps for this reason, the Catechism does not refer to it very explicitly, even though it speaks of the purpose of creation as union with God the Holy Trinity and the goal of the Incarnation as the divinization of man by grace (CCC 260, 460).
I like Dionysius’s threefold classification because it reflects the Trinitarian structure of the Christian spiritual life. It also corresponds to other familiar triads that are explicitly discussed in the Catechism, such as the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (CCC 1812–29). Faith corresponds to purification, hope to illumination, and love to union. Similarly, the Catechism talks about three evangelical counsels as providing a fundamental pattern of authentic Christian existence (CCC 915, 1973, 2053). I would suggest the counsel of poverty corresponds to purification, chastityto hope, and obedience (the integration of our will with God’s) to union.
Finally, the brilliant fourth part of the Catechism divides Christian prayer into three types: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplation (CCC 2699–2719). These, too, can be seen as corresponding to Dionysius’s three phases. Vocal prayer brings the body into line with the spirit by expressing the spiritual Word in voice and gesture. We can think of it as a kind of discipline that points us toward God. Meditation involves the imagination, the “eyes of the heart,” by which we penetrate gradually to the inner meaning of the words and images of faith. Finally, contemplation is the prayer of silent union with God, a beginning or foretaste of the life of eternity.
Prayer in Action
Though the Christian religion does not depend on spiritual techniques, it does offer guidance and assistance in developing a life of prayer and also in putting that prayer into action as a life of love. Pope Benedict’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est does just this. But one of the most beautiful passages on Dionysius’s three stages of Christian life was written by Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, in the final chapter of his last book, Memory and Identity. This commentary by a saintly pope can serve as a wonderful encouragement to us to set out on our journey in search of a “deeper Christianity.”
The Purgative Way, John Paul explains, is based on observance of the commandments (see Matt. 19:16–17). It enables us to discover and live our fundamental values. But these values, he goes on, are “lights” that illuminate our existence and so lead us into the Illuminative Way. For example, by observing the commandment “You shall not kill,” we learn a profound respect for life. By not committing adultery we acquire the virtue of purity. This is not something negative but bound up with a growing awareness of the beauty of the human body, both male and female. This beauty, he says, “becomes a light for our actions” so that we are able to live in the truth.
By following the light that comes from Christ our Teacher, John Paul says, we are progressively freed from the struggle against sin that preoccupies us in the stage of purification. We become able to enjoy the divine light that permeates creation. This perception of “illumination” is based on a conscious awareness of the world’s nature as gift: “Interior light illumines our actions and shows us all the good in the created world as coming from the hand of God.” The Illuminative Way therefore leads into the Unitive Way, realized in the contemplation of God and the experience of love. Union with God can be achieved to some degree even before death. And when we find God in everything, created things “cease to be a danger to us,” regaining their true light and leading us to God as he wishes to reveal himself to us, as “Father, Redeemer, and Spouse.”