Monthly Osuna: Letter M
Meditation for Recollection
This is a monthly series on Francisco de Osuna’s The Third Spiritual Alphabet.1 In each post, we reflect on one letter from his Alphabet. The Alphabet was written as an aid to recollection. Recollection (being recollected in God) is both a form of prayer and a way of being in the world. This month’s letter is M.
Remembering God
The Letter Advises Us to Keep God in Our Memories, Saying: Remember God Constantly and Call Out to God with Sighs. Memoria ten de contino, y llama á Dios con sospiros.
“Thus, if you consider the letter in its entirety, it advises you to practice a very praiseworthy, very beneficial exercise, which is to guard the living memory of God and to awaken the desire in your soul to sigh and cry out from the depths of the heart where the Lord desires to come. When God sees that the lodger, which is this holy desire, has come to summon, God hastens to us rejoicing.” (SA 314)2
In this letter, Osuna suggests several forms of discursive meditation to aid in the practice of recollection. Discursive meditation is an act of the mind and thinking about God, whereas recollection is primarily an act of the heart and desiring God. Osuna assumes a principle that is common among Christian contemplatives: we guard our hearts with our minds. This can mean that meditating on good thoughts produces good desires. For Osuna, this can help recollection because we ultimately come to know and experience God not with our minds but with our hearts (desires). In another sense, it can mean we guard our hearts by the simple fact that we are keeping our minds occupied. In this sense, discursive meditation can help recollection because the primary object of our mental focus is God and divine goodness.
Osuna suggests several different meditations. I will focus on the two he finds most helpful: meditating on God as the source of all created goodness and meditating on the divine attributes by considering the goodness of creation.
Meditation 1: God as the Source of Goodness
“So when you constantly remember what you are to eat and wear and everything else you need, you should be remembering God who provides through these what you need from them. You may not realize it now, but every time you drink good wine from a vessel, you remember the vineyard or the vine from which it came; not only would you be without wine if there were no vine, but the flavor and color and smell would not exist without God to give it being in each moment and sustain it and bestow on it the operations that are proper to it and belong to it. This is clearly evident because if God were to remove his work from the wine, it would turn into nothing.” (SA 299)
The key to this meditation is to try and “see” God in all things by remembering that God is the causal source of their goodness. How is God the causal source of all goodness? Created goodness is not the result of one divine act that occurred billions of years ago. To the contrary, creation is a divine act of love that is continually bringing goodness into being and sustaining it. As Osuna says, without God, “it would turn into nothing.” This means we can perceive God in all that is good because divine goodness is their immanent source.
For myself, I use this kind of meditation by mentally saying, “The goodness of God is everywhere,” and then I start looking for good things. The moment I intend to see good things is the moment I start seeing good things. And, once I perceive the goodness that is ever-present and all around me, my heart is drawn to their source. The general purpose of this form of meditation is to cultivate within us a desire for the ultimate source of all the good we experience.
Meditation 2: Goodness as a Revelation of God
“This memory of God that we are to have is not of the sensitive nature; intellectual memory operates here rather than sensitive memory. Sensitive memory retains the image of things on a particular level, with the special qualities appropriate to them, whereas intellectual memory retains the images on a general, universal level without being fragmented into particularized qualities. In a lofty way, we remember God as unlimited being, immeasurable kindness, beginning without beginning, end without end, fullness that leaves nothing empty, invincible power, knowing that ignores nothing. Remembering God, we first apply some name and then generalize the name by removing whatever rings of limitation or imperfection.” (SA 301)
This meditation is properly kataphatic, meaning we can understand something of the divine attributes by taking positive attributes we see in creation and meditating on a transcendent and idealized conception of those attributes in God.
We can begin this form of meditation by thinking about some positive attribute of created things. For instance, one positive attribute is that many created things are beautiful. If many different, created things are beautiful, then we can generalize the concept of beauty: beauty is something good in which creatures participate, and beauty is something good that transcends all instances of beauty we see in creation. Finally, we can meditate on how God is transcendent beauty in an unlimited and perfect sense and how God is the beauty in which all created instances of beauty participate.
We can repeat this same kataphatic meditation using any of the good-making attributes of creatures and creation (order, inimitability, existence, life, etc.). However, since humans are created in the divine image, the good-making attributes of humans (love, kindness, gentleness, generosity, etc.) are particularly helpful for this form of meditation. For example, since love and kindness are positive attributes of humanity, then God is unlimited, perfect love and kindness.
Having said all that, my description of this meditation might give the impression that we can conceptualize something like perfect beauty or unlimited love. I doubt our minds can form such conceptions. Even when we try to think about divine beauty as a transcendent good, transcending all instances of beauty in creation, we probably don’t have a general image of beauty in our minds. If we have anything in our minds, it’s most likely some particular instance of beauty, e.g., a sunset. This outcome of kataphatic meditation is helpful because it reminds us that our ideas about God are limited, and it prepares the way for us to seek God with the desires of our hearts instead of the thoughts of our minds.
Recollection: Desiring Goodness/God
“The second part of this letter is closely tied with the first. If we clearly remember something good, we usually desire it eagerly; thus, the memory of some good moves our will to desire it. Our letter having cautioned you always to remember God, it now advises you to call out to him with sighs so that memory will serve the will, which is the power nearest to God and most intimately in communion with him.” (SA 304)
Osuna suggests that we meditate on God and divine goodness so that (1) we can keep God as the primary focus of our attention, and (2) we can cultivate our desire for God. However, the overall purpose of meditation is not to help us create well-formed ideas about God but to help us desire God more and more. Part of what endears me to Osuna’s approach is its generosity and practicality. If these meditations don’t work for you, he says, then skip them and focus on the desire of your heart.
“If this technique of exercising remembrance of God seems difficult to you, at least do this: Recollect your heart. With your worries cast aside, keep the holy name of the Lord in your memory as long as possible, and sigh out to him, as our letter advises, for thus you will benefit immensely…If you follow this exercise faithfully, you will be able to employ it while reading, writing, or doing other things for which recollection of the heart is needed.” (SA 301)
“You ought to form the habit of saying these or similar words, “O God of my heart and my inmost being.” Though the words may seem feigned at first, if you persevere in using them you will come to realize that they have truly taken root in your heart.” (SA 308)
Whatever can help us focus our desire for good is sufficient for recollection. Osuna recognizes that we might not feel in any sense that we desire God. And, perhaps, meditating on goodness or the divine attributes does little to help. What can we do? Osuna suggests that we try repeating the name of our Lord and even sighing out loud; the physical act of sighing can awaken desire within us. The more general point is that we have a natural desire for goodness because God is both the source and goal of that desire. God is already present in our desire for good. All that is needed from us is to awaken that desire and give it our full attention. “When God sees that the lodger, which is this holy desire, has come to summon, God hastens to us rejoicing.”
Francisco de Osuna The Third Spiritual Alphabet (Trans. Mary E. Giles; Preface Kieran Kavanaugh; Paulist Press, 1981)
In this letter, Osuna uses “memory” and “remembering” to cover most all cognitive functions, e.g., considering, imagining, awareness, etc. Hence, to keep God in our “memory” is to think about God or be aware of God.