Readings for the Second Sunday of Lent: Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18 | Philippians 3:17—4:1 | Luke 9:28b-36

The Transfiguration is an event of prayer. And prayer is how we practice self-annihilation, which is our theme for Lent. We let go of self and surrender to God in prayer. But this prayer is not a collection of words, ideas, and feelings. Rather, prayer means the contemplative silence in which we stop thinking and rest in God. This is the primary way we let go of self or practice self-annihilation.

One lesser-known Catholic mystic who taught self-annihilation is John Chapman, an experiential authority on the prayer of contemplative silence. He was born Henry Palmer Chapman on April 25, 1865, in Ashfield, Suffolk, England. He first became a priest in the Church of England, then, after much silent prayer and study of Catholic theology, Chapman became a Catholic on December 7, 1890. After trying out the Jesuits, Chapman became a Benedictine monk in March of 1893. He took the name “John.” He often lived at Downside Abbey and was a chaplain to English soldiers in the Great War. He was elected the abbot of Downside, hence “Dom” Chapman. He died November 6, 1933, of influenza.

He wrote many letters of spiritual direction to monks, nuns, and lay people. In these letters, Chapman lays out some excellently practical teachings on prayer, or as we might call it, the prayer of self-annihilation.

First, he tells us how to pray the prayer of self-annihilation. It is pure silence within, without any deliberate thinking: “to try and think…simply stops prayer dead…you can’t make silence…not by any positive effort, but only by negative effort;—that is, the cessation of acting or thinking. Consequently, it ought always to be a relaxation…do not reflect on your reflections, or worry voluntarily about your involuntary worries.” With his dry British humor he quips, “one might call it an act of ignorance, or a sensation of idiocy!” And yet, in this “idiotic” silence “one wants nothing else.”

He instills a great confidence in this way of praying: “It is absolutely easy, if only you realize that it is a prayer of the will, not of the intellect, or the imagination, or of the emotions. For it follows that thinking about all sorts of other things doesn’t matter, provided it is quite involuntary; and feeling nothing at all doesn’t matter either.” So, then, “to think deliberately about anything during prayer is obviously a distraction, as it takes the will off its object.” The mind is “fixed on nothing in particular—which is God, of course.” He calls is the “contemplation of nothing at all.”

Second, he tells us something very practical: “I think you will find that the more time you can reasonably give to being alone with God, the easier it becomes to enjoy it.” Even more, he states, “the longer one prays, the better it goes” and “the way to pray well is to pray much…the less one prays, the worse it goes.” So, the most direct way to have prayer go well, even if it feels like it is not going well, is to be silent within as much as we can throughout the day.

Third, he says, “you will find yourself continually humiliated in it, especially by feeling that you are entirely unsuccessful in prayer.” Even though it is easy to practice, we will never feel like we are masters of it. Further, he says, “distraction—and the feeling that nothing happens—is no proof whatever that one ought not to be using simple prayer. It only proves that one ought to use it more.” The experience that this prayer is not working is only proof it is working, and we should give more time to it.

The fruit of the prayer is a decreasing focus on self: “What do I matter? Only God matters.” For, “the more disappointments and failures there are, the more we are thrown upon Him.” And, “distracted prayer is generally more humbling than a recollected prayer,—therefore it gives more glory to God and less to us”

Prayer annihilates self because it is all about God and not the ego: “prayer, in the sense of union with God, is the most crucifying thing there is. One must do it for God’s sake; but one will not get any satisfaction out of it, in the sense of feeling ‘I am good at prayer,’ ‘I have an infallible method.’ That would be disastrous, since what we want to learn is precisely our own weakness, powerlessness, unworthiness.” And, paradoxically, when we simply remain in silence, doing nothing, our desire for God deepens. It is because we are enjoying God as God and not based on our thoughts or feelings.

This prayer “will probably consist of (i) only distractions or worrying; or (ii) nothing at all; or (iii) utter misery, and feelings of despair; or (iv) that there is no God; or (v) that it is all dreadful, and waste of time and pain. And you will then…feel—in a higher part of the soul…how much better this is than what you used to have.” This nothingness is more delightful than anything on earth. “It is ‘superconscious’…we can only call it “nothing” or vacancy; only we know really that “nothing” means the ALL, and that…there is nothing so knowable (to us) as the Unknowable.” This truly annihilates self.