Contemplative prayer is the simple awareness of the presence of God. It is prayer without words or images.
The contemplative life has been described as a steady gaze of the soul upon the God who loves us. One expression of that life is contemplative prayer, which is the “act and experience of a person’s spirit opening to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Franciscan Contemplative prayer offers an opportunity to engage in dialogue with God and oneself.
The Rule (Article 8): As Jesus was the true worshipper of the Father, so let prayer and contemplation be the soul of all they are and do.
An adaptation of Clare’s words, “Gaze upon Christ, Consider Christ, Contemplate Christ,” can be a Franciscan mantra for those wishing to draw closer to God in contemplative prayer. The singular gift of Francis and Clare to the Church was a new vision of contemplation, a departure from the monastic tradition where monks directed their vision upward, toward heaven to attain the goal of union with God instead ascending the ladder of contemplative prayer with sacred reading, which led to meditation/prayer, and ended with contemplative union.
For Franciscans, the focus or gaze is not upward, but rather outward toward ordinary human life, particularly focused on the Incarnation, where God chose to descend into our world to become one with us through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
In gazing upon the face of Christ, particularly in the cross of San Damiano, Francis and Clare saw the faces of the poor, the rejected, the suffering of humanity and so were moved by compassion to acts of charity and service. The path to contemplation for Franciscans is to gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate—a goal focused on transformation by which one becomes like the face of God reflected in the Incarnation.
Francis’ first biographer, Thomas of Celano describes the way of Francis like this:
Who could ever express the deep affection Francis bore
for all things that belong to God?
Or who would be able to tell
of the sweet tenderness he enjoyed
while contemplating in creatures
the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Creator?
From this reflection
he often overflowed
with amazing, unspeakable joy
as he looked at the sun,
gazed at the moon, or observed the stars in the sky.
[see: Vatican II Apostolicam Actuositatem – Decree on the Apostolate of Laity, 4]
St Bernard of Clairvaux On the Stages of Contemplation