—Purgative Way—
1. Vocal Prayer
2. Mental Prayer
3. Affective Prayer
4. Acquired Recollection
Bridge: Dark Night of the Senses
—Illuminative Way—
5. Infused Contemplation
6. Prayer of Quiet
Bridge: Dark Night of the Soul
—Unitive Way—
7. Simple Union
8. Conforming Union
9. Transforming Union
For more information and details, see this post here. Notice the lowest form of prayer is Vocal Prayer, meaning using words either audibly or mentally, whereas mental prayer is primarily in the intellect, focusing on God or meditating on some mystery without words of any kind. The Holy Rosary combines the first two levels through vocal prayers while meditating on the mysteries of our Lord (Mental Prayer). The saints tell us that Mental Prayer is the gateway to all the higher forms of prayer, and the higher you ascend also corresponds to your progress in virtue. Our Lady of Fatima requested 15 minutes of mental prayer for the First Saturdays devotion. St. Alphonsus recommends making 15 minutes of mental prayer each day. See the resources page on prayer. The best book of meditations I have found is Fr. Ignatius’ School of Jesus Crucified (1866), available for free with this app.
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Greetings! Very useful advice within this article! It’s the little changes that will make the most significant changes. Many thanks for sharing!
Looks like metaphysical transcendental meditation to me.
Brian: why don’t you ask St. Teresa and St. John about it brother. God bless. 🙂
This is excellent information! I hope you don’t mind me posting parts of this article on an Instagram post?
Sure brother
I need the nine levels of prayer because i went to deepen my relationship with God so your help are importent for me
I am looking for a publication/book written by a Carthusian about the nine levels of holiness that was a balance between sin and prayer. The former (sin) decreases in the same proportion as the latter (prayer) increases.
Hello Phil I’m sorry I’m not familiar with any book like that.
After I initially commented I seem to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments
are added- checkbox and from now on every time a comment
is added I receive 4 emails with the same comment. There has to be a means you can remove me from that service?
Thanks a lot!
Hello Eduardo. It should be in your settings with WordPress after you entered you name and email. Let me know if you don’t find it.