Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 20

As you read Chapter 20, “How the all-powerful God well defends those who won’t stop loving him through contemplative prayer to stick up for themselves” (52-53), notice that at the end of the first paragraph, Anonymous reminds us again that both Mary Magdalene and Mary (sister of Martha) show us how to enter into union deep union with God.  We need only the desire to be fully in his Presence.

Anonymous also wants to realize Martha’s difficulty; she simply is “too worried” about things, too “distracted by many things.”  Her to-do list, filled with “merciful deeds” to be done, is long and good, but it doesn’t include “the best work of all,” that is, a deeply intimate love for God expressed within contemplative practice.

 

Read the final paragraph of this chapter carefully and explain in a sentence or two why Anonymous agrees with Jesus when he says, “Mary has chosen the best part, which will not be taken away from her” (53).

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 19

With Chapter 19 Anonymous tells how we respond to those who either criticize or don't understand what we contemplatives are doing; he says this chapter is “The author’s brief apology, teaching contemplatives to excuse actives for complaining and acting against them” (50-51).

Anonymous emphasizes how important it is for us not to criticize anyone who complains about our doing contemplative prayer.  If he seemed to criticize Martha in his previous chapters for being upset about Mary’s attentive love,  for “her delightful, intimate love pressed against that high  cloud of unknowing between her and God” (Ch. 17, p. 46), in this chapter Anonymous goes out of his way to make sure that you know he loves and respects Martha for all that she is.  He showers Martha with gracious compliments as he perceives her motivations.

 

What observations about Martha does Anonymous make so that he’s able to excuse Martha for complaining?

With this understanding of Martha, what does Anonymous say to us when we find people “baffled” by our contemplative practices?

Study Guide, The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 18

In Chapter 18 Anonymous cautions us to be aware “
[t]hat still, to this day, actives complain about contemplatives, out of ignorance, just as Martha complained about Mary” (48-49).

After reading this chapter, perhaps, like Mary, you can think of times when you have experienced disparaging remarks made about your contemplative practice, about your doing Centering Prayer. It’s not an uncommon experience. Some Christians look at contemplative prayer practices as unnecessary, too overtly pious, or perhaps unbiblical.  Perhaps someone has suggested that you are too “religious.” And then there’s the problem of hypocrisy.  Such critics (and we ourselves) know that many so-called godly and “prayerful” people have shamed the contemplative tradition by living outrageously wrong-headed lives. Anonymous acknowledges that such criticism happens and is often justified, and he concludes this chapter by suggesting that he may later say more about the matter. But he doesn’t want to take us “too far off course” (47).   So he drops the matter rather abruptly.  As we continue our study of The Cloud, be alert as to when Anonymous picks up this concern again.

If someone does criticize you as a Christian contemplative for being beyond the pale of orthodoxy, a practitioner of New Age ideas, or a proponent of pagan practices, how does one react to such misinformed charges? According to Anonymous, what is the best way to respond to such disapprovals? 

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 17

In Chapter 17 Anonymous announces that he will tell us "How true contemplatives forget the active life, ignoring negative things done to or spoken  about them and making no attempt to justify themselves to their critics" (46-47).

As he did in Chapter 16, Anonymous introduces us to a story about people who knew and loved Jesus. This time Anonymous asks us to remember what happened when Mary and Martha entertained Jesus and his collection of friends as their house guests. Here’s the story as Luke tells it in Chapter 10 of his Good News:

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”  41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

From Anonymous’ point of view, the story tells us that there are two ways of doing things, two ways of living, two ways of setting priorities. Quite plainly there is the “active” way of spending one’s days. Anonymous does not disparage this way of being a Christian. There is nothing wrong about being active, full of energy, busy, and concerned about others. A life involved in engagements, appointed tasks, family responsibilities, political involvements, and business concerns pleases God. Such a life is all good and fine.  But, says Anonymous, it’s best to see “helpful, holy service [as] the first stage of the active life. After all, as Anonymous pointed out in Chapter 8, the contemplative life cannot exist without the active life. The active life is a platform, a good flooring, a solid base for contemplative living. As he has already emphasized, the higher stage of the active life is also in fact the lower stage of the contemplative life. That “lower stage of the contemplative life” is the active life. So we only make a distinction between the two kinds of living; we do not separate them. When Martha is in the kitchen baking bread, roasting a leg of lamb, cutting up figs and grapes, opening up an amphora of wine, and setting out the tableware, she’s doing just fine.  She’s a busy woman!

A problem arises, however, when that’s basically all she does. Living exclusively an “active” life, she has an understandable tendency to look askance as what her sister Mary is doing. When Martha sticks her head out of the kitchen, she sees Mary, as Anonymous tells us, at the feet of Jesus, “[paying] no attention to the beauty of the Lord’s sacred body or his pleasing human voice and conversation. Instead, she focuses herself on “the highest wisdom of his divinity concealed in the enigmatic teaching of his humanity.” Mary is “[paying] complete attention” to Jesus “with every ounce of love in her heart” (46). “Her delightful, intimate love [is pressing itself] against that high cloud of unknowing between her and God.” In other words, Mary isn’t interested in how Jesus looks, the color of his clothing, the cut of his hair, or the muscles in his arms.  She’s interested in the Presence of God within him. We can perhaps therefore imagine Mary not only listening to Jesus, but being one with him as he pauses in silence, setting her free of thoughts. It’s Mary’s heart that is doing the work of contemplation; she wants the “Who-ness” of who Jesus is.

In summary, there are two ways of living: actively and contemplatively. They are not opposites, nor do they exclude one another. When lived out well, they complement each other.

In what way(s) does this interpretation of Luke’s story re-inforce what Anonymous notices in the story of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus’ feet with oil? What do the two Marys have in common?

Take a look at the end of paragraph two and the whole of paragraph three. Is there anything you find notable in the way Anonymous draws us to a conclusion about his observations? If so, what?