Fruits of Contemplative Prayer
As we get closer and closer to God in the contemplative prayer, we are transformed from one glory to another, and we thus become more and more like the One we love. Since Contemplative prayer leads us to ever greater intimacy with the Holy Trinity and helps us to immerse in the Divine, our weak human nature will be gradually transformed. The traits of our lower nature described in Gal. 5:19 will be replaced by the fruits of the Spirit seen in Gal. 5:22. Thus husband and wife tend to replace arguing and bickering with loving dialogue and listening to each other as they grow in their intimacy with God. A genuine love for each other and for their children necessarily deepens. A conviction arises that unity and shared vision take precedence over the attitude that "I must have my way." A joyous willingness to embrace sacrifices and hardships replaces complaining and bitterness.
With the growing divine light and love, which lie at the very core of contemplative prayer, they see things with perspective and proportion: big things appear big and trivial things trivial. It is easy to see why marriages in which both partners are committed to a deep prayer life are happy indeed.
St. Paul puts it thus: "All of us ………………." (2 Cor. 3:18). Yes, Contemplative Prayer—the love-penetrated union with the indwelling Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit entails a personal "transformation from one glory to another" into the very divine image itself.
Most of all, Contemplative Prayer quenches fully our unquenchable thirst for more. Of all interpersonal intimacies open to the human person, contemplative prayer in its advanced stages of development is incomparably the greatest. Mystics, the men and women of the most profound immersion in the indwelling Trinity, are unanimous in declaring that these depths immeasurably surpass any other experience. They are literally unspeakable. This is what St. Paul speaks in 1 Cor. 2:9: "Worldly people are little inclined to suspect all this, but we should not be surprised – they have no experience of the reality. They are like a man born blind challenging the description of a magnificent painting."