T.M. Luhrmann had an interesting piece about different types of prayer. Here is the permalink for her “Why We Talk in Tongues.”

She says there are two main categories of Christian prayer: apophatic and katophatic. Apophatic prayer means emptying the mind of thought. Katophatic is repeating a series of words or lines or following a particular path of thought in a kind of directed daydream.

What Luhrmann does not supply are the etymologies of both words. So I hopped on Wikipedia to learn more. Apophatic is from the Greek word apophemi (long e) which means “to deny.” Interestingly there is a form of theology called apophatic theology which seeks to understand God by defining on what he is not.  Katophatic is from two Greek words: cata meaning “to descend” and femi meaning” to speak of.” The entire word means to “bring God down to speak of Him.”

As a medievalist, I find these useful categories for rethinking various saint’s lives (the life of St. Teresa), medieval treatises on prayer (such as Juliana of Norwich’s Revelations), and even some of the dream visions (the Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood). The Gawain poet’s poem called “The Pearl” might be an example of a kataphatic experience since he enters into a prayer like state and is guided by signposts provided by the New Testament.

Juliana of Norwich had her revelations which she was deathly ill. She recovered and wrote down descriptions of what she saw and heard. It seems that these visions came to her when she was in a apophatic state — mentally exhausted and weakened by prolonged sickness. In this receptive state God came to her to show her the unity of creation and the everlasting, all encompassing mercy and love of God.

It seems to me that many of the dream visions fall into the category of kataphatic prayer. In “Pearl,” the narrator is grieving over the death of his daughter and has a vision in which he enters into the kingdom and heaven and finds his daughter with the saints. His path is determined by the medieval geography of heaven. By following this path, he has a revelation of heavenly peace and salvation which allows him to return to his earthly live and accept the death of his child.

I am writing this by drawing on old memories from years ago and feel inspired to seek out these books on the shelf and reread them.