Without returning to the prayer and the spirituality of our forefathers, the Church has seemed to have gradually deteriorated at every level. However, I am now witnessing the many who are beginning to see the truth. They are beginning to see and do what can alone bring personal renewal, and Church renewal, by generating and receiving the only love that can change the world as God originally planned.

Following the lectures I gave each year at the Angelicum in Rome, I received many invitations from all over the world to repeat these lectures from Dominicans who could not travel to Rome. One invitation was to prove my downfall. It began with an invitation to lecture to Dominican nuns in South Africa, the same nuns who owned and helped me run the diocesan retreat and conference centre in London. All went well, or so I thought, but a problem was brewing. The mother general was influenced by a Dominican sister from another Dominican congregation, who had been trained as a depth psychologist in Rome under the Jesuit Professor Rulla SJ. She believed that psychology could do what spirituality did in the past more quickly and she persuaded the mother general to send a group of sisters to participate in therapy groups. Once trained, they would be equipped to change others by introducing the latest pop-psychological techniques using group therapy sessions and sociological methods into their communities.

There were four factions that disrupted each community. There were modern stoics, those who wanted the classical Dominican tradition, those who wanted no change at all, and those who followed a strange Angel cult. I therefore wrote a paper for them detailing the Dominican Raymond of Capua’s methods of reform. I called it the Umbrella Approach with the Gamaliel principle using the principle of Acts 5:39, that what is of God will survive, and what is not, will not. It was duly admired but not taken up, so the split between the modern Stoics and those who wanted to live the classical Dominican Tradition was only a matter of time. When a new mother general exclusively supported the new stoics with their modern methods of renewal, and insisted on all participating in it, the writing was on the wall. All were encouraged regardless of expense, to go on as many of the current self-help, self-discovery and self-awareness courses as possible. On returning from their training, two totally different approaches to renewing the congregation were clearly evident and the two groups clashed. Prayer and spirituality, was out, mystical theology was openly derided whilst modern depth psychology, group therapy and other pop-psychological techniques were in, and the dunces cap was made for me.

The final catalyst came in the person of a Jesuit priest, Fr John Carroll Futrell, who was at the behest of the sisters seeking socio-psychological renewal at the Jesuit spirituality centre in Denver, Colorado, sent to give the annual retreat to the Dominican Sisters at Chingford. With his permission I attended that retreat and was appalled to see how a modernised version of Jesuit spirituality was being used to replace the Dominican Spirituality to which they aspired. In the exercises of St Ignatius, the relationship between human action and divine action is totally orthodox.

But sadly not so in subsequent centuries when many of his followers so emphasize human endeavour and human wisdom that God’s action is minimized, if mentioned at all. Once again semi-pelagianism reared its ugly head. When challenged, as I challenged Fr Futrell after the retreat, they say that grace is important, but in fact all the practical importance is placed on human endeavour. In a letter to Sr Dominic the superior of the community, which she showed me, he warned her of me and how if she listened to me I would lead them astray. She did listen to me and I did lead them, but not astray, but rather back into the Dominican tradition to which they aspired to return.

The break came when I was away lecturing on Mystical theology in Rome for the renewal course for Dominicans from all over the world. However, they were not alone as a Dominican priest from the USA, Fr Gabriel O’Donnell OP, was staying at the Chingford Convent in North London at the time completing his doctoral thesis. The Sisters sent to the Jesuit centre in Denver were being instructed in a spirituality that was all but the opposite to that being taught by contemporary Dominicans in Rome and elsewhere. But sadly, the new mother general sided with those who wanted to transform their congregation with the modern man-made socio-psychological methods that were being taught in both Denver, Colorado, and in Rome. When the seven sisters who would break away refused to submit to, what was in effect semi-pelagian anthropocentric means of reform, they received a letter from their Mother General cutting them off from the congregation over which she presided. It was a grace that Fr Gabriel O’Donnell OP was there, not just to help them to move out of the convent and into what was originally a stable block that I had renovated for the use of the conference centre, but with the brotherly support and spirituality of a fellow Dominican.

The Mother General was summoned to Rome where she was severely sanctioned. Her letter to the seven sisters referred to them as a “cut off branch”. She was told in no uncertain terms that only Rome can do what she had just done on her own initiative. However, the two factions stayed separate while the legal niceties were worked out. Having first only offered his services as a “facilitator”, Fr Lachy Hughes SJ became the advocate for the “Magnificent Seven” when the mother general’s advocate arrived from South Africa and embezzled the deeds to the properties held by the Chingford Dominicans. The seven remained silent while their semi-Pelagian Sisters did all in their power to undermine them, particularly with a new method of discerning God’s will, learnt at Denver called “discernment”. Rather like a Ouija board, the method they used had an uncanny and infallible way of getting the answers that you want, proving that you were, not only right and being guided by God, while those who opposed you were wrong and in the hands of an evil spirit or bad angel who was an agent of the “Enemy”. That what you had discerned was God’s will was always proved by an inner feeling of peace, given by God himself, when the truth had been discerned. Not surprisingly they discerned that the “breakaway sisters” were wrong and in the hands of the devil, while the evil genius who had incited them, the cause of their disobedience, was the very devil incarnate, and so I was sacked without further ado. Such people could only be dealt with by “exorcism”, but none of them, including me, seemed inclined to seek the ministrations of an exorcist.

Simultaneously with the psychological and pseudo-religious methods employed by the “Denver” group, another perhaps even more frightening attack on authentic spirituality was coming from Rome from the Professor of psychology at the Gregorian University, the Jesuit Fr Rulla. A Dominican Sister who had studied under him was busily plying her trade when I was giving a retreat to Dominican Sisters in South Africa. The then previous mother general who had helped set up the Dominican renewal course in Rome recommended me as the main lecturer on prayer. Fr Rulla’s thesis was that what had been done in the past to change a person from their ordinary sinful selves to their ideal selves, could now be done far better and far more quickly by his methods of depth psychology. The Dominican Sister who was implementing his travesty of the truth, was also used as an enforcer, whose techniques were employed to psychologically undermine and destroy anyone who stood for prayer and traditional spirituality, and who opposed the implementation of Rulla’s methods. In short, she was being used as psychiatrists are used in totalitarian systems to smash all opposition and declare those who oppose them as psychologically unsound. It is easy to break a person psychologically, but it takes years if not decades to help them to spiritual and psychological rehabilitation. I know, because that is what I found myself doing all those years ago and am still doing today. If there is a devil who is trying to destroy the Church, you will not find him in the mystical and glorified Body of Christ and in those who try to live and grow there, but in those who try to undermine and destroy them with the psychological torture that they use to discredit and destroy them. However, I have said enough here to make my point, but I will return to this subject elsewhere and in detail, to unmask the “real demons” who are hell bent on turning the Church into an Orwellian nightmare. This nightmare has already begun, with devastating attacks on contemplative orders and their “pointless” way of life, when they should be outside preaching, teaching, and evangelizing. Have they forgotten the old Latin saying Nemo dat quod non habet – You cannot give what you do not have? The great saints were so effective in their apostolic work because they had first received in prayer the love that they communicated to others. Take away Contemplative prayer that is the heart and soul of the spiritual life and you are left with neo-Arians, neo-Pelagians, and neo-Macedonians, bent on changing the Church with the latest “here today and gone tomorrow fads and fashions” that often pander to and try to legitimatise some of the basest of human instincts.

As the evil genius who was propagating authentic Dominican renewal, I was sacked almost overnight, and the order was split. Thanks to the help of two good friends of mine, the brilliant canon lawyer Fr Lachy Hughes SJ of the English Province, and a secular lawyer, John Ashurst, Barrister and General Manager of the then Midland Bank and others, the new Dominican congregation was formed in 1981 to follow the classical Dominican Tradition. The semi-Pelagians quickly disintegrated and are no more. I felt part-father, part-midwife, and part-bereaved mother, for the newborn aspired to live the classical Dominican tradition which I had studied, admired, but never lived, so I gave way to their Dominican foster-father, Fr Gabriel O’Donnell OP who took over. Today they are flourishing in the New Forest in the South of England. Fr Gabriel OP continues to look after them making regular visits from Washington where he is at present stationed. It has to be said that their movement was initially away from the new psycho-sociological methods for renewal that were being imposed upon them, rather than a movement to new beginnings, where the development of personal prayer would be in pride of place. However, that has now changed. Since then, other renewals formed through the selflessness and the self-sacrificial loving that is taught by and practised in mystical theology have all flourished. However, endless different forms of renewal based on myriad types of modern, so called “spiritualities” of one form or another have continued to rise and fall like a roller coaster. Some have presented themselves as almost acceptable, but when you put the microscope on them, they are predominantly anthropocentric not theocentric, and the main emphasis is on the renewal that comes through human and not divine endeavour.

In the business of sanctification both human and divine endeavour are deeply involved and intertwined. It is, however, all a matter of emphasis, and if that is wrong then everything is wrong. If the emphasis is any other than that seen in the God-given spirituality that Christ gave to the early Church and as practised by the first Christians, then you are being deceived. Remember again that St Teresa of Ávila said that there is only one way to perfection and that is to pray, and if anyone points in a diff erent direction then they are deceiving you. If in any new spirituality that is being off ered to you, prayer, and how to pray is not paramount and not just assumed but taught above all else, then you are being deceived, and so is your teacher no matt er how sincere that teacher may be. Change, renewal, individual transformation, call it what you will, comes from God and only from his love.

A genuinely Catholic spirituality is merely the expression that we use to describe how we re-order our lives in such a way that we can be open to receive that love, not do for ourselves what only God can do, no matter how the techniques proposed are dressed up in traditional religious language. Is this person who is teaching me, teaching me above all else how to love God in prayer? Is this the main emphasis or is prayer simply assumed and in practice ancillary to myriad methods of self-sanctification or transformation systems to which I am being introduced? If so, we will remain little more than Catholic stoics continually failing to live up to the moral imperatives demanded of us, just like the pagan stoics before us. No real progress will be made until we realize that the God-given spirituality of the heart that Christ introduced is essentially so simple, that it is for all, and does not depend on following and mastering myriad methods and techniques that have to be learned and put into practice, primarily depending on you and your endeavour, not God’s. Despite the use of words like prayer and the grace of God, if in practice a method depends, not so much on what God does, but on what we do, it is our old friend Pelagianism, or at least semi-Pelagianism that has once again taken centre stage, and all time and energy is dissipated trying to make ourselves holy. Any truly Catholic Spirituality is for all and depends on personal prayer because the person who brings about authentic renewal in individuals and through them the Church, is none other than the Holy Spirit. Although this love is continually being poured out through the sacraments and at all times through Christ, this love can only be received as we turn and open ourselves to receive it, in the love that is generated in personal prayer. This is where the repentance that St Peter told his listeners to perform in order to receive the Holy Spirit, is practised every day of our lives, else we cannot receive it.

In the early Church one of the greatest and most virulent critics of Christianity was the Alexandrian philosopher Celsus. He mocked the first Christians because, unlike him and his disciples, they were in his opinion, and in the words used by the Duke of Wellington to describe his troops, the “scum of the earth”. Although this was not quite true, they were predominantly drawn from what used to be called the “lower orders”. They were not so well educated, not great intellectuals, at least with the wisdom of the world, but with another form of God-given wisdom that is given with the reception of his love in prayer as simply everyone can love. Personal Prayer in Catholic tradition is where we try to return Christ’s love in kind, first by practising the “asceticism of the heart” by finding quality space and time in which to pray. Then in that time by continually trying to raise our hearts to him by using whatever traditional ways of prayer are best suited to do this, at whatever particular point we are in our spiritual journey. It is essentially so simple but I do not say easy, as acting selflessly never is, although this is essentially what is happening in any authentic act of prayer. As the love of God, his Holy Spirit, draws a person up into his Son and into his mystical body, it also draws out of them all the sinfulness and all the selfishness that prevents them from being taken up into Christ’s mystical contemplation of the Father. It does this slowly and gradually, simultaneously giving the grace to both see the hell that is within them, that prevents them coming to know and experience heaven, beginning even in this life. Human man-made methods of uncovering the hell that is within us can break a person, sometimes permanently. Just keep praying using the traditional methods of Catholic prayer as your guide, and God will do the rest. The work of a true Catholic Spiritual director is not to direct you to their methods that purport to change you for the better, but to the Holy Spirit, and to support you in doing this.

When I lost my job, I also lost my position and the platform that it gave me to spread the teaching that I have developed in this book. For several years I took to the road in answer to many invitations to give lectures and retreats. It was then that I realized that for twelve years, as director of Walsingham House, I had been living in a bubble. Yes, I had seen the terrible way deep personal prayer had been all but discarded by the majority, but I had not seen its frightening consequences. Now on the road I was shattered to hear disgusting and degrading stories of the sexual abuse of both women and children by priests, religious, friars and monks, perpetrated by the very people who should have respected and protected them. Take love out of secular marriages and they implode with disastrous consequences. Take love out of spiritual marriages and the same happens, but the consequences are usually even more disastrous and certainly more scandalous as we have all seen. What I am trying to do is to insure against such disasters in the future, by introducing people to the teaching and practice of mystical theology. This explains the true meaning of love, selfless other-considering and ever-giving love and how to practise it long before marriages are finalized. It involves the dying to self that we promised at baptism and a lifetime living out the call to take up our daily cross in order to follow Christ. This love that is embodied in him can be embodied in us too, in our families and in the family of mankind who he has chosen to carry on loving through us.

I had many sleepless nights before deciding what to do about the sexual abuse in the Church that seemed to be practised on an industrial scale. When in your talks you continually emphasize prayer, your listeners, rightly or wrongly believe you to be a holy man, one therefore in whom you can confide in a way that you cannot confide to others. In my case the assumption was wrong, but nevertheless they did confide, and everywhere I went I was horrified with what I heard. Then I made the mistake of believing that it was the right thing to do to draw these abuses to the attention of those who could best deal with them. It was the mistake of proclaiming a truth too soon before those in authority were prepared to admit what they found inadmissible at the time. While at Fonte Columbo I heard of the Franciscan scripture scholar who wrote a book in the 1920s that challenged the view that King David had composed all the psalms. His books were banned, and he was censured and lost his position as head of the scripture department. Although he was proved right and all subsequent scholars agreed with him, he remained for the rest of his life the whistle-blower who blew too soon and suffered the consequences of it. Like him, I blew the whistle too soon.

There was therefore, as it seemed to me, only one way forward and that was to write, not about the abuses because nobody would believe me let alone publish me, but about the root cause – the demise of personal prayer. My friend Fr Anthony told me that if that was my future, and if my writing was to bear fruit, then I would have to find more solitude to practise what I wanted to communicate to others. So in the intervening years that has been my vocation. Meanwhile, without returning to the prayer and the spirituality of our forefathers, the Church has seemed to have gradually deteriorated at every level. However, I am now witnessing the many, mainly laity and some religious, who are beginning to see the truth. They are beginning to see and do what can alone bring personal renewal, and Church renewal, by generating and receiving the only love that can change the world as God originally planned. If you want to join them, then read on and learn from the teaching of the great saints and mystics whose wisdom I have gathered together in one place to help you seek and find the only love that can transform you. But if you seek any other way than the way of the cross, this book is not for you.

This essay is chapter thirty of The Primacy of Loving and is published here by gracious permission of the author.

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The featured image is “Portrait of the artist’s foster father the zoologian and professor Henrik Nicolai Krøyer” (1872), and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.