Prayer of recollection, often shortened in Carmelite theology simply to recollection, is a form of interior prayer in Christian spirituality characterized by the withdrawal of the soul from exterior distractions and the gathering of its faculties into attentive awareness of the presence of God. The term is especially associated with Carmelite spirituality, Christian contemplation, and early modern Catholic mystical theology, where it came to designate both an ascetical discipline of interior attentiveness and a contemplative state produced more directly by divine grace.
The classical theology of recollection was developed especially within the Discalced Carmelite tradition through the writings of Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Elizabeth of the Trinity, and later synthesized by spiritual theologians such as Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen and Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus. In this tradition recollection signifies not the destruction or paralysis of the soul’s powers, but their progressive simplification and unification in loving attention toward God.
Alexandre Piny (1640 – 28 January 1709) was a French Dominican theologian, spiritual director, and ascetical writer associated with the seventeenth-century French school of spirituality. A prominent advocate of contemplative prayer, abandonment to divine providence, and pur amour (“pure love”), he became one of the most influential Dominican spiritual authors of late seventeenth-century France. Later historians of spirituality, especially Henri Bremond, described him as a major representative of the theology of pure love in the period preceding and surrounding the Quietist controversies.
Piny’s writings belong to the wider current of early modern Catholic contemplative theology associated with figures such as François de Sales, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Jean Nicolas Grou, François Malaval, and François Fénelon. Although some of his language resembled that used by writers later associated with Quietism, historians generally regard his teaching as remaining within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.
Pierre de Poitiers (c. 1610 – 1684) was a French Capuchin friar, mystical theologian, spiritual director, and provincial superior of the Capuchin province of Touraine. He is best known for his major work Le Jour mystique ou l’éclaircissement de l’oraison et théologie mystique (1671), a large systematic treatise on contemplative prayer and mystical theology.
Modern scholars have described him as one of the major representatives of seventeenth-century French mystical theology and as an important theorist of contemplative prayer, imageless contemplation, and mystical annihilation. Dominique Tronc has described him as one of the most comprehensive and profound mystical theologians of seventeenth-century France.
Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus (c. 1617 – 19 April 1690), born Jean Man and also known as Le Man or Le Mans, was a French Carmelite friar, spiritual director, mystical theologian, and representative of the Touraine Reform of the Carmelite Order. A disciple of the spiritual lineage of John of St. Samson, he became known for a doctrine of interior annihilation, abandonment to God, the kingdom of Christ in the soul, and the transformation of the human person by divine operation.
Maur was active in the spread of the Touraine Reform in the province of Gascogne and served in several senior offices of his order. His writings include L'Entrée à la divine Sagesse, Le Royaume intérieur de Jésus-Christ dans les âmes, Le Sacré Berceau de l'Enfant Jésus, letters of spiritual direction, and treatises on the interior and mystical life. Later mystical circles associated with Madame Guyon preserved some of his letters and read him as part of the wider tradition of passive prayer and pure love, though modern scholarship generally distinguishes his teaching from the condemned forms of Quietism.