The Mantra: Contemplation-Meditation

by Fr. Ernest E. Larkin, OCarm.

(1922-2006)

Father Larkin was the spiritual director and animator for the Cornerstone Center for Christian Meditation in Phoenix from its inauguration in 1998. He conducted classes and workshops on contemplative prayer and led groups of laity and clergy in this contemporary method of prayer popularized by John Main. Several groups throughout the city and in various locations in Arizona were formed as a result of Larkin's "parent" venture. His last book entitled  Contemplative Prayer for Today - Christian Meditation (Medio Media, 2007) was published  posthumously and presented at the first United States national conference of WCCM in  February, 2007.



In a recent article in Review for Religious 64.4 (2005), "From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation," Ernest E. Larkin, OCarm. writes of his own experience with Christian Meditation.

This paper is a bit of narrative theology, something of my personal journey over the last twenty-five or thirty years trying to practice meditation and contemplation. My account begins in midstream of my religious life, in the mid 1970s, with my introduction to centering prayer. Basically the journey has been from centering and centering prayer to Christian Meditation, the prayer discipline of John Main (+1982).

Three Ways to the Center
First, the point of departure. What do I mean by centering and centering prayer? These terms have become familiar and clearly defined today. It was not always so. Centering and centering prayer meant different things to different people in the 1960s and 1970s. An example is the article by Thomas E. Clarke SJ in the British journal The Way titled “Finding Grace at the Centre.” (1) The title may be familiar, because it named a collection of essays on centering prayer published by the Trappists in 1978 and again by Skylight Paths Publishing in 2002. The whole article was reprinted except for the last two pages, which at the time represented one of the chief contributions of the article.

So I have a quarrel with the editors for deleting the pages and not indicating they did so. Apparently they wanted to highlight the one form of centering prayer they were espousing in the booklet, and so dropped two other prayer forms that Clarke was presenting as ways to the center. In the article Clarke presented a philosophical exposition of centering and then posed the question: How does one make the journey to the center? His answer was threefold. The first way was classical centering prayer, the way of dark faith, which proceeds beyond images and concepts and seeks to rest in the indwelling God. The other two ways to the center used imagination and feelings; they were the prayer of images and fantasy and the practice of the examen of consciousness. All three were ways to the center, ways to dispose the soul for the great gift of contemplation. Together they offered a rich and broadly based prayer life.

Teachers of centering prayer should have applauded the connecting of centering prayer with other forms of active prayer. Centering prayer is contemplative in intent, but active in method, as are all forms of meditation. Centering prayer was not supposed to replace lectio divina, nor to become one's total prayer life. Centering prayer is a spiritual exercise to deepen one's whole spiritual life, animating, for example, the liturgy and one's devotions.

Connecting the three ways put flesh and blood on centering prayer by acknowledging that imagination and human effort can help in the process of centering. Clarke's paper stated a simple and even obvious fact, namely, that the search for contemplation, especially in beginnings, is not an abstract act; it invokes images and thoughts even while it strives to get beyond them. All three ways converge to the center. This was a welcome reminder in the early days of centering prayer.

I remember how the insight thrilled me. I talked about the distinctions with Father John Kane, a Redemptorist, who founded a contemplative house of prayer in Tucson , Arizona . We both agreed that the article was a breakthrough because it made room for the imagination at least in the beginnings of contemplative prayer. The search for contemplation was not restricted to forced abstract search; one did not have to empty the mind. Centering prayer was one way to contemplation and a good way, but it was not the only way. Clarke's article contextualized the search for contemplation and freed it from a one-track pursuit based on theoretical textbook definitions.

Before this time I had a philosophically correct but pastorally deficient understanding of contemplation as imageless prayer. I thought “Ignatian contemplation,” for example, which consists in reliving a gospel story, was a misnomer; the process was meditation, not contemplation. I did not cotton to Morton Kelsey's thesis that the imagination ruled the prayer practice in the church in the first millennium, and that abstract contemplation in the mode of John of the Cross was Johnny-come-lately in the second millennium. Kelsey argued this position in his popular The Other Side of Silence. To my mind, contemplation had no room for images; they belonged to discursive prayer, the way of meditation, which was a lesser species of mental prayer. But here was Tom Clarke connecting the imagination with centering, thereby broadening horizons in contemplative prayer.

The three ways of centering were a significant help to me. Two years earlier, in 1975, I had made a thirty-day Ignatian retreat and came away with the resolution to spend an hour each morning in mental prayer. I was faithful to the hour, but I lacked method. My prayer was amorphous. I read and reflected, I pondered, mused, stirred affections, and made resolutions. I also centered and sat for long periods of silence. But there was no particular order in my pondering. After two years of struggle to be faithful to the hour without a clear methodology, my prayer had became dry and difficult. I “white-knuckled” my prayer, holding on to the bench to fill out the hour. All this may have been a species of the determinada determinacion of Teresa of Avila, but it was probably closer to the “ zelus sine scientia corruit ” of St. Bernard: “Zeal without knowledge destroys.” How long could I hold on? Only the grace of God kept me from giving up on the hour.

My efforts in the hour were the same as my practice in the two daily periods of formal meditation in my Carmelite community over the years. These two periods were shorter, usually a half hour each, and I was able to handle them, though somewhat haphazardly. Because they were amorphous, I subsequently looked on them disparagingly. I thought I had wasted a lot of time in my mental prayer. I do not think that way now. I have come to take a more benign view. I realize with Woody Allen that ninety-five percent of life as well as of prayer is showing up. If we are there, putting in time with the Lord, the Lord will do the rest. We should not exaggerate the role of method.

But method helps. The three ways of Tom Clarke supplied a format for my contemplative prayer. I would do twenty minutes of classical centering prayer, twenty minutes of reflection on the day's readings, and then after Mass twenty minutes of journaling. I did not characterize the imaginative parts of my prayer—the biblical meditation and consciousness examen—as contemplative, but I saw them as part of my pursuit of contemplation. Moreover, the active prayers gave permission for elements of imagination to enter my centering prayer.

At this time I made a study of the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila in her early pre-mystical years to determine how she employed the imagination in her beginning contemplative prayer. (2) She later called this “practice of prayer” active recollection. In the paper I argued that the imagination played a significant role in her practice. Her prayer was her own making, hence active in form; but it was contemplative since her whole effort was to rest in the deep personal realization of the Divine Indwelling. This was her whole prayer. Teresa called it “re-presenting Christ within".

Commentators sometimes incorrectly interpret this phrase to mean the imaginative recall of some mystery in Christ's life, such as of his being scourged at the pillar. The imaginative recall is part of the prayer, but not its heart, since the recall is only the refocusing of the person in moments of wandering. The remembrance of an image from the passion serves the same function as the holy word in centering prayer. The holy word does not detract from the contemplative character of centering prayer any more than the image in active recollection.

I concluded my paper on Teresa by saying that her prayer was a mixture of imageless and imaged centering prayer. Today I agree that the term centering prayer should be reserved to the prayer of imageless dark faith. This primary thrust, however, leaves room for some imagination in the practice of this prayer.

Teresa's active recollection, which can rightly be called centering prayer, was both apophatic, that is, beyond imagining and thinking, and kataphatic, that is, with a role for the imagination. These insights into Teresa's prayer confirmed Clarke's suggestion and allowed me to accept a minor but real role for the imagination in my own practice and theorizing about contemplative prayer.

As late as the year 2000, I was still experimenting with a role for the imagination in my contemplative prayer. I was on another long retreat at the Camaldolese monastery at Big Sur in California . For five weeks I practiced Christian Meditation several times each day. I described three different experiences of my contemplative prayer in an article in Review for Religious in 2001. (3) Two of the patterns I reported engaged the imagination to a small extent. These points about the imagination and contemplation are not irrelevant; they continue to occupy the attention of writers. (4)

The Move to Christian Meditation
The centering and centering prayer so far described were the focus of my efforts at daily mental prayer for some fifteen years. I did not, however, practice it twice daily as was specified by Contemplative Outreach under the leadership of Thomas Keating. The two periods of twenty to thirty minutes, morning and evening, are essential for the discipline of centering prayer. These periods are catalysts for one's prayer life. They are like workouts in a physical-health regimen, and their role is to bring one's life to a deeper level in one's spirit. The outcome is the goal of contemplation in Carmelite terminology.

In the mid 1990s I switched my prayer practice to Christian Meditation, a similar but different form of centering developed by John Main, an Irish Benedictine from England . I did so mainly because I was not satisfied with my practice of classical centering prayer. Christian Meditation is promoted by the World Community for Christian Meditation, headed by Laurence Freeman osb . The major difference between centering prayer and Christian Meditation is the holy word versus the mantra. “Holy word” and “mantra” are not synonyms. Their difference specifies the two forms of contemplative prayer.

Christian Meditation repeats the mantra, usually the biblical prayer “ma-ra-na-tha,” which means “Come, Lord,” from the beginning to the end of the prayer. The holy word, on the other hand, is not repeated continuously, but only as needed to renew the consent to the Divine Presence. The holy word expresses the will of the person to rest quietly, silently, in the Lord. The mantra, on the other hand, carries the prayer. John Main does not tire of saying that the mantra is the prayer. It creates the silence that is emptiness and openness before God, the silence that invites the Divine Presence. The mantra nurtures the beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). Purity of heart and contemplation are the two hinges of the door of the mantra. The mantra is not magic, but a simple device to shut down ordinary rational activity in favor of silence.

Since I switched my daily practice to Christian Meditation ten years ago, I have been faithful to the two times each day. My personal preference for Christian Meditation is not a condemnation of centering prayer; the same fruits and benefits are available in both forms. The choice of one or other of the two disciplines is a personal matter. I feel that centering prayer has a closer affinity with Teresa of Avila than with John of the Cross and that Christian Meditation has a closer affinity with John than with Teresa. I base these opinions on the similarity between active recollection and centering prayer, and a similarity of absolutes between the nada and the todo in John and the call to kenosis or self-emptying in Christian Meditation. In the final analysis the two approaches are more alike than different. For this reason I have studied them together and emphasized what is common to them. I have published several articles on the two forms, which I hope to gather into a book. The leaders in the two movements work closely together and see their ministries as parallel. One example of this close collaboration is a prayer center in Phoenix called the Cornerstone. It is sponsored by both movements, which share the same space in a former convent in the Carmelite parish of St. Agnes. The Cornerstone offers programs that are sometimes common to both groups and sometimes specific to one of them. It is lay organized and lay directed.

The Genius of Christian Meditation
I have come to see Christian Meditation as a companion piece, a “how to” addition to the teaching of St. John of the Cross on the passage from meditation to contemplation. This area is one of his specialties. He defines in precise terms both meditation and contemplation and why the transition from one state to the other can be difficult if not traumatic. Meditation for him is a rational activity, the work of the imagination and the discursive reason; it is active and self-directed. Contemplation is passive and receptive of the gift of the love and presence of God. The transition from one state to the other can be disturbing. Beginning contemplation may look like a step backward, even total loss. The old way of meditation is no longer appealing or even possible, and the new way of contemplation is not self-evident. The experience is the passive dark night of the senses. It is a great grace, but easily mistaken and open to misunderstanding. John gives his famous three signs to authenticate the state as well as detailed instruction on the conduct to be followed.

In discursive meditation one deals with concrete individual acts, striving to remove the bad ones and to promote good ones. So meditation is analyzing, evaluating, making choices and resolutions. The soul is like a windowpane, St. John says, and the work of meditation is to remove the smudges of bad habits and replace them with acts and habits that are bright with the light of Christ. The light of Christ is faith. The window pane is lighted up by faith-motivated activity. Over time the window becomes clear and the soul purified in the matter of concrete choices. The light of faith shines through with fullness, simplicity, and wholeness. This is the light of contemplation.

The light is always there, John of the Cross says. It is part of the state of grace. The perception of the light, however, is dependent on being rid of deliberate sinful habits. John writes as follows:
“This light is never lacking to the soul, but, because of creature forms and veils that weigh on it and cover it, the light is never infused. If individuals would eliminate these impediments and veils and live in pure nakedness and poverty of spirit, as we will explain later, their soul in its simplicity and purity would be immediately transformed into simple and pure Wisdom, the Son of God.” ( Ascent 2.15.4)

Thus these graces, when received, are “infused light and love,” that is, infused contemplation. The way of contemplation is self-awareness of this new state of being. One simply opens one's eyes and sees and basks in the love and presence of God.

At first there will be a going back and forth between meditation and contemplation. John of the Cross gives detailed advice on how to recognize the times for the one or the other, that is, when to continue to meditate and when to rest in the contemplative light and love. His teaching is renowned for its clarity and effectiveness for spiritual direction and retains its place in the life of every budding contemplative.

But it is a complicated teaching. Along comes John Main who sees meditation and contemplation in continuity with each other and as one process. The prayer or discipline of Christian Meditation is one dynamic that begins with the mantra and stays with it through multiple experiences of God's love. Contemplation is the awareness of Abba's love for me, who am bonded with the Son in the love of the Holy Spirit. The contemplative grows in the appreciation of this love and gets ever more deeply in touch with the knowledge and love that the Trinity showers on the world. There is communio , koinonia , participation in the reality of God and his creation. This communion is unitive knowledge, of subject and subject inhering in each other. It is not dualistic knowledge, from the outside, leaving subject and object apart from one another. It is not any particular psychological experience. There is at-oneness, a “common union” or communion, in which the Trinity and the human being enter into what Teresa of Avila called union, namely, “two things becoming one.”

Communion is the ontological reality; contemplation adds awareness and attention. Not every experience of Christian Meditation is infused contemplation such as John of the Cross has in mind. But every experience is communion and eventually will bring the fullness of contemplation.

The commitment to Christian Meditation is a commitment to a way of life. The way is always the same; it is the way of the mantra from beginning to end. The goal of the prayer is without limits. One stops saying the mantra only when one is reduced to silence. These are moments of special grace that John of the Cross calls “oblivion” (Living Flame 3.35). One resumes saying the mantra as soon as the silence is recognized, because that is the sign that the special mystical grace has passed.

John Main's program is one of utter simplicity. He does not stress, though he may acknowledge in theory, the abstract differences between meditation and contemplation or the different degrees of contemplation. But he treats them as one spiritual practice and says explicitly that meditation, meditative prayer, contemplation, and contemplative prayer are all synonyms. No need to be concerned about essences, he seems to say; the important thing is to grow in purity of heart and receptivity to divine grace. The journey is the same in both John of the Cross and John Main , but it is described from different viewpoints. The older John presents objective theology in the manner of the scholastics; the younger John has made the turn to the subject, and his exposition is experiential and practical.

Laurence Freeman remarks that John Main's purpose was to start people on the journey and let experience of the prayer teach the rest. The one task proposed is the mantra. The mantra does not deal with obstacles one by one or even supply building blocks for a spiritual edifice. It silences the mind, emptying it of its contents. The silence makes room for the Spirit to take over. “Be,” says John Main,” and you are in the Spirit.” (5)

The Spirit is already there with Father and Son in the Divine Indwelling. If the soul is silent and receptive, the Spirit will pray there beyond images and thoughts, in sighs too deep for words (Rm 8:26). The Spirit will do this because the soul is open and ready and God wants that mutual indwelling even more than the soul does who is sincerely seeking God. John Main's simple method frees the person so that the presence of the Trinity can come alive and be actualized. When there is space and freedom, the meditator is caught up in the prayer of Jesus. That prayer is the one and only prayer in the world since the Incarnation, because it is the love between Father and Son and envelops all of creation. Faithful meditators are woven into that salvific love.
The journey with the Son to the Father will traverse the stages of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Christian Meditation will be the vehicle, the discipline to get one going and to help one stay on the path. These are astounding claims for Christian Meditation. Their justification is the beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). The silence of the mantra produces the purity of heart, and the reward of purity of heart is the love of God, of people, and of the world found in the gift of contemplation.

How does silence accomplish this twofold task? By allowing one to escape from the false self by placing one beyond the toils of ego and the world it creates, by freeing one from the imprisonment of false desires. This healing produces purity of heart. The new freedom allows one to go deeper into the spirit, the domain of the Trinity. The reality of this state is primary and comes before awareness and appreciation. The reality is called communio or participation in the life of God; the awareness is contemplation. The Spirit will give us contemplation when we are ready.

Contemplation is thus the outcome of faithful practice of the mantra. Contemplation is the life of God received, the backdrop and engine of one's whole spiritual life. It is the life that animates one's community relationships, one's ministry, and one's prayer. The short definition is the realization of God's love for us, “the love of God poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given us” (Rm 5:5). Contemplation is the outcome of a faithful life. It means claiming what was there from the beginning. It is the Abba experience of Jesus. In his human life Jesus was filled with the Father's presence and love. Certain events like the baptism or the transfiguration were climactic experiences of that love, but Jesus abided in that love always. He looked out upon the world bathed in the Father's love. He was the “beloved Son,” and in him the reign of God was established on the earth. That reign is the kingdom of God 's presence and love. It is the resurrection experience. It fills the world with the grandeur of God.

Christian Meditation promises this contemplation. Each practice will not necessarily bring forth a recognizable, reflexive experience of that love. But every exercise will put one a little more in touch with it and will be an experience of communion, of koinonia, of participation in that love. Transformation is taking place, slowly, incrementally, and the Christian is being formed in the Wisdom of God, the Son of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Christian Meditation can indeed be one practical response of meditation and contemplation in our troubled times.

Notes
1- Way 17 (1977): 12-22.

2- “Teresa of Avila and Centering Prayer,” in Carmelite Studies 3 (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1984), pp. 203-209.

3- “An Experience of Christian Meditation,” Review for Religious 60 (2001): 419-431.

4- See, for example, Brian V. Johnstone cssr , “Keeping a Balance: Contemplation and Christian Meditation,” Review for Religious 63 (2004): 118-133.

5- John Main: Essential Writings , ed. Laurence Freeman (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), p. 105.

Reflection Questions
1- In the light of Father Larkin's prayer journey, how would I describe some major moments in my own prayer growth?

2- “The commitment to Christian Meditation is a commitment to a way of life.”

3- What meaning do I give to this statement?

4- Let Larkin's story elicit a group's sharing about the joys and difficulties of praying.

5- Have we had a philosophically correct but pastorally deficient understanding of contemplation as imageless prayer?

6- How would we explain the major difference between centering prayer and Christian meditation as the holy word versus the mantra?