A JOURNEY INTO MEDITATION
by Rev. Malcolm Glaze
‘The mantra is like the needle of a compass. It heads you always in the direction of your own destiny. It points always to the true direction you must follow, away from self into God and, whichever way your ego may lead you, the compass is always faithful in the direction it points you. The mantra, if you say it with generosity, with faithfulness and with love will always point you in the direction of God and it is only in God that our true destiny can be revealed.’
(John Main – Why is Meditation Difficult? in The Way of Unknowing p86 DLT)
English Martyrs Church
Hillmorton, Rugby.
From my late teens to late twenties my general outlook on life was predominantly rational and logical. Although I had an interest in the arts, especially painting and music they were seen as quite separate from the search for truth from a philosophical point of view inspired by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper. Occasional reading of the Bible was inspiring but the question still remained - Is it true? Equally I could appreciate the elegance of certain logical and mathematical proofs, and of course the beauty of nature, but the profound relation between truth, beauty and goodness, if present implicitly was not made explicit in the conscious mind. I was living out of what I would now call a divided consciousness.
Most people expressed surprise on learning that I was studying both Computer Studies and Philosophy at Lancaster University in the 1970’s. But logic is the link, with philosophy understood simply as the critical examination of arguments, my philosophical interests were mainly in logic, epistemology – the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of science and also ethics. Gradually the limitation of a purely logical/rational approach to reality emerged. Logic is the way of ‘processing’ assumptions to reach a conclusion consistent with them, but where do the assumptions come from? What about the rules of logical deduction themselves, aren’t they self evident and understood intuitively? Something was missing, a broader and more traditional understanding of philosophy as the search for truth was emerging; this search led me initially to look at Buddhism and Hinduism. It was through the parable like stories from these faith traditions that I was given the key to understanding the value of paradox in the search for a more complete understanding of the mystery of life. Gradually I was being re-connected to my Christian roots.
It was reading Thomas Merton that introduced me to the Desert Fathers; their stories seemed to reflect a similar outlook to that which I had encountered in the writings of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Through the Lay Community at the Worth Abbey Benedictine Community in Sussex I was introduced to a daily experience of living a structured Christian life. It was an introduction to the Rule of St. Benedict and an insight into the need to balance prayer, work and study. This way of life and my reading of Merton helped me appreciate the value of silence and solitude. Prayer was becoming a reality, although I was still not sure of the how. Joining with the monks in singing the psalms of the Divine Office was an inspiration; I began to read the bible in a more prayerful way rather than just for information or from a purely philosophical point of view. Traditional formal prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary were particularly useful at this early stage of prayer. Within a short space of time however I began to say these prayers more and more slowly and perhaps only a phrase, eventually only a single word leading to silence. A prayer on the shrine of St. Benedict at St. Benoit-sur-Loire in France seems to sum up this phase of my life: Today we are far from home and have lost the key to the door, but you call us to go in and find ourselves again. Your invitation is to the interior life; your experience is that of persons who regain a sense of themselves. Benedict, teach us the way back to the heart, in Christ our Lord. Amen.
I was received into the Catholic Church at Lancaster University on 5th. November 1978. A few months later in early 1979 a group from the University Chaplaincy were attending a weekend at Hyning Hall led by the Carmelite Fr. Matthew ODC. This was my first experience of sitting, relaxed yet alert, in silence and stillness for about half an hour two or three times a day. At the end of the weekend most of the group were inspired to continue this way of prayer through weekly meetings and I was fortunate enough to be able to host the meetings. In his visit to Monte Cassino in that same year, Pope John Paul II summed it all up with these words: ‘...the message of Benedict is an invitation to interiority. One should, above all else, enter into oneself, have a profound self-knowledge and find in oneself the footprints of God.’ After leaving University I kept in contact with the members of the group but obviously lost the support of the weekly meetings. Like all students I experienced the transition from chaplaincy life, of mostly young people, to regular parish life and the process of settling into the routine of working life. Catholic parish life was of course completely new to me being a convert. The next few years were a time of discernment about a possible vocation to Religious Life or the Diocesan Priesthood. Meditation was continued but not very consistently.
In 1982 a recurring middle ear infection affected my balance and hearing, a mastoid operation was required. Lying in hospital after this major interruption to my life’s course led me to examine the real priorities in life, in this way the illness in fact became a much deeper source of healing, blessing and a new way forward. In 1983 I was accepted as a student for the priesthood by the Archdiocese of Birmingham and was sent to the Beda College in Rome. It was whilst on a parish pastoral placement in England during the summer of 1985 that I read John Main’s book ‘Word into Silence’. It made a deep impression; his teaching was both practical and full of wisdom. Here was a clear explanation of the ‘how’ of meditation, as well as deep insights into its nature and the fruits that may result from practicing this way of prayer in our daily lives. His insistence on the recitation of the ‘mantra’ or prayer word as part of the ‘how’ of meditation was a great help as was the tracing of the tradition through the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ and back to John Cassian. This gave me the confidence that this was a way of prayer firmly rooted in the Christian tradition. It was an inspiration to continue this way of prayer.
After Ordination in 1987 and working in several parishes a number of groups were formed, a support to me as well a way of sharing this way of prayer with others. The quarterly newsletter from the Christian Meditation Centre plus the books and taped talks by John Main and Laurence Freeman were a valuable resource for these groups. It has taken quite a few years to establish a group in my present parish which has led to times of questioning, but positively it has been a time also of purifying my intention with regard to this way of prayer. In recent years there has been a renewed commitment and need for meditation, helpful in this process was a requirement a few years ago from the Archdiocese for every parish to produce a Parish Profile, looking at the parish through the twin lenses of communion and mission.
For me the most fundamental aspect of meditation as described by John Main in ‘Word into Silence’ is his explanation that: ‘In meditation we do not seek to think about God nor do we seek to think about His Son, nor do we seek to think about the Holy Spirit. We are trying rather to do something immeasurably greater. By turning aside from everything that is passing, everything that is contingent, we seek not just to think about God but to be with God, to experience Him as the ground of our being.’ (p17 The Inner Christ DLT) So for him meditation is about ‘abiding’ or ‘being’ in the centre, where we are not trying to have thoughts or images of God, however good or holy; we are doing something far greater, simply being with Him. John Main quotes W. H. Auden who said that schools should be teaching the spirit of prayer in a secular context by teaching pupils to concentrate fully on whatever was before them, whether a poem, picture, problem in maths or a leaf under a microscope, and to do so for their own sake, by the ‘spirit of prayer’ Auden meant selfless attention and this is what is required in meditation. Simone Weil makes a similar point in her essay ‘Reflections on the right use of school studies with a view to the love of God’ (In ‘Waiting on God’) she says: ‘The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realisation that prayer consists of attention.’ She mentions in particular the Cure d’Ars, it was the difficulties he experienced in learning Latin that later bore fruit in his ability to discern, to see the very soul of his penitents behind their words and even their silences. Thomas Merton, in contrast to John Main, in his extensive and illuminating writing on the spiritual life does not say much about the how, the way of his own prayer. It has been suggested that it has connections with Simone Weil’s emphasis on attention; this would be born out by Merton’s early interest in Orthodox Icons and later Zen and photography. (Cf. Thomas Merton – Master of Attention by Robert Waldron DLT) In the Book of Sirach we read ‘If it is your wish, my son, you can be trained. If you give your mind to it you can become knowledgeable; if you enjoy listening, you will learn; if you become attentive, you will become wise.’ (Sirach 6:32-34) Quoted in ‘The Way of Unknowing’ DLT page 120.
Today we live for the most part in a busy over stimulated world where academic studies can seem more about processing enormous amounts of information than the acquiring of wisdom. Albert Einstein is reported to have said that the intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant; modern society honours the servant but has forgotten the gift. This forgetfulness is at the heart of the problem, as we read in Psalm 137:5 ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!’ Jesus heals the man with the withered right hand; he calls him from the crowd to stand where he wants him to be, ‘in the middle’ the New Jerusalem Bible translates Luke 6:8! The healing is on the Sabbath because that is the day above all to remember God, the objections from the scribes and Pharisees simply demonstrates their forgetfulness. Jesus of course has come to take us from amnesia to anamnesis, that remembrance that makes present. Cardinal Ratzinger as he was when he wrote ‘Behold The Pierced One’ says: ‘The liturgy itself can only be celebrated properly if it is prepared for, and accompanied by, that meditative “abiding” in which the heart begins to see and to understand, drawing the senses too into its beholding. For “you can only see properly with the heart”, as Saint-Exupery’s Little Prince says. (And the Little Prince can be taken as a symbol for that childlikeness which we must regain if we are to find our way back out of the clever foolishness of the adult world and into man’s true nature, which is beyond mere reason.) p54-55.
St. John Vianney in his Catechetical Instructions says: ‘My children, your hearts are small, but prayer enlarges them and renders them capable of loving God.’ (From the Office of Readings for his Feast on 4th. August.) So, we might say, prayer enlarges the heart to accommodate the growing presence of Christ within just as a womb enlarges to accommodate the growing child within it. Some children were asked what love meant to them and one seven year old named Bobby said: ‘Love is what is in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.’ I love the, perhaps unintended, pun on the word ‘present’ as gift, as the present moment in which presence is experienced. It was late morning of Christmas Day 1977 that I attended my first Mass. The church was only half full, the singing was unremarkable and I can’t remember anything of the homily! However, when it came to Holy Communion simply watching the people humbly processing to receive Communion I was deeply struck, I felt an outsider looking in but knew instantly that I wanted to be part of what was happening. Despite any subsequent difficulties with a rational understanding of Transubstantiation I have never had any difficulties in recognising the Presence as Real.
In the Scholastic tradition Thomas Aquinas regarded ‘contemplatio’ as a silent perception of reality which involves the ‘intellectus’ knowledge of what is present through simple intuition, insight or vision, revealed as a gift rather than grasped by the ‘ratio’ of discursive abstract thinking. Contemplation is a resting in God rather than thinking about Him. Psalm 131:2 says: ‘I hold myself in quiet and silence, like a child in its mother’s arms.’ The person who knows by intuition has already found what the thinker is seeking; they behold what they seek face to face. (Josef Pieper – Happiness and Contemplation, ch. lX. St. Augustine’s Press 1998)
Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical ‘Fides et Ratio’ speaks of the proper work of philosophy and human reason but also of its limitations, which if not recognised can give rise to a ‘philosophical pride’ (n4) which seeks to elevate a partial reading of reality to a complete one. Yet he says, (n5) such a view ‘forgets’ that ‘men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth that transcends them.’ With this forgetting, pragmatism and a technological view become dominant, our orientation towards truth wilts giving rise to agnosticism, relativism and scepticism. But (n9) besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are also proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known. We know that when Jesus asked the disciples ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ he receives a chorus of opinions, but when he asks them ‘Who do you say I am?’ it is the solo voice of Peter that sings out ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus says that Peter is a happy man, not because he has come upon the truth through human powers of reasoning but because it has been revealed to him by His Father in Heaven. We know also from Peter’s later denial of Jesus that he doesn’t fully understand his proclamation of the truth of Jesus’ identity; it is still shrouded in mystery. We often use the word ‘paradox’ in relation to Jesus’ teaching, ‘the first will be last’, ‘to find self we must lose self’ or ‘happy are the poor in spirit or those who mourn’, using paradox in the sense of that which is an apparent contradiction, contrary to common sense. But paradox can mean beyond (para) opinion (doxa), that which is beyond opinion. Peter’s proclamation of Jesus’ identity is truly paradoxical in this sense, and is there a better definition of truth than that which is beyond opinion? The nourishing food of paradox is badly needed in a culture suffering the hunger of relativism with regard to truth.
Revelation, Pope John Paul II reminds us in Fides et Ratio, always remains charged with mystery (n13), through faith we consent to it and it is God Himself who is the guarantor of its truth. This truth comes to us as a gift and urges us to be open to it and embrace its profound meaning. (n13 & 14) To know this truth we have to look beyond ourselves and our concerns, but this word of God is very near to us, it is in our heart. (n15) Pope John Paul ll quotes St. Augustine: ‘Do not wander far and wide but return into your self. Deep within man there dwells the truth’ (n15) In ‘Word into Silence’ (p16 of The Inner Christ DLT) John Main has a similar quote from St. Augustine: ‘Man must first be restored to himself that, making in himself as it were a stepping-stone, he may rise thence and be borne up to God.’ St. Gregory wrote of St. Benedict that he dwelt within himself always in the presence of his Creator and not allowing his eyes to gaze on distractions. (Cf. p33 The Inner Christ DLT) So Revelation is not the product or end of human reasoning but pure gift which stirs thought and seeks acceptance as an expression of love. (n15) Philosophy and Theology through different methods point to the ‘path of life’ (Cf. Psalm 16:11) which leads to the full and lasting joy of the contemplation of the Trinity. (n15)
Just as grace builds on nature so faith builds upon and perfects reason (n43). Perfection understood not as the scrupulous following of rules but in its fundamental meaning of completeness. Perfection involves a process of growth; becoming the person God wants us to be, becoming complete. Faith should nourish our lives and help us flourish, according to Origen prayer is not so much about getting benefits from God but about becoming more like him, prayer is good in itself, it calms the mind, reduces sin and promotes good deeds. We can only grow from where we are, the present moment, one step at a time. In the stillness of meditation we open our hearts to receive God’s gift of life which will always remain charged with mystery. To hear the communication of God’s word we need also silence and simplicity. Pope Benedict XVI in his ‘The Blessing of Christmas’ says that it is reverent silence that opens the path to the mystery: ‘Silence is the sphere where God is born. It is only when we ourselves enter the sphere of silence that we reach the point where God is born.’ (p90) He quotes the Book of Wisdom: ‘While gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leapt from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed.’ (Wisdom 18:14-15) Becoming silent, he says, means discovering a new order of things, going beyond ourselves and what others might regard as important and valuable, silence means: ‘developing the inner senses, the sense of conscience, the sensitivity to the eternal in us, the ability to listen to God.’ (p92)
Meditation we know is a universal phenomenon found in all religious traditions; it is the faith of the individual who meditates that makes it Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic or Jewish etc. Pope John Paul II (Fides et Ratio n104) suggests that the problems facing humanity –ecology, peace and the co-existence of different races and cultures – may possibly find a solution in a clear and honest collaboration between the different faiths and also those without faith but who have the renewal of humanity at heart. The new document from the Bishop’s of England and Wales – ‘Meeting God in Friend & Stranger’ is a welcome contribution to this dialogue, they quote Acts 10:35 ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ A distinction is made between ‘praying together’ and ‘coming together to pray’. Pope John Paul II in Spiritus et Sponsa (n13) speaks of the need to foster the experience of silence in our communities, in this we can learn from other faiths, the liturgy cannot ignore silence, he says: ‘The spread, also outside Christian worship, of practices of meditation that give priority to recollection is not accidental. Why not start with pedagogical daring a specific education in silence within the coordinates of personal Christian experience?’ John Main said that in meditation we should be ready to launch out into a readiness to face the truth. We are not people who live on the surface but in meditation we leave the shallows, the surface and enter into the depths of our being. (Cf. Silence and Stillness in Every Season for May 7th. and June 1st.) This daring or boldness (parrhesia) in the language of St. Therese of Lisieux is also called for by Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter – Novo Millennio Ineunte, we are to ‘put out into the deep’ for a catch. (Luke 5:4) All pastoral initiatives he says must be set in relation to holiness, the path to which is always personal and calls for a genuine “training in holiness” a training that calls for a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer. Prayer develops that conversation with Christ which makes us his intimate friends: “Abide in me and I in you” (John 15:4). This reciprocity is the very substance and soul of Christian life, and the condition of all true pastoral life. Again it is other religions that offer their own responses to a renewed need for prayer often in appealing ways, but we have a duty to show the depths to which the relationship with Christ can lead. (Novo Millennio Ineunte n30-32) To enter the river of living water, the love that flows constantly between Jesus and His Father, the Holy Spirit. (Cf. Silence and Stillness in Every Season for April 30th.) Meditation like all prayer is essentially an entry into the prayer of Jesus to the Father in the Spirit that quenches thirst and brings new life. Pope John Paul II describing the Church’s response in the millennial year 2000 said: ‘To him who is the goal of history and the one Saviour of the world, the Church and the Spirit cried out: “Marana tha – Come Lord Jesus” (Cf. Rev 22:17, 20; 1 Cor 16:22). (Novo Millennio Ineunte n1).
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