Christian meditation is meditation in a Christian context. The word meditation has come to have two different meanings: (1) continued, intent, focused thought; and (2) a state of quiet, intentionally unfocused, “contentless” awareness. This double meaning has contributed to misunderstanding and disagreement about the nature, role, and even the appropriateness of Christian meditation. Traditionally, the word meditation (meditatio) had the first meaning, and another word, contemplation (contemplatio) was used for the second.
– “2705 Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation, and that of history the page on which the “today” of God is written.
– 2706 To meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. Here, another book is opened: the book of life. We pass from thoughts to reality. To the extent that we are humble and faithful, we discover in meditation the movements that stir the heart and we are able to discern them. It is a question of acting truthfully in order to come into the light: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”
– 2707 There are as many and varied methods of meditation as there are spiritual masters. Christians owe it to themselves to develop the desire to meditate regularly, lest they come to resemble the three first kinds of soil in the parable of the sower.5 But a method is only a guide; the important thing is to advance, with the Holy Spirit, along the one way of prayer: Christ Jesus.
– 2708 Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.”
Sometimes the monks found themselves spontaneously praying as a result of their meditation on Scripture, and their prayer would in turn lead on to a simple, loving focus on God. This wordless love for God they called contemplation.
The progression from Bible reading, to meditation, to prayer, to loving regard for God, was first formally described by Guigo II, a Carthusian monk and prior of Grande Chartreuse in the 12th century. Guigo named the four steps of this “ladder” of prayer with the Latin terms lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio.
The mysticism of Madame Guyon is generally considered a form of quietism, which is very strongly discouraged, even to the point of being considered heresy, by the Roman Catholic Church.
Two contemporary forms of Christian meditation emerged during the twentieth century.
– Fr. John Main, O.S.B. (1926–1982) was a Benedictine monk and priest who presented a way of Christian meditation which utilizes the practice of a prayer-phrase or mantra.[1] In his method, one recites a prayer-phrase as a means of placing everything aside. In this way, instead of talking to God, one is just being with God, allowing God’s presence to fill his heart, thus transforming his inner being. Fr. Main’s teachings drew on parallels he saw between the spiritual practice taught by Desert Father John Cassian and the meditative practice he had been taught by the Swami Satyananda in Kuala Lumpur.[2] His work is continued by Fr. Laurence Freeman, O.S.B.
– Fr. William Meninger, O.C.S.O., Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., and Fr. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., were the leading proponents of the Centering Prayer method. Here a sacred word is used to express only the intention to be in God’s presence, placing everything else aside. As with Fr. Main’s method, the goal is for one to just be with God, allowing God’s presence and action to fill his inner being.
– The forms of prayer described above are part of the apophatic tradition and are quite distinct from, for example, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
– Richard J. Foster, an Evangelical Quaker, supports Christian meditation or contemplative prayer in Chapter 2 of his work Celebration of Discipline.
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