Death and Resurrection

St Benedict told his monks, “Always keep death before your eyes.” We don’t talk much about death in the modern world. But what the whole Christian tradition tells us is that if we would become wise we must learn the lesson that we have here “no abiding city.” [We must hear] what the wise of ages past and present say to us: to have life in focus we must have death in [focus. . .].  Talking about death is hard for the worldly to understand. Indeed the principal fantasy of much worldliness operates out of completely the opposite point of view: not the wisdom of our own mortality but the pure fantasy that we are immortal, beyond physical weakness.

But the wisdom of the tradition St Benedict represents is that awareness of our physical weakness enables us to see our own spiritual fragility too. There is a profound awareness in all of us, so profound indeed that it is often buried for much of the time, that we must make contact with the fullness of life and the source of life. We must make contact with the power of God and somehow, open our own fragile “earthen vessels” to the eternal love of God, the love that cannot be quenched. [. . . ]

Every time we sit down to meditation we enter the axis of death and resurrection. We do so because in our meditation we go beyond our own life and the limitations of our life into the mystery of God. We discover, each of us from our own experience, that the mystery of God is the mystery of love, infinite love—love that casts our all fear.

The Kingdom

“The Kingdom is already established. Faith and obedience teach us to realize it. And we accept the practicalities of the work of realization. We learn to be silent and to love silence. When we meditate we don’t look for messages or signs, or phenomena. Each of us must learn to be humble, patient and faithful. Discipline teaches us to be still, and by stillness we learn to empty our heart of everything that is not God, for God requires all the room that our heart has to offer.” From John Main OSB, “Growing Point,” THE HEART OF CREATION.

Life's Purpose

“The ultimate meaning of God does not arise from what society says we are—that would be to “prefer human approval to the approval of God,” as Jesus put it. [. . . .] Each of us . . . must discover the fundamental truth about ourselves. Rooted in God, we must be open to the love that redeems us from illusion and shallowness. We must live out of that personal infinite holiness which we have as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Discovering that the same Spirit that created the universe dwells in our hearts, and in silence is loving to all, is the purpose of every life.” From John Main OSB, “Integrity,” WORD MADE FLESH (Norwich: Canterbury, 2009), pp. 55-56.

Shalom!

“In St John's gospel, the Resurrection and the sending of the Spirit are seen as a single event. On the evening of Easter Day Jesus came and stood among the disciples while they were huddled fearfully in a locked room. His first word to them was shalom. The rich Hebrew word for peace invoked the blessing of the harmony of all orders of being. Shalom flows directly from the Divine harmony which is the Spirit. To receive it is to share in that peace beyond all understanding. Jesus then breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” From Laurence Freeman OSB, "Spirit," Jesus the Teacher Within.

Truly Human

“[T]o become spiritual we have to learn to leave behind our official religious selves—that is, to leave behind the Pharisee that lurks inside all of us—because, as Jesus has told us, we have to leave behind our whole self. All images of ourselves coming as they do out of the fevered calculating brain of the ego, have to be renounced and transcended if we are to become one with ourselves, with God, with one another—that is, if we are to become truly real, truly humble, truly human.” From John Main OSB, “The Christian Crisis,” THE PRESENT CHRIST (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 74-76.

Imageless Vision

“It would be easier, we think, to turn away from [self-consciousness and] introspection if we knew what we were turning towards. If only we had a fixed object to look at. If only God could be represented by an image. But the true God can never be an image.  Images of God are gods. To make an image of God is merely to end up looking at a refurbished image of ourselves. To be truly interior, to open the eye of the heart, means to be living within the imageless vision that is faith, and that is the vision that permits us to “see God” in all things.” From Laurence Freeman OSB, “The Power of Attention,” THE SELFLESS SELF (Norwich: Canterbury, 2008), pp. 31-35. Everyone is welcome. Information: 732-681-6238 | GJRyan@wccm.org | www.WCCM.org | WCCM-CentralNJ.blogspot.com

Death and Resurrection

“Meditation is a way of power because it is the way to understand our own mortality. It is the way to get our own death into focus. It can do so because it is the way beyond our own mortality. It is the way beyond our own death to the resurrection, to a new and eternal life, the life that arises from our union with God.” From John Main OSB, “Death and Resurrection,” MOMENT OF CHRIST (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 68-6. -- Come and join us on any Monday night. Info on this page.