You're Invited! "Introductory Session"

“Christian Meditation: A Pathway to Peace” — The times we live in present challenges to peace on all fronts: in our personal lives, in our communities, and among nations. St. Rose parishioner Greg Ryan, author and Benedictine oblate, will offer an introduction to the ancient tradition and contemporary practice of Christian meditation, November 10 (10-11:30 a.m.). St. Rose parish center, 603 Seventh Ave., Belmar. Light refreshments. Free-will offering to benefit The World Community for Christian Meditation (www.WCCM-USA.org). Information: 732-681-6238 | GJRyan@optonline.net | WCCM-CentralNJ.blogspot.com

The Light of Christ

“The peculiar power of the light of Christ that it reveals to us reality as it is. Light is a form of energy that makes vision possible; the brighter the light the clearer the vision, the deeper the harmony. What we learn is that Christ is our light. The task of Christian meditation is simply to uncover the brilliance of the light of Christ in our own hearts.” From John Main, “The Way fo Enlightenment,” in Fully Alive (London: Canterbury Press, 2013), p.10.

Total Potential

“When we meditate we are still, body and soul, mind and spirit, entirely open to the presence of God, knowing that presence to be pure love, pure gentleness, pure forgiveness. In that presence we become who we are: creatures created by God, redeemed by the love of Jesus, creatures who are temples of the Holy Spirit.” From John Main, “Total Potential,” in Fully Alive (London: Canterbury Press, 2013), p.14. 

"Meditation"

One of the fruits of meditation is the gift of discernment. Discernment about what the media is doing and saying to us, about when to switch off the screen. By creating the space of solitude through daily practice, meditation protects the dignity of individual privacy. As a result, it also develops the social values of personal liberty and responsible participation in society’s decision making. The passivity and fatalism that media-saturation can create is challenged by meditation, if only because people of wisdom are less easily misled. 

We meditate in this world. Our decision to meditate represents a commitment to participate responsibly even in a world going mad. It trains discernment and limits intolerance. It teaches faithfulness to the community of the true Self thus protecting human dignity. Each time we sit down to meditate we carry our own and the world’s baggage into the work of attention. It is a way of loving the world we are part of and contributing to its well-being. Precisely because it is a way of letting go of ourselves, meditation helps us recognize and share the burden of humanity. 

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Meditation,” in JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN (London: Continuum, 20000), p.. 210.

Love's Search

Meditation and the constant return to it, every day of your life, is like cutting a pathway through to reality. . . And it is no small thing to enter reality, to become real, to become who we are, because in that experience we are freed from all the images that so constantly plague us. We do not have to be anyone's image of ourselves, but simply the real person we are.

Meditation is practiced in solitude but it is the great way to learn to be in relationship. The reason for this paradox is that, having contacted our own reality, we have the existential confidence to go out to others, to meet them at their real level. And so the solitary element in meditation is mysteriously the true antidote to loneliness. Having contacted our own reality, we are no longer threatened by the otherness of others. We are not always looking for an affirmation of ourselves. We are making love's search, looking for the reality of the other. In the Christian vision of meditation, we find the reality of the great paradox Jesus teaches: If we want to find our lives we have to be prepared to lose them. In meditating, that is exactly what we do. 

An excerpt from John Main OSB, "Straying from the Mantra," THE HEART OF CREATION (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 9-10.

Moment of Christ

[M]editation is about living in the moment of Christ. It is not about thinking of Christ as he was or how he will come again but about being with him now and being transformed in his being. This is not a static historical moment, but a flowing, a flowering and an unfolding of the mystery of Being itself. To practice meditation is the only way to learn what meditation means and how its meaning is much more than it may seem to those who want to get something short-term out of it; and much more than those who think that by meditating they are making something happen. By learning to meditate we come to understand how we should say the mantra and the way we say the mantra is very much the way we are, the way we love and the way we love day by day.

We should say the mantra without impatience, without force or any intention of violence. The purpose of the mantra is not to block out thoughts. It is not a jamming device. If thoughts attack us while we are meditating, we turn the other check. In saying the mantra gently, we learn from Him who is gentle and humble of heart. Our lives will, day by day, become the commentary on our prayer. Our prayer will then no longer consist in endlessly commenting on our lives. We will ourselves permanently have become prayer. 

An excerpt from Fr. Laurence Freeman, “Dearest Friends,” January 1997 WCCM International Newsletter

Purity of Heart

Meditation is a wonderful opportunity for all of us. . .because in returning to our origin, to the ground of our being, we return to our innocence. The call to meditation, for the early Fathers of the Church, was a call to purity of heart and that is what innocence is—purity of heart. A vision unclouded by egoism or by desire or by images, a heart simply moved by love. Meditation leads us to pure clarity—clarity of vision, clarity of understanding and clarity of love—a clarity that comes from simplicity. And to meditate requires nothing more than the simple determination to begin and then to continue. [. . . .]” From John Main OSB, “God is the Centre of my Soul,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 18-20. Information: 732-681-6238 | GJRyan@wccm.org | www.WCCM.org