Words of Wisdom

Oh God, we are one with You.

Palm Sunday 2020

Belmar, NJ Weekly Meditation Group

“Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed” (Romans 12:2).

The life of the spirit in human nature is a continual repatterning. The step of faith we spend our lives perfecting is simply the one step by which we let our minds be remade and our whole being transfigured. For “this present world” let us read "ego": the part that thinks it is the whole. It has come involuntarily to block and unconsciously to distort the mystery of life because of the patterns it had formed through pain and rejection; the perception of a world without love. [. . . .]

Even if meditation were no more than a brief daily dip into the kingdom within us, it would merit our complete attention. But it is far more than a temporary escape from the prison of our patterns of fear and desire. Complex as these patterns are, making us fear the death and the true love that are necessary for our growth and survival, meditation simplifies them all. Day by day, meditation by meditation, this process of simplification proceeds. We become gradually more fearless until, in the joy of being released from the images and memories of desire, we taste total freedom from fear. And then---and even before then---we become of use to others, able to love without fear or desire. . . released to serve the Self which is the Christ within.

-- An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Letter Three,” WEB OF SILENCE (London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 1996), pp. 28-29,31.

Integration and Wholeness

“The experience of meditation is the experience of integration and wholeness. In the Christian tradition it’s called the ‘prayer of the heart.’ The heart is a symbol, not only of interiority, and it’s much more than just a symbol of emotions. The heart is really a symbol spiritually, in all traditions, of wholeness, of integrity, integration. It’s in the heart-consciousness that physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of ourselves find unity, find harmony, and integration.” From Laurence Freeman OSB, Grace at Work: The Healing Power of Meditation (London: Medio Media). 

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Discipleship

“To be a disciple is to be on the way to becoming a Christian. We're not fully disciples yet, but we are on the way. We're on the way to becoming one with Christ, to becoming, as the early church describes it, ‘another christ’. Each one of us is ‘another christ’ because of that union we have with him. And this is a lifelong journey. We don't arrive at this point just on the day of our baptism; that's just the beginning of this journey. It's a lifelong journey, and the beautiful thing about this journey is that it gives meaning to everything that happens to us in our life – the joys and the sufferings, the things we gain and the things we lose. Everything is given meaning if our life has this purpose.” From Laurence Freeman OSB, “Discipleship.”

Relationship(s)

“Our eyes are opened, through meditation, to see how much [the] power of love is present in the midst of all our imbalance, all our own waywardness, all our own distractedness. Even in the distractedness of our meditation, we are able to understand, to perceive, to feel more and more deeply, the presence of peace. And what it teaches us also, as it teaches us to love ourselves, to love others and to love God, is that all relationships are really aspects of one relationship.” From Laurence Freeman OSB, “Aspects of Love.”