Father Peter's Forum

INTRODUCTION:

The beautiful material contained here is actually a paraphrase of Richard J. Foster’s chapter on meditation in his book Celebration of Discipline which has sold more than a million copies. I have added my thoughts, but his are more important. After reading this, I do believe that you and I and all of us will be attracted to meditation, especially in the Lenten season.


The Discipline of Meditation
Val J. Peter

“True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace.”
Thomas Merton

We cannot get very far in our serving the Lord without meditation. Meditation is something that happens in silence and most Americans think that silence is boring and that loud music and hurry and noise are what people need. Actually, those three keep us from getting closer to God in many ways. If we hope to move beyond the surface of our culture, including our religious culture, we are going to have to move into holy silence in the inner world of meditation and it’s a lot of fun.

In all the writings of holy Christians throughout the age of the saints and the great spiritual directors they all say, from time to time, we need to walk away from the noise and enroll in the school of silent prayer, namely, meditation.

Biblical Witness

The idea of meditation is contained in two different Hebrew words in the Bible and together they are used 58 times: listening to God’s word, reflecting on God’s works, reliving God’s deeds and thinking about God’s holy law and more. David in Psalm 119 says: “Oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day…I hold my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your ordinances for you have taught me.”

 We read in the First Book of the Bible: “And Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening (Genesis 24,63).
 Joshua, son of Nun, after Moses is dead takes over and the Lord tells him: “Be strong and courageous. You shall put these people in possession of the land that’s worth your ancestors to give you…you shall meditate on my words to Moses day and night.” (Joshua 1-8)
 Oh God, we meditate on your unfailing love. (Psalm 48,9)
 “I will meditate on all your work and views on your mighty deeds.”
 Psalm 119 is a psalm on meditation: “I meditate on your precepts (v15)…your servant will meditate on your decrees (v23)…then I will meditate on your wonders (v27)…I revere your commandments which I love and I will meditate on your statutes (v48)…I will meditate on your precepts (v78)…I mediate on you all day long (v97)…For I meditate on your statutes (v99).
 In Psalm 19, I meditate on your promises.
 In Psalm 143, I meditate on all your works.
 In Psalm 145, I will meditate on your wonderful works.
 In Psalm 39, my heart grew hot within me. As I meditated, the fire burned.
 In Psalm 19, the meditation of my heart may it be pleasing in your sight.
 In Psalm 104, may my mediation be pleasing to Him.
 The ancient priest, Eli, knew how to listen to God and helped the young boy Samuel listen to God speaking to Him. (1 Samuel 3, 1-18).
 The prophet Elijah spent much, much time learning how to know “the still small voice of God.” (1 Kings 19,18)
 The prophet Jeremiah discovered the word of God to be “a burning fire shut up in my bones.” (Jeremiah 20,9)

All of these were people who were very close to the heart of God and God spoke to them, not because they were high and mighty or were more learned than others but because they were more willing to listen.

 Jesus made a habit of withdrawing to be in meditation.
 “He withdrew by boat privately to a lonely place apart.” (Matthew 14,13)
 “Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness.” (Matthew 4,1)
 “Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” (Matthew 6,5)
 “And after He dismissed the crowds, He went up the mountain by Himself…He was there alone. (Matthew 14,23)
 “In the morning while it was still very dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place and there He prayed.” (Mark 1,35)
 “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” (Mark 6,31)
 “But He would withdraw to deserted placed and pray.” (Luke 5,16)
 “Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and His brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves.” (Matthew 17,1)
 “Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane and He said to His disciplines, sit here while I go over there and pray.” (Matthew 26,36)
 “He took with Him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And He said to them: I am deeply grieved, even to death. Remain here and keep awake. I am going a little further…” (Mark 14,32)
 “In his anguish, He prayed more earnestly and His sweat became like great drops of blood following down on the ground.” (Luke 22,44)
 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you. And these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them and I will make it known so that the law with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. (John 17,26)

Hearing and Obeying

“Speak Lord your servant is listening.” That’s what meditation is all about.

When God sent His Son in the fullness of time, Jesus showed us in His imminent relationship with the Father how to live a life of hearing and obeying. “The Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing; for whatever He does, that Son does likewise.” (John 5,19)

“I can do nothing on my own as I hear a judge.” (John 5,30)

“The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does His work.” (John 14,10)

“He told us that He was the Good Shepherd and the sheep would know His voice.” (John 10,4)

“And that the Comforter would come, the Spirit of Truth who would guide us into all truth.” (John 16,13)

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us that after the Resurrection and
Ascension and Pentecost, Jesus continues “to do and teach.” If we but have ears to hear and hearts open to Him.” (Acts 1,1)

And if we look at the saints through all the ages, they say the same thing. There is a vast library of literature on Christian meditation by holy people, by believers throughout the centuries. And their testimony is amazingly the same over and over and over again. From Protestant denomination to Catholic, from Orthodox to Free Church, the holy ones urge us to “live in His presence in uninterrupted fellowship.”

The Russian mystic, Theophian the Recluse, says “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart and there to stand before the face of the Lord ever present all seeing within you.” The Anglican divine, Jeremy Taylor, says “Meditation is the duty of all.” And the great Lutheran martyr in our day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was asked once why he mediated and he said, without pause, “Because I am a Christian.” We would be terribly foolish if we were to neglect such a gracious invitation to experience in the words of Madam Guyan “the depths of Jesus Christ.”

Richard Foster rightly says: “Please understand me. I am not speaking some mushy, giddy, buddy, buddy relationship. All such sentimentality only betrays how little we know, how distant we are from the Lord. St. John tells us in his apocalypse that went he saw the reigning Christ he fell at His feet as though dead and so should we.” Now, continues Foster, “I am speaking of a reality more akin to what to what the disciplines felt in the upper room when they experienced both intense intimacy and awful reverence.”

Everything that is foreign to the Lord we have to let go of. The Good Shepherd will lead us.

Understandable misconceptions

 It is a mistake to think that the meditation in the Eastern religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) is the same as Christian meditation. No, meditation in the Eastern religions is an attempt to empty the mind. Meditation in the Christian tradition is an attempt to fill the mind.

 Another misunderstanding is that meditation is too difficult and too complicated. Thomas Merton says: “Meditation is really very simple and there is not much elaborate techniques to teach us how to go about it.”

 Others say, wrongly, that meditation is archaic and out of touch with the 21st century. They are talking about the wrong kind of meditation as seen in Dostoevski’s novel The Brothers Karamazov where the character Father Ferapont is a rigid self-righteous person who, by shear effort, delivers himself from the world and then calls down curses upon it. That’s really bad. That is not what meditation is all about. Thomas Merton also says: “Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in life.”

 The most common misunderstanding is to think that meditation is some sort of psychological manipulation. Sort of like yoga which drops your blood pressure, relieves your tension and makes you feel better. That stuff is all right, but it is not meditation. The purpose of meditation is not to give you a consistent alpha brain wave pattern. The inner reality of the spiritual world is available to all who are willing to search for it. Richard Foster rightly says: “Often I have discovered that those who so freely debunk the spiritual have never taken ten minutes to investigate whether or not such a world really exists.”

Different Kinds of Meditation

Over the centuries, Christians have used a variety of ways of listening to the good Lord as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, a variety of ways of experiencing the love of God in their world. They were all seeking intimacy with God and faithfulness to God. Here are some of the ways:

1. Meditation on the Bible…meditation is different from exegesis. Exegesis is the technical study of a text or an analysis of a text. Meditation is not exegesis…mediation on the Scripture is as simple as this: “Speak Lord your servant is listening.” What you want to do when you meditate on the Scripture is see with your mine’s eye the Lord speaking to you. Listen carefully. Take it into your heart and personalize the message. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: “Just as you do not analyze the words of someone you love but accept them as they are said to you, accept the Word or Scripture, ponder it in your heart as Mary did. That is all. That is meditation.”…Ignatius of Loyola reminds us to apply all four senses to the task and smell the seed. Here the lap of the water along the shore. See the crowd. Feel the sun on your head and the hunger in your stomach. Taste the salt in the air. Touch the hem of his garment.

Take, for example, Jesus’ saying to you: “My peace I give to you.” (John 14,27) Let Jesus fill you with His peace, your mind, your heart, your spirit…enter the story as an active participant. At one time or another, you are the protocol son, in another you are Mary Magdalene and another you are Peter.

2. Now this is a second kind of meditation. It is mediation on nature. Give yourself to the created order. Look at the trees. Take a flower. Allow its beauty to sink into your mind and heart. Listen to the birds. They are God’s messengers. Watch the creatures that creep over the earth. These are humble acts.

3. Another form of meditation is to meditate on the events of our time. Thomas Merton writes that the person “who is meditating on the Passion of Christ but has not meditated on the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz has not yet fully entered into the experience of Christianity of our time.”

4. Richard Foster says another form of meditation is what the people in the Middle Ages called “re-collection” and what the Quakers called “centering down.” One example in re-collection is called palms down, palms up. By placing your palms down as a way to indicate your desire to turn over all concerns you may have to God. Inwardly, you pray, Lord I give you my anger toward John. I release my fear of my dentist appointment today. I surrender my anxiety for not having enough money to pay these bills. I release my frustration over trying to find a babysitter. Just say palms down. Release it. After several moments of serenity, turn your palms up as a symbol of your desire to receive from the Lord. “Lord, I would like to receive your divine love for John, your peace about the dental appointment, etc., etc. Whatever you need say palms up.

Concluding thought: As you begin meditation it might not mean a lot to you. It takes a while and you need to be patient. You are going against the tide. Take heart. It will work.