1eschator83
I find myself rethinking almost daily the post by John5918 in Catholic Tradition forum/ Pope Francis on 4/29/21 describing the Pope's General Address the prior day on the subject of meditation. By a very curious coincidence I had decided to begin a new form of meditation that same day (being unaware of the Pope's address) following a book by Fr John Kersten entitled Bible Meditations for Every Day.
The Papal address raises a number of questions for me, beginning with his teaching that all prayer as well as meditation should seek an encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ, which can result through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These comments are reported in a news report from an organization affiliated with EWTN, and may not exactly reflect the Pope's Address. I suppose I should next search the Vatican web on this. Further into the article there is a somewhat cryptic reference to another encounter with the Transcendent Other which is God.
I have posted elsewhere on my questions about addressing prayer to the Persons of the Trinity, or our Holy Mother, or Saints or Angels, and received some wonderful comments. I pray readers will comment here on their meditation practices and whether they plan to reassess them.
The Papal address raises a number of questions for me, beginning with his teaching that all prayer as well as meditation should seek an encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ, which can result through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These comments are reported in a news report from an organization affiliated with EWTN, and may not exactly reflect the Pope's Address. I suppose I should next search the Vatican web on this. Further into the article there is a somewhat cryptic reference to another encounter with the Transcendent Other which is God.
I have posted elsewhere on my questions about addressing prayer to the Persons of the Trinity, or our Holy Mother, or Saints or Angels, and received some wonderful comments. I pray readers will comment here on their meditation practices and whether they plan to reassess them.
2eschator83
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2021/documents/papa-france...
With luck this link will connect to Pope Francis' General address on meditation as reported by the Holy See. In the meantime I've been struggling with a lot of reading on related subjects:
Lectio Divina by Basil Pennington OCSO
The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
Personality Fulfillment in the Spiritual Life by Adrian van Kamm CSSp
The Early Church by Henry Chadwick
I was surprised by Pennington's assertion that ancient Jewish and early Christian emphasis on meditative Spirituality was essentially minimized during the scholastic era until restored in large part by protestants. I'd be most grateful for clarification.
With luck this link will connect to Pope Francis' General address on meditation as reported by the Holy See. In the meantime I've been struggling with a lot of reading on related subjects:
Lectio Divina by Basil Pennington OCSO
The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
Personality Fulfillment in the Spiritual Life by Adrian van Kamm CSSp
The Early Church by Henry Chadwick
I was surprised by Pennington's assertion that ancient Jewish and early Christian emphasis on meditative Spirituality was essentially minimized during the scholastic era until restored in large part by protestants. I'd be most grateful for clarification.
3John5918
Pope calls monks to be a gift 'to God' and 'of God' (Vatican News)
Pope Francis meets with the Abbot, monks and collaborators of the Abbey of Montevergine on the occasion of the nine hundredth anniversary of the Abbey's foundation... Pope Francis welcomed those gathered for the occasion and reminded them of the origin of their monastery, in which there were “no miracles or extraordinary events, but the care of a shepherd, the Bishop of Avellino, who wanted to build a church in that elevated place and gather a small number of people in the service of God, to make it a center of prayer, evangelization, and charity,” he said... The monastic vocation places prayer at the root of every action, the Holy Father said... He reminded them that in their lives as monks, in physical distance form the world yet spiritually close to it, they can be a “living and eloquent sign of God's presence”...
5John5918
>4 brone:
Yes, indeed, many of the well known prayers can be a fruitful source of both meditative and contemplative prayer. Praying the Rosary, in which we continually repeat the same familiar words of the Hail Mary almost like a mantra, can lead into a contemplative space.
On the Pater Noster, I had the privilege of editing a 2021 book by Bishop Emeritus Rodrigo Mejía Saldarriaga in which he encourages people "to sit down in an attitude of recollection, intimacy and silence before God and contemplate more deeply on the prayer of Our Father... I was moved to deepen on the meaning of each word of the prayer” (link).
Yes, indeed, many of the well known prayers can be a fruitful source of both meditative and contemplative prayer. Praying the Rosary, in which we continually repeat the same familiar words of the Hail Mary almost like a mantra, can lead into a contemplative space.
On the Pater Noster, I had the privilege of editing a 2021 book by Bishop Emeritus Rodrigo Mejía Saldarriaga in which he encourages people "to sit down in an attitude of recollection, intimacy and silence before God and contemplate more deeply on the prayer of Our Father... I was moved to deepen on the meaning of each word of the prayer” (link).
6John5918
>2 eschator83:
Coming back to this thread more than two years later, I would say I don't have any great knowledge of the protestant revival of meditative spirituality, although I am of course aware of C.S. Lewis and Howard Thurman, and I was privileged to know the Anglican anchoress Una Kroll.
I would say that mysticism, meditative and contemplative prayer did fall by the wayside a bit in the Catholic Church after about the 14th century, after the likes of Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, etc, and later St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. It continued uninterrupted in the monasteries, particularly through Lectio divina, a meditative way of reading and praying (as opposed to studying) the scriptures. But it probably resurfaced into the mainstream during the second half of the 20th century, with practitioners such as Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Bede Griffiths, John Main, Antony de Mello, Ruth Burrows, Gerard Hughes, Henri Nouwen, Joan Chittister, David Steindl-Rast, Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio and many more. This was also a period when Buddhism and eastern contemplative practices such as Transcendental Meditation were becoming popular in the west - the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, or the Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - and it was important for Christian contemplatives to demonstrate that we have our own long history and tradition of meditative and contemplative prayer going right back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers as early as the 3rd century, and indeed to Jesus himself and his forty days in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11).
Coming back to this thread more than two years later, I would say I don't have any great knowledge of the protestant revival of meditative spirituality, although I am of course aware of C.S. Lewis and Howard Thurman, and I was privileged to know the Anglican anchoress Una Kroll.
I would say that mysticism, meditative and contemplative prayer did fall by the wayside a bit in the Catholic Church after about the 14th century, after the likes of Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, etc, and later St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. It continued uninterrupted in the monasteries, particularly through Lectio divina, a meditative way of reading and praying (as opposed to studying) the scriptures. But it probably resurfaced into the mainstream during the second half of the 20th century, with practitioners such as Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Bede Griffiths, John Main, Antony de Mello, Ruth Burrows, Gerard Hughes, Henri Nouwen, Joan Chittister, David Steindl-Rast, Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio and many more. This was also a period when Buddhism and eastern contemplative practices such as Transcendental Meditation were becoming popular in the west - the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, or the Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - and it was important for Christian contemplatives to demonstrate that we have our own long history and tradition of meditative and contemplative prayer going right back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers as early as the 3rd century, and indeed to Jesus himself and his forty days in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11).
