Ibonio D’ Souza
Meditation has always been an important but under-emphasised aspect of the Christian path to God. In fact, there has been a rich underlying meditative and truly spiritual tradition within the Christian orders of monks and nuns. These orders have continued to initiate seekers into the mystical inner life of meditation in convents and monasteries.
Many great saints have followed these orders and some have written of their experiences of meditation and inner vision of Christ. They include St John of the Cross, St Francis of Assisi, St Theresa of Avila and many others. These great souls based their lives on contemplation and meditation while following the spiritual discipline of an order. By meditating they expanded perception of spiritual life beyond dogmas towards direct realisation of union with God.
Several Christian mystics too have written of the way of meditation. For example, Hugo of St Victor wrote: “The way to ascend to God is to descend into oneself.” Similarly, Richard of St Victor wrote: “The ascent is through self above self. Let him that thirsts to see God clean his mirror. Let him make his own spirit bright.” Albert Magnus believed union with God to be the aim of life and that contemplation was the way to attain it.
There are many references in the Bible to meditation, both in the Old and New Testaments, as in Psalms 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God”; in Luke 17:21: “The Kingdom of God lies within you”; and in Mathew 6:22: “The light of the body is the eye, if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” These are surely direct references to meditation, calling on man to still his own mind and dive within himself in order to discover the peace and sublime tranquility of God’s kingdom. Today when humanity seems to have lost its way, the Christian church needs to do a little more for the faithful, going beyond laying down social and moral codes or rituals and initiating them into practices like contemplative meditation as an essential part of the spiritual growth.
Christians base their spiritual life upon prayer, but there is often a misunderstanding here – that prayer and meditation are different. In fact, true prayer which is a direct communion with God, is a meditative state. Modern Christian writers are recognising that true prayer and meditation is one and the same experience. To quote Anthony de Mello, S.J. in “Sadhana: A way to God”: “Modern man is unfortunately plagued by a nervous tension which makes it almost impossible for him to be quiet. If he wants to pray, he must just learn to be still, to quiet himself.”
The most well-known Christian meditation technique is that known as the ‘Jesus Prayer’. This practice was developed by the desert fathers, mystics who lived in the Palestinian desert. This prayer is still used by the contemplative orders of the Greek Orthodox Christians. It utilises the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me”.
