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There was a time – about three years ago –
when I was a fervent advocate for Christian Meditation. For about three months.
Then I began to smell a rat. And I wrote this column for NZ Catholic:
At the risk of being seen as a quisling, a fifth columnist, a turncoat, I have to say, as a lay Carmelite who belongs to a Christian Meditation group, that I have grave doubts about this method of prayer.
I turned up to support parishioners who were seeking a deeper way of prayer and friendship
with the Divine, and I got hooked. CM was so simple, so
accessible. But having earnestly recommended it to friends and family as the
best thing since sliced bread, I’m now doing a volte face.
I believe now that my initial
enthusiasm was ignited by taking up John Main’s prescription of two periods of
‘meditation’, for 20-30 minutes, morning and evening. To quote Woody Allen,
‘showing up is half the work’, and anyone who shows up for any Christian prayer
will be blessed – and I was.
But after persevering with the mantra as taught by Main and his successor Laurence Freeman for several months, I felt that prayer-wise, I’d regressed. And I believe now that the term ‘meditation’, hijacked by Main to provide a Christian alternative to the phenomenon of transcendental meditation or Tm which, led by the Beatles and like Buddhist contemplation (Zen satori), seized the popular imagination in the ‘70s, is a misnomer.
What first aroused my suspicions was the fact that CM's founder John Main claimed to have retrieved the practice of meditation - forgotten, he said, since the 4th century - and replicated it in CM single-handedly in the 20th. But it's been the main charism of the Carmelite Order since the 13th century, and a treasure of Catholic tradition all along.
But after persevering with the mantra as taught by Main and his successor Laurence Freeman for several months, I felt that prayer-wise, I’d regressed. And I believe now that the term ‘meditation’, hijacked by Main to provide a Christian alternative to the phenomenon of transcendental meditation or Tm which, led by the Beatles and like Buddhist contemplation (Zen satori), seized the popular imagination in the ‘70s, is a misnomer.
What first aroused my suspicions was the fact that CM's founder John Main claimed to have retrieved the practice of meditation - forgotten, he said, since the 4th century - and replicated it in CM single-handedly in the 20th. But it's been the main charism of the Carmelite Order since the 13th century, and a treasure of Catholic tradition all along.
And then there's CM’s insistence on prayer as the way to infused contemplation, to the
exclusion of the two other legs of the Christian ‘stool’ - fasting and
almsgiving. Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) tells us that “the emptiness which God requires
is the renunciation of personal selfishness”. That advice, and the wisdom of St Teresa
of Avila, Doctor of the Church, who says “good works are a better and quicker
preparation for the enkindling of our love than many hours of meditation” is
completely ignored by CM's exponents.
Jesus Christ himself has told us that “strait is the
way, and few are they who find it”. Christian Meditation, being a broad path, is a false path leading to a dead end. One of the Desert Fathers, with whom the practice of meditation originated, maintained that “it is something we hand on to only a very small number of souls eager to know it.” That classic work on Catholic contemplation, The Cloud of Unknowing, cautions against the mantra and prayer word as being not for everyone - or even for many. The Cloud makes it clear that “this practice is only for those with a high degree of purity and maturity in the Christian life."
So if Christian Meditation is so popular - which it is - doesn't that mean there’s something seriously wrong with it? It's a hybrid of Hindu and Christian meditation techniques, not meditation in the Christian tradition. Genuine prayer is never a technique.
“By their
fruits you shall know them” (Mt 7,16). Where are the fruits of Christian Meditation? With maybe millions of Catholics in the
movement(our little country parish now has two groups) why aren’t Catholic seminaries in the Western world full and Mass counts seriously up, instead of steadily trending down?
And what about the centuries-old mandate for discursive meditation (pondering on Christ and his teachings) as a prerequisite for emptying the mind in prayer? CM and CP welcome all-comers, no
matter where they’re at, prayer-wise. CM
advises - directly contradicting Teresa of Avila - that we need not concern ourselves about that.
John Main abolished
all distinctions between stages and types of prayer. In CM it’s ‘one size fits all’ -
which for susceptible personalities opens the door to demonic influence, because when
we deliberately still the conscious mind, its energy is deflected to the
subconscious, which may heal - or harm us.
As Pope Benedict stated, as Cardinal Ratzinger: “the seeking of God through prayer must be preceded and accompanied by an ascetical struggle and purification from one’s own sins and errors – “Only the pure of heart shall see God” (Mt 5, 8).
As Pope Benedict stated, as Cardinal Ratzinger: “the seeking of God through prayer must be preceded and accompanied by an ascetical struggle and purification from one’s own sins and errors – “Only the pure of heart shall see God” (Mt 5, 8).
Meditation is the path we can choose to reduce the pressure , stress and concerns that address us daily. When we meditate we provide a space to restore our inner nature.
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