MEDITATION IN THE CATHEDRAL BUT NOT AS TERESA KNEW IT

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What's going on in Palmerston North's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit? A terrorist attack? Are these school children dead already, or are they playing possum? Is that woman (at rear) a terrorist?

Relax, people. This is what Jorge Bergoglio would call meditation - which he wants us all to do, to nourish the “inner life” and stave off stress and emptiness, he says.

Its practitioners above are children from St Brigid's Pahiatua, on a Year of Mercy pilgrimage. Cathedral parishioners have seen kids bussed in to lie like this, all over the floor of the cathedral sanctuary, many times. 

"So what's wrong with that?" you ask. Well, first, the sanctuary is called a sanctuary because it's supposed to be a sanctuary for Our Lord Jesus Christ, really and truly present (no matter what the cathedral PP Fr Joe Grayland may say through imported mouthpieces like 'Tom Elich'). It's God's "refuge or safety from pursuit, persecution, or other danger."

But the terrible irony here is that even here in His 'sanctuary', the heart of PN Diocese, Our Lord is not safe. In fact, years ago under Bishop Peter Cullinane ("+P C" for short) Our Lord was persecuted to the point of exile from His sanctuary. 

Readers unfamiliar with the cathedral may not realise that the tabernacle seen above is a faux tabernacle; Our Lord has to make do with a modern version - in a Blessed Sacrament chapel off to the left of the photo - which is almost always empty too.

So does that make it all right for kids to lie prone on the sanctuary-which-is-not-a-sanctuary floor? No, not when the altar of sacrifice is in their midst (to the right), the altar of sacrifice upon which the Son of God is immolated, in an unbloody re-presentation of Calvary, at every Sunday Mass. (In winter, weekday Masses are celebrated in a space behind the fake 'high altar so Massgoers are all warm and comfy.) The altar of sacrifice demands reverence from the faithful.

And because meditation is prayer, to practise meditation you adopt a prayerful position. 

You can't meditate in a crowd. Meditation requires silence and solitude. “When you pray, go into your room and close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” (Mt 6:6). St Brigid's children are probably exemplary, but can we believe that there wasn't some giggling going on, or pushing and shoving? 

Probably the greatest-ever teacher of meditation: St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church

“The practice of meditation has received a great deal of attention in recent years,” the pontiff said at this week's General Audience in the Vatican. “It is not only Christians who talk about it: the practice of meditation exists in almost all the world’s religions ... We all need to meditate, to reflect, to discover ourselves.” 

There he goes again, ,minimising the difference between "almost all the world's religions" and the One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Church. That's heresy. It's called indifferentism. And the need is surely not to discover oneself, but the One.

"I'm confused," says a reader of this blog. "We have prayer, contemplative prayer, now meditation ... 

"At Joshua men's session they brought in an expert from the Cathedral/diocesan office? and we were taught meditation. I did not accept or use it afterwards. Christian prayer is more relevant for me."

Okay. Here goes. 

Meditation is a form of prayer. Bergoglio is right in saying we all need to meditate.

Why? 

Because meditation properly and faithfully practised (a la St Teresa of Avila or St John of the Cross) leads to union with God, which is what we all should seek, and the sooner we find it the better. 

Why? Because if we find union with God on earth we'll be spared Purgatory. We won't be separated from God at our particular judgment, but will remain with Him for ever. 

Chances are that what our reader was taught by "an expert from the Cathedral/diocesan office" was Christian Meditation (CM), which was all the rage all over the world from the '60s on. But CM seems to have fizzled out somewhat, at least locally (in Central Hawke's Bay, where it's disappeared completely). The reason for that is, Christian Meditation is a dead end. That's borne out by its lack of fruits. Something which as Bergoglio says "has received a great deal of attention in recent years" would, if it were willed by God, have borne fruit in abundance. 

But where are its vocations to the priesthood? Even its evidence in Mass attendance and reception of the sacraments? Nowhere to be seen.

Meditation  - but not 'Christian Meditation' - is a form of prayer. And as Bergoglio rightly says, "meditation enters through the door of Jesus Christ". 

To meditate, we sit upright, in a quiet place where we won't be interrupted, and place ourselves in the presence of Christ, "from Whom all good comes", picturing Him in some aspect of His life or Passion which appeals to us. A good book - the good book can't be bettered and the Gospels were the chief inspiration for St Therese of Lisieux for all of her short life (which nevertheless was long enough for her to be hailed as "Doctor of the Church" also) - will almost always be needed for meditation for beginners. 

Because of a built-in lack of imagination (hard to believe!) even St Teresa had to resort to books to get going with meditation. But she'd put the book down as soon as it had achieved her objective of placing Christ before her, giving rise to spontaneous prayers and thoughts of love for Him. If our minds start to wander - as they certainly will - we return to the book. And so it goes, until we reach our time limit: ten minutes at least, and increasing the time as we get more used to meditation. Half an hour is probably the max. 

As months or even years of meditation go by, if we keep our end of the bargain Our Lord will certainly keep His. Take note: our end of the bargain doesn't involve just sitting and listening. We'll get nowhere fast with our meditation unless we are determined to practise virtue.

WHAT??? Practise virtue??? for a Novus Ordo Massgoer, that's completely OTT. Oh, of course he/she is told that what's important is "love" - but what Father means usually is love for the community. You know, 'going on the roster' or joining St Vincent's. 'Humility' just might rate a mention too, as in doing whatever ministries are going begging. But Our Lord wants us to get down to doing the hard yards in all the virtues. That's where the months and even years come in.

But St Teresa says that perseverance and "determined determination" will win us the prize, which is the infused prayer of contemplation: "infused" because it is literally poured into us by the Holy Spirit. Meditation is our doing; contemplation is God's work.

Gradually we'll realise that He is taking over. Our meditation - our work - becomes God's. The transitional stage is likened by St Teresa to hearing a shepherd's pipe, very faintly at first but growing clearer over time until in the prayer of union God absorbs all our faculties

And that's not the end of the story - the journey - which begins with meditation. Rapture and ecstasy await those who press on. 

Bernini's Ecstasy of St Teresa (detail)

This is just a hasty primer on meditation. To learn from the mistress of the art, read Teresa's great work, The Interior Castle. The study edition translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD is the way to go.

"Let nothing disturb thee

Let nothing affright thee

All things pass away

God alone is changeless

Patience obtaineth all things

Who hath God, wanteth nothing

God alone sufficeth."