ARTICLES --- VOLUME 64, 2005 --- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS
[NOTE: Beginning with the first issue of this new volume, some of the articles in each issue of Review for Religious are interactive. All of these will be reproduced here in full along with the interactive questions and a link to the space where readers can contribute there comments and reflections online. These comments and reflections will be gathered together monthly and posted in the Readers' Comments section at the end of each article.]
Mary, Woman of the Eucharist: A Contemplation by James A. Rafferty (64.4 RFR)
From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation by Ernest E. Larkin OCarm (64.4 RFR)
Rekindling the Fire: Vocation Efforts by Sean Sammon FMS (64.4 RFR)
Community Chapters: Seven Personal Beliefs by Melannie
Svoboda SND (64.3 RFR)
Living In Community: Continuing the Conversation by Doris
Gottemoeller RSM (64.3 RFR)
Feet First Into Resurrection by Bonaventure
Stefun OFMCap (64.2 RFR)
Asceticism and Chaste and Celibate Love by Vilma Seelaus OCD (64.2 RFR)
Learning to Live Serenely: The Wisdom of Francis de Sales by Juliana Devoy
RGS (64.2 RFR)
Good and Bad Zeal: Good and Bad Spirits byJoseph I. Cisetti (64.2 RFR)
Reclaiming the Prayer
of Lament by Colleen Vogt (64.1
RFR)
The Role of Scripture on the Spiritual Journey by Matthias
Neuman OSB (64.1 RFR)
Ignatian Colloquies: Their Surpassing Value by A. Paul Dominic
S.J. ( 61.4 RFR)
Navigational
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Mary, Woman of the Eucharist: A Contemplation
By James A. Rafferty, a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, is chaplain and a campus minister at Marywood University ; 2300 Adams Avenue ; Scranton , Pennsylvania 18509 .
This reflection looks at the relationship between Mary and the Eucharistic Lord. It attempts to show, in particular, Mary's intimate presence to the Eucharist. As a woman at the center of God's love for all humanity, Mary may properly be identified as Woman of the Eucharist, the title both reverential and affectionate that Pope John Paul employs in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia. This title is not merely a clever theological phrase about Mary symbolizing the entire church by her faith and receptive cooperation. The title is about Mary's profound spiritual relationship with her Son. Attuned as no other to the intimate communion deep within the Trinity, Mary singularly understands Jesus' Eucharistic heart as it embraces all humanity in choosing Calvary , where self-surrendering love is displayed in shocking degree.
More than a theological category or doctrinal formulation, Mary, Woman of Eucharist, sings the hymn of one woman's surrender to the divine Love that gently invites people to become more like itself. The sacramental Eucharist we celebrate today has its peak expression in the Last Supper that opens the original drama of the paschal mystery, but Jesus' Eucharistic offering is not limited to those hours of his life. Rather, his entire being may be described as Eucharist—sacrificial self-offering emboldened by an enormous gratitude. Mary's life, too, chants her Son's Eucharistic hymn of praise and self-gift long before she accompanies him to the moment when he hands over all that he is on the cross. Eucharistic tones reverberate in Mary's immaculate conception, in the annunciation, in her hearing her Son proclaim the kingdom, in her presence at Calvary , and in her sharing in the Easter glory.
The first Eucharistic moment in Mary's life, as in everyone's, is the moment of conception. Like everyone else, Mary receives her unique and unrepeatable identity as nothing other than gift, gift to herself and to the world. Births celebrate the overflowing of love from the Trinity's heart into time and space, letting itself be known in the life of another. Life itself means receiving what we cannot give or produce on our own. This divine gift is always more splendid than cellular interactions and anatomical functions. The Spirit of God breathing into clay sacramentalizes the loving communion of the Creator with the created. Physical existence, even veiled in the womb, announces the divine creative imagination that renders each life sacred by bearing the image and likeness of the Triune God.
While every new human life arouses awe and thankfulness in the presence of this loving gift from God, the humble daughter of Israel has an unprecedented Eucharistic glow from her immaculate conception. The child of Anne and Joachim receives from her first instant the totally unmerited gift of being preserved by God from all stain of original sin. God creates Mary as one ready to welcome grace without resistance. Her very disposition is to seek always what is the delight of her Creator and Lord. In her immaculate heart Mary bows before the tender stirrings of the Spirit of Yahweh. She never lurches away from the Lord in willfulness. Her submission to God is like the strings of a peerless violin at the touch of a skilled violinist. The instrument exists precisely to give resonance to the master's melody and fill the air with music. The violinist's touch is not subjugation. It frees the instrument to be its fullest self.
Mary cooperates wholly in all that God desires for her. We pray during the liturgy for something of her receptivity when we say, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” Although these words originate in Jesus' encounter with a centurion concerned for his servant's health, the liturgical context may suggest Zacchaeus, delighted to welcome Jesus to his home and almost happy at not concealing how much his soul has needed tidying up. As we approach the altar to receive the gift of Jesus' Body and Blood, it seems that Jesus wishes to evoke within us Peter's change of heart: first refusing to let Jesus wash his feet and then eagerly conceding at Jesus' insistence. Again, the Immaculate Conception is a permanent stance of receptivity. We seek that disposition in our own preparation for Communion.
The Eucharistic motif appears in Mary's life also in her obscurity and poverty. Her simple, humble existence in a tiny village reflects the Eucharist. There Mary depends utterly on God. Mary experiences a real, not just a romantic, poverty. She feels with all who are poor the realities of hunger, cold, and powerlessness. For her the cry of the poor is not a hypothetical, poetic verse; it echoes her authentic abandonment to the Lord's providence in situations where human efforts do not accomplish much. There is more here than a passive resolve to endure difficulty and want. Mary finds comfort and assurance in a faithful God who has pledged never to abandon the people he has chosen to be his own. As a woman of actual poverty, Mary relates to God as the provider of her daily needs. She carries within her a practiced confidence that God attends to her hunger and thirst, a heartfelt trust that breaks into the praise of the Magnificat. She lives out of the consciousness that it is God who feeds, nourishes, and sustains. Her poverty expresses solidarity with every child of the Covenant who awaits God's saving action. Such indomitable hope, passed on across centuries, has been planted deep in Mary's heart.
Mary's Eucharistic living is evident in the moment when divinity unites with human flesh at her consent, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” The Lord instituted the sacramental Eucharist for us to consume and thereby have the divine life pulsing strongly within us. Mary's “yes” to the invitation of God foreshadows our “amen” at being offered the Eucharist. Amen here means “Yes, I believe it is the Body of Christ, and, yes, I wish to receive it.” It is implicitly a consent that the Body of Christ broken, offered, received, and consumed may effect a change in us who partake of it. As believers we surrender before the mystery in a way similar to Mary's “Let it be done to me.” Like Mary at the annunciation, in the Eucharist we implicitly desire that the Trinity take over our life so that our identity, fused with Jesus himself, lets itself be guided by God the Father.
When the angel appears to Mary with the message that she will conceive and bear a son who will be called Son of the Most High, she perceives the compassion radiating from the heart of God. This radiance accompanies the self-surrender of the God who comes to dwell in flesh. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, Mary is drawn into God's plan, which includes Calvary . In the powerful current of paschal love, she more than anyone else glimpses the yearning of God to heal the rift that sin causes in the relationship between Creator and creature. Every act of God in the salvific economy bears a paschal orientation, and Mary intuits the paschal horizon of God's project. That is, she senses the truth of what she meets in the annunciation—a self-offering Love that knows no limitation.
Lacking the vocabulary of Trinitarian theology, Mary nonetheless encounters the Father offering his Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. She experiences deep within her the distinct energies of the Trinitarian persons, as if eavesdropping on the dialogue of the Trinity's plan for her. Mary knows, then, a Father sharing his Son with her, and she knows this contemplatively in the depths of her being. Mary's pregnancy does not begin as a mere procedural accomplishment, as valued possessions are handed over to faithful friends for safekeeping. Because the Spirit of God fills her, Mary senses the meaning of this act for the Father. The Father is handing over to her, and through her to all humanity, that which is most precious to him, his beloved Son. Mary knows this with her whole being.
She knows, too, the Son's active participation in this gift-giving. Before the throne of the Father in heaven, the Son exercises the characteristic obedience that he will manifest in the world even to death. Mary's fiat opens the path for the eternal Word to enact his incarnation in space and time. The Son exchanges the omnipotence of divine majesty for confinement in the womb of a young woman. The Second Person of the Trinity assumes human nature in its meekest form and progresses according to the physiological laws of the human condition. Mary, of course, does not, by virtue of her experience of the annunciation, have unrestricted access to the mind of God. She remains thoroughly finite. Like every other human being, she knows only what she can experience. There precisely do we find the glory in the incarnation, the splendid miracle that Mary is the first to perceive—God revealed in human frailty. Mary is present to the moment when the Son clothes himself in the frailty, dependence, poverty, and even death that mark every human life.
The words of consecration so familiar in the Eucharistic Prayer are already subtly present at the annunciation. “You will conceive and bear a son.” “How can this be?” “The power of the Most High will overshadow you.” It is as if all of creation—a suffering world yearning for the healing that it is helpless to achieve on its own—has been imploring the Holy Spirit, in one great wordless epiclesis, to fill the virginal womb with life. And God responds by making himself present in history for children and adults to see, hear, and touch—and be touched by. Mary's response is personal and collective. She speaks on behalf of a wounded race. Generation after generation of messianic hope permeates the Jewish faith. In Mary and others like Anna and Simeon, this hope is not merely a passive waiting and watching. More than that, it is an ever intensifying desire, calling upon God fervently and ceaselessly from amid the welter of the human condition. Here is the imploring epiclesis to which the Father answers in the incarnation of his Son.
To this intensification of Jewish prayer may be added the human hearts all over the world humbly defenseless under the weight and the stings of evil. Moved by their sobs and their silence, God intervenes decisively. Through the Holy Spirit and Mary's yes, God's Son becomes present in her womb. This is similar to what occurs in the liturgy. Mary offers herself in conjunction with the cries of a people lost in darkness, and the Holy Spirit completes her offering infinitely by bringing about the presence of Jesus in her womb. The divine love in this human form is Light itself amid earth's darkness. Surrendering himself to the human condition, the Son of God encompasses the human race's sad history in himself. He submits himself to the force of evil that pummels, confuses, and obliterates.
At the first moment made possible by Mary's assent, the world begins to hear the Son whisper, “Take this, all of you, and eat it, this is my body; take and drink, this is my blood, given up for you.” Mary silently possesses more than an inkling of the self-surrender that God envisions. The Son empties himself by taking on human nature, and Mary nourishes humanity's self-sacrificing Savior towards his birth. She and he both anticipate his self-offering on the cross, the offering that rises from burial into resurrection and is present each time the Eucharist is celebrated. Mary's praying heart delights in the wonder, adoration, and gratitude with which she accompanies the Child she carries. With maternal love she worships thankfully the Presence within her in a unique Communion.
The proclamation of the kingdom of God , too, is redolent of the Eucharistic. In the Spirit, all grace of whatever form moves human hearts to Communion. People's gifts or fruits of prayer come to naught unless they seek and find some externalization in unity, in Communion. The Spirit is Communio, and all grace drives toward perfect fulfillment in the heavenly banquet, the wedding feast of the Lamb, for which the liturgical sacrifice prepares us. No wonder, then, that the New Testament's Eucharistic imagery appears in the earliest moments of Jesus' public ministry. At the Jordan , Jesus, who is without sin, does not accept John's baptism as a gesture of solidarity with weaker brothers and sisters. He is maturely aware of his right relationship with Yahweh. His decision to approach the Baptist, like his acceptance of the cross, manifests publicly the full surrender to the Father's will that he has made in prayer many times. Here at the Jordan , Jesus offers himself unreservedly to his Father's plan. He pledges himself to the kingdom that John has heralded. In sublime intimacy the Son prays, “Take this, Father, it is yours.” He hands over to the Father all that he receives: his body, his energy, his desire, his relationships, his future. At the Jordan , at the proper time, the Son relives on earth his own unseen choice in eternity to become incarnate. His Father accepts his self-offering and blesses it with the epiphany that confirms the beloved Son's identity.
As Jesus undertakes his public ministry, right from the beginning he gathers a community from people who have little in common other than their friendship with Jesus and the willingness to risk being in his company. Jesus does not announce the kingdom as some exhilarating new ideology or political vision. Rather, he forms relationships and then sees to it that they form relationships with one another. And he gets them sharing in his own relationship, his own communion, with the Father. Today the Eucharistic table is the special place where the Father reaches out to his sons and daughters and where they seek the deep unity among themselves that they find occurs only when God is in their midst. In celebrating the Eucharist, Christians accompany Jesus and attend to his words and actions, and he forms the church in his paschal love just as he did with his first disciples.
Mary, Woman of the Eucharist, plays a role in this formation of Christ's followers into a Eucharistic community. Here this does not mean intuitions of their ritual participation in the Mass. Rather, it means learning a new way of being loved by God. Their souls are being awakened to tolerate and then to rejoice that Jesus comes not to be served but to serve. The Spirit is slowly instructing them in the language of God's heart, which speaks most eloquently in the silence of Good Friday. But, preparing for that day, Jesus brings his friends and coworkers home with him to Nazareth and to Mary. They have left home and livelihood to stay with him. They are good people. but they carry the soot of the world with them. Their hands and their hearts are stained with the grime of laboring in a world polluted by greed, prejudice, dishonesty, violence, and cynicism.
As if in a retreat in preparation for the work of the kingdom, the disciples notice the warmth of pure love between Jesus and his mother. The home at Nazareth serves as a chapel of adoration, of deep devotion, where the love that the graced human spirit is capable of becomes visible. In Jesus' relating with Mary, there is no hardness of heart, no defensiveness, no secrecy, no insecurity. The disciples could not have resisted being affected by the goodness of this mother and this Son. Long before Mary and John's presence on Calvary , Jesus is already drawing his friends into Mary's universal motherhood. At the same time, Mary quietly rejoices as she watches the glow of Trinitarian communion dawn in the lives of others. As the church begins to form, Mary joyfully waits at the center to share what she has received.
Eucharistic nuances continue to pervade Mary's discipleship of her Son, especially in her loyal, fearless participation in his death and resurrection. The full meaning of the Via Crucis opens up before people who contemplate it with Mary's eyes. Mary's consent to the angel at the annunciation reaches its climax in her yes beneath the cross, where her heart, united with her Son's, is in perfect obedience to the Father. Mary's obedience is not a horrified resignation to the inevitable, nor a resentful passivity in the face of something she desperately wants to alter. Mary cooperates in the sacrifice of Jesus. Indeed, as Jesus struggles toward the altar of the cross, Mary's spirit accompanies him with the prayer that nothing dissuade him from his goal. Whatever dark lies, taunts, or tortuous subtleties the tempter hurled at him in Gethsemane , Mary, in luminous contrast, gently urges him not to give up. Her intense love for Jesus cannot wish him to be other than who he is. In her Son's selfless desire to give himself away out of love, amid the horrific brutality of Calvary , Mary gazes upon the heart of the Trinity revealed in human history. Wondrously graced, she embraces both the incomparable grief of a woman who witnesses her son's execution and the awe of one who witnesses a compassion as vast as God himself.
Jesus gives forth his last breath, every last spark of energy in his being. For humanity's sake he surrenders to the Father all that he has and is, and Mary watches the birth of a New Covenant. In her excruciating sorrow there is an unshakable joy. What can possibly convey the significance of her tears shed that day? Hers are tears of pain and also overwhelming delight at a mystery so profound it takes an eternity to contemplate it. Mary does not impede or resist the cross of her Son. She lives and moves in the Spirit of the Father who hands over his beloved Son. Mary deeply comprehends the Trinity's sacrificial love.
She is the first human being to understand all that the Eucharistic sacrifice entails. Even more incredible, she prays for everyone to have the courage to approach the sacrifice of Jesus and with her to desire its fulfillment in a personal assent to Jesus' self-offering. The Eucharist derives its meaning and power from Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. Mary teaches the church how to adore the Lord at the foot of the cross, where blood and water flowed from the Savior's pierced side. Jesus' disciples, even his closest friends, had to learn of the empty tomb before their despair turned to hope, but Mary is deeply consoled even as she cradles Jesus' lifeless body in her arms.
The resurrection and Pentecost show the redeeming power of the paschal mystery. So do present-day Eucharists. They do it not simply because Christ died on the cross, but because he lives now and forever, something our faith knows. Through her deep faith Mary is already disposed for Easter before her risen Son ever appears. For the faithful woman who can see more than loss and emptiness at Calvary , there is more than the silence of the grave. There is a confident communion with the Father, whose unwavering love Mary knows well. Her soul has felt the tender power of the Spirit bringing to birth what human imagination cannot fathom. Mary has learned well to trust in more than what her senses reveal. She is the authentic contemplative, familiar with the Spirit's movement, and it is not a spirit of despair. She remains a mother in those dark hours. She consoles and encourages the confused, disheartened disciples until the Paraclete fills their hearts with the light of Truth and with Pentecostal fire.
Deep faith in the Risen One sees more than any eyes can see. It sees that death itself is not the tragic loss it appears to be, but is the last measure of the prelude to the divine oratorio of eternal life. In the Eucharist, too, participants see and hear more than their senses perceive. The bread is no longer bread, the wine no longer wine, but the living presence of Jesus Christ, who makes of his members a living communion. It is Mary who leads the church to the Eucharistic Lord. Hers is no mere external presence or observance or performance. She is intimately involved in her Son's love for the world. Her heart comes to us with the Love that overflows the heart of God.
Sources
Pope John Paul II . Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia . 17 April 2003.
Corbon, Jean. The Wellspring of Worship , trans. Matthew J. O'Connell. NewYork:Paulist Press, 1988. Reprinted by Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Personal Prayer
In the context of the Eucharistic celebration, we might take up the following scripture passages for contemplation:
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From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation
Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote for us last in July-August 2003. His address is St. Agnes Catholic Church; 1954 North 24th Street ; Phoenix , Arizona 85008 .
This paper is a bit of narrative theology, something of my personal journey over the last twenty-five or thirty years trying to practice meditation and contemplation. My account begins in midstream of my religious life, in the mid 1970s, with my introduction to centering prayer. Basically the journey has been from centering and centering prayer to Christian Meditation, the prayer discipline of John Main (+1982).
Three Ways to the Center
First, the point of departure. What do I mean by centering and centering prayer? These terms have become familiar and clearly defined today. It was not always so. Centering and centering prayer meant different things to different people in the 1960s and 1970s. An example is the article by Thomas E. Clarke SJ in the British journal The Way titled “Finding Grace at the Centre.” (1) The title may be familiar, because it named a collection of essays on centering prayer published by the Trappists in 1978 and again by Skylight Paths Publishing in 2002. The whole article was reprinted except for the last two pages, which at the time represented one of the chief contributions of the article.
So I have a quarrel with the editors for deleting the pages and not indicating they did so. Apparently they wanted to highlight the one form of centering prayer they were espousing in the booklet, and so dropped two other prayer forms that Clarke was presenting as ways to the center. In the article Clarke presented a philosophical exposition of centering and then posed the question: How does one make the journey to the center? His answer was threefold. The first way was classical centering prayer, the way of dark faith, which proceeds beyond images and concepts and seeks to rest in the indwelling God. The other two ways to the center used imagination and feelings; they were the prayer of images and fantasy and the practice of the examen of consciousness. All three were ways to the center, ways to dispose the soul for the great gift of contemplation. Together they offered a rich and broadly based prayer life.
Teachers of centering prayer should have applauded the connecting of centering prayer with other forms of active prayer. Centering prayer is contemplative in intent, but active in method, as are all forms of meditation. Centering prayer was not supposed to replace lectio divina, nor to become one's total prayer life. Centering prayer is a spiritual exercise to deepen one's whole spiritual life, animating, for example, the liturgy and one's devotions.
Connecting the three ways put flesh and blood on centering prayer by acknowledging that imagination and human effort can help in the process of centering. Clarke's paper stated a simple and even obvious fact, namely, that the search for contemplation, especially in beginnings, is not an abstract act; it invokes images and thoughts even while it strives to get beyond them. All three ways converge to the center. This was a welcome reminder in the early days of centering prayer.
I remember how the insight thrilled me. I talked about the distinctions with Father John Kane, a Redemptorist, who founded a contemplative house of prayer in Tucson , Arizona . We both agreed that the article was a breakthrough because it made room for the imagination at least in the beginnings of contemplative prayer. The search for contemplation was not restricted to forced abstract search; one did not have to empty the mind. Centering prayer was one way to contemplation and a good way, but it was not the only way. Clarke's article contextualized the search for contemplation and freed it from a one-track pursuit based on theoretical textbook definitions.
Before this time I had a philosophically correct but pastorally deficient understanding of contemplation as imageless prayer. I thought “Ignatian contemplation,” for example, which consists in reliving a gospel story, was a misnomer; the process was meditation, not contemplation. I did not cotton to Morton Kelsey's thesis that the imagination ruled the prayer practice in the church in the first millennium, and that abstract contemplation in the mode of John of the Cross was Johnny-come-lately in the second millennium. Kelsey argued this position in his popular The Other Side of Silence. To my mind, contemplation had no room for images; they belonged to discursive prayer, the way of meditation, which was a lesser species of mental prayer. But here was Tom Clarke connecting the imagination with centering, thereby broadening horizons in contemplative prayer.
The three ways of centering were a significant help to me. Two years earlier, in 1975, I had made a thirty-day Ignatian retreat and came away with the resolution to spend an hour each morning in mental prayer. I was faithful to the hour, but I lacked method. My prayer was amorphous. I read and reflected, I pondered, mused, stirred affections, and made resolutions. I also centered and sat for long periods of silence. But there was no particular order in my pondering. After two years of struggle to be faithful to the hour without a clear methodology, my prayer had became dry and difficult. I “white-knuckled” my prayer, holding on to the bench to fill out the hour. All this may have been a species of the determinada determinacion of Teresa of Avila, but it was probably closer to the “ zelus sine scientia corruit ” of St. Bernard: “Zeal without knowledge destroys.” How long could I hold on? Only the grace of God kept me from giving up on the hour.
My efforts in the hour were the same as my practice in the two daily periods of formal meditation in my Carmelite community over the years. These two periods were shorter, usually a half hour each, and I was able to handle them, though somewhat haphazardly. Because they were amorphous, I subsequently looked on them disparagingly. I thought I had wasted a lot of time in my mental prayer. I do not think that way now. I have come to take a more benign view. I realize with Woody Allen that ninety-five percent of life as well as of prayer is showing up. If we are there, putting in time with the Lord, the Lord will do the rest. We should not exaggerate the role of method.
But method helps. The three ways of Tom Clarke supplied a format for my contemplative prayer. I would do twenty minutes of classical centering prayer, twenty minutes of reflection on the day's readings, and then after Mass twenty minutes of journaling. I did not characterize the imaginative parts of my prayer—the biblical meditation and consciousness examen—as contemplative, but I saw them as part of my pursuit of contemplation. Moreover, the active prayers gave permission for elements of imagination to enter my centering prayer.
At this time I made a study of the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila in her early pre-mystical years to determine how she employed the imagination in her beginning contemplative prayer. (2) She later called this “practice of prayer” active recollection. In the paper I argued that the imagination played a significant role in her practice. Her prayer was her own making, hence active in form; but it was contemplative since her whole effort was to rest in the deep personal realization of the Divine Indwelling. This was her whole prayer. Teresa called it “re-presenting Christ within".
Commentators sometimes incorrectly interpret this phrase to mean the imaginative recall of some mystery in Christ's life, such as of his being scourged at the pillar. The imaginative recall is part of the prayer, but not its heart, since the recall is only the refocusing of the person in moments of wandering. The remembrance of an image from the passion serves the same function as the holy word in centering prayer. The holy word does not detract from the contemplative character of centering prayer any more than the image in active recollection.
I concluded my paper on Teresa by saying that her prayer was a mixture of imageless and imaged centering prayer. Today I agree that the term centering prayer should be reserved to the prayer of imageless dark faith. This primary thrust, however, leaves room for some imagination in the practice of this prayer.
Teresa's active recollection, which can rightly be called centering prayer, was both apophatic, that is, beyond imagining and thinking, and kataphatic, that is, with a role for the imagination. These insights into Teresa's prayer confirmed Clarke's suggestion and allowed me to accept a minor but real role for the imagination in my own practice and theorizing about contemplative prayer.
As late as the year 2000, I was still experimenting with a role for the imagination in my contemplative prayer. I was on another long retreat at the Camaldolese monastery at Big Sur in California . For five weeks I practiced Christian Meditation several times each day. I described three different experiences of my contemplative prayer in an article in Review for Religious in 2001. (3) Two of the patterns I reported engaged the imagination to a small extent. These points about the imagination and contemplation are not irrelevant; they continue to occupy the attention of writers. (4)
The Move to Christian Meditation
The centering and centering prayer so far described were the focus of my efforts at daily mental prayer for some fifteen years. I did not, however, practice it twice daily as was specified by Contemplative Outreach under the leadership of Thomas Keating. The two periods of twenty to thirty minutes, morning and evening, are essential for the discipline of centering prayer. These periods are catalysts for one's prayer life. They are like workouts in a physical-health regimen, and their role is to bring one's life to a deeper level in one's spirit. The outcome is the goal of contemplation in Carmelite terminology.
In the mid 1990s I switched my prayer practice to Christian Meditation, a similar but different form of centering developed by John Main, an Irish Benedictine from England . I did so mainly because I was not satisfied with my practice of classical centering prayer. Christian Meditation is promoted by the World Community for Christian Meditation, headed by Laurence Freeman osb . The major difference between centering prayer and Christian Meditation is the holy word versus the mantra. “Holy word” and “mantra” are not synonyms. Their difference specifies the two forms of contemplative prayer.
Christian Meditation repeats the mantra, usually the biblical prayer “ma-ra-na-tha,” which means “Come, Lord,” from the beginning to the end of the prayer. The holy word, on the other hand, is not repeated continuously, but only as needed to renew the consent to the Divine Presence. The holy word expresses the will of the person to rest quietly, silently, in the Lord. The mantra, on the other hand, carries the prayer. John Main does not tire of saying that the mantra is the prayer. It creates the silence that is emptiness and openness before God, the silence that invites the Divine Presence. The mantra nurtures the beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). Purity of heart and contemplation are the two hinges of the door of the mantra. The mantra is not magic, but a simple device to shut down ordinary rational activity in favor of silence.
Since I switched my daily practice to Christian Meditation ten years ago, I have been faithful to the two times each day. My personal preference for Christian Meditation is not a condemnation of centering prayer; the same fruits and benefits are available in both forms. The choice of one or other of the two disciplines is a personal matter. I feel that centering prayer has a closer affinity with Teresa of Avila than with John of the Cross and that Christian Meditation has a closer affinity with John than with Teresa. I base these opinions on the similarity between active recollection and centering prayer, and a similarity of absolutes between the nada and the todo in John and the call to kenosis or self-emptying in Christian Meditation. In the final analysis the two approaches are more alike than different. For this reason I have studied them together and emphasized what is common to them. I have published several articles on the two forms, which I hope to gather into a book. The leaders in the two movements work closely together and see their ministries as parallel. One example of this close collaboration is a prayer center in Phoenix called the Cornerstone. It is sponsored by both movements, which share the same space in a former convent in the Carmelite parish of St. Agnes. The Cornerstone offers programs that are sometimes common to both groups and sometimes specific to one of them. It is lay organized and lay directed.
The Genius of Christian Meditation
I have come to see Christian Meditation as a companion piece, a “how to” addition to the teaching of St. John of the Cross on the passage from meditation to contemplation. This area is one of his specialties. He defines in precise terms both meditation and contemplation and why the transition from one state to the other can be difficult if not traumatic. Meditation for him is a rational activity, the work of the imagination and the discursive reason; it is active and self-directed. Contemplation is passive and receptive of the gift of the love and presence of God. The transition from one state to the other can be disturbing. Beginning contemplation may look like a step backward, even total loss. The old way of meditation is no longer appealing or even possible, and the new way of contemplation is not self-evident. The experience is the passive dark night of the senses. It is a great grace, but easily mistaken and open to misunderstanding. John gives his famous three signs to authenticate the state as well as detailed instruction on the conduct to be followed.
In discursive meditation one deals with concrete individual acts, striving to remove the bad ones and to promote good ones. So meditation is analyzing, evaluating, making choices and resolutions. The soul is like a windowpane, St. John says, and the work of meditation is to remove the smudges of bad habits and replace them with acts and habits that are bright with the light of Christ. The light of Christ is faith. The window pane is lighted up by faith-motivated activity. Over time the window becomes clear and the soul purified in the matter of concrete choices. The light of faith shines through with fullness, simplicity, and wholeness. This is the light of contemplation.
The light is always there, John of the Cross says. It is part of the state of grace. The perception of the light, however, is dependent on being rid of deliberate sinful habits. John writes as follows:
“This light is never lacking to the soul, but, because of creature forms and veils that weigh on it and cover it, the light is never infused. If individuals would eliminate these impediments and veils and live in pure nakedness and poverty of spirit, as we will explain later, their soul in its simplicity and purity would be immediately transformed into simple and pure Wisdom, the Son of God.” ( Ascent 2.15.4)
Thus these graces, when received, are “infused light and love,” that is, infused contemplation. The way of contemplation is self-awareness of this new state of being. One simply opens one's eyes and sees and basks in the love and presence of God.
At first there will be a going back and forth between meditation and contemplation. John of the Cross gives detailed advice on how to recognize the times for the one or the other, that is, when to continue to meditate and when to rest in the contemplative light and love. His teaching is renowned for its clarity and effectiveness for spiritual direction and retains its place in the life of every budding contemplative.
But it is a complicated teaching. Along comes John Main who sees meditation and contemplation in continuity with each other and as one process. The prayer or discipline of Christian Meditation is one dynamic that begins with the mantra and stays with it through multiple experiences of God's love. Contemplation is the awareness of Abba's love for me, who am bonded with the Son in the love of the Holy Spirit. The contemplative grows in the appreciation of this love and gets ever more deeply in touch with the knowledge and love that the Trinity showers on the world. There is communio , koinonia , participation in the reality of God and his creation. This communion is unitive knowledge, of subject and subject inhering in each other. It is not dualistic knowledge, from the outside, leaving subject and object apart from one another. It is not any particular psychological experience. There is at-oneness, a “common union” or communion, in which the Trinity and the human being enter into what Teresa of Avila called union, namely, “two things becoming one.”
Communion is the ontological reality; contemplation adds awareness and attention. Not every experience of Christian Meditation is infused contemplation such as John of the Cross has in mind. But every experience is communion and eventually will bring the fullness of contemplation.
The commitment to Christian Meditation is a commitment to a way of life. The way is always the same; it is the way of the mantra from beginning to end. The goal of the prayer is without limits. One stops saying the mantra only when one is reduced to silence. These are moments of special grace that John of the Cross calls “oblivion” (Living Flame 3.35). One resumes saying the mantra as soon as the silence is recognized, because that is the sign that the special mystical grace has passed.
John Main's program is one of utter simplicity. He does not stress, though he may acknowledge in theory, the abstract differences between meditation and contemplation or the different degrees of contemplation. But he treats them as one spiritual practice and says explicitly that meditation, meditative prayer, contemplation, and contemplative prayer are all synonyms. No need to be concerned about essences, he seems to say; the important thing is to grow in purity of heart and receptivity to divine grace. The journey is the same in both John of the Cross and John Main , but it is described from different viewpoints. The older John presents objective theology in the manner of the scholastics; the younger John has made the turn to the subject, and his exposition is experiential and practical.
Laurence Freeman remarks that John Main's purpose was to start people on the journey and let experience of the prayer teach the rest. The one task proposed is the mantra. The mantra does not deal with obstacles one by one or even supply building blocks for a spiritual edifice. It silences the mind, emptying it of its contents. The silence makes room for the Spirit to take over. “Be,” says John Main,” and you are in the Spirit.” (5)
The Spirit is already there with Father and Son in the Divine Indwelling. If the soul is silent and receptive, the Spirit will pray there beyond images and thoughts, in sighs too deep for words (Rm 8:26). The Spirit will do this because the soul is open and ready and God wants that mutual indwelling even more than the soul does who is sincerely seeking God. John Main's simple method frees the person so that the presence of the Trinity can come alive and be actualized. When there is space and freedom, the meditator is caught up in the prayer of Jesus. That prayer is the one and only prayer in the world since the Incarnation, because it is the love between Father and Son and envelops all of creation. Faithful meditators are woven into that salvific love.
The journey with the Son to the Father will traverse the stages of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Christian Meditation will be the vehicle, the discipline to get one going and to help one stay on the path. These are astounding claims for Christian Meditation. Their justification is the beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). The silence of the mantra produces the purity of heart, and the reward of purity of heart is the love of God, of people, and of the world found in the gift of contemplation.
How does silence accomplish this twofold task? By allowing one to escape from the false self by placing one beyond the toils of ego and the world it creates, by freeing one from the imprisonment of false desires. This healing produces purity of heart. The new freedom allows one to go deeper into the spirit, the domain of the Trinity. The reality of this state is primary and comes before awareness and appreciation. The reality is called communio or participation in the life of God; the awareness is contemplation. The Spirit will give us contemplation when we are ready.
Contemplation is thus the outcome of faithful practice of the mantra. Contemplation is the life of God received, the backdrop and engine of one's whole spiritual life. It is the life that animates one's community relationships, one's ministry, and one's prayer. The short definition is the realization of God's love for us, “the love of God poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given us” (Rm 5:5). Contemplation is the outcome of a faithful life. It means claiming what was there from the beginning. It is the Abba experience of Jesus. In his human life Jesus was filled with the Father's presence and love. Certain events like the baptism or the transfiguration were climactic experiences of that love, but Jesus abided in that love always. He looked out upon the world bathed in the Father's love. He was the “beloved Son,” and in him the reign of God was established on the earth. That reign is the kingdom of God 's presence and love. It is the resurrection experience. It fills the world with the grandeur of God.
Christian Meditation promises this contemplation. Each practice will not necessarily bring forth a recognizable, reflexive experience of that love. But every exercise will put one a little more in touch with it and will be an experience of communion, of koinonia, of participation in that love. Transformation is taking place, slowly, incrementally, and the Christian is being formed in the Wisdom of God, the Son of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Christian Meditation can indeed be one practical response of meditation and contemplation in our troubled times.
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Rekindling the Fire: Vocation Efforts
By Sean Sammon FMS, Marist Superior General. He writes from the congregation's generalate in Rome.
Dear Brothers and all who cherish the charism of Marcellin Champagnat,
It is early morning here in Rome . The last guests from Saturday evening's vigil celebration of the founder's feast have departed, the house is quiet, and the first hours of a new day are just beginning to unfold. What better time than the dawn of St. Marcellin's day to begin a letter to you about the awakening of vocations to his Little Brothers of Mary.
Please join me in this continuing effort, this continuing prayer. Like so many of you, I believe that God continues to move the hearts of young people and call them to a variety of vocations within our church. So let us pledge to do our best to foster their generous response, while concentrating our efforts on those called to our way of life and mission as Little Brothers of Mary. After all, our Marist Constitutions and Statutes reminds us that to do so is a sign of our vitality as an institute.
Awakening Vocations
Well-designed publications, attractive posters, lively and thoughtful presentations that deal with our life and ministry are all ways of cultivating vocations. They all help young people, their parents, and our church to have a better sense of who we are and what we do, and especially to learn something about what we cherish and hold dear. When all is said and done, however, isn't it actually the lives of thousands of brothers over the almost two-hundred-year history of our institute that are our most effective means to awaken vocations? And so your vocational tale and mine are good places to start if we want to understand more fully just what we are trying to do. It does no harm to ask ourselves from time to time what first brought us to the life of a Little Brother of Mary and what keeps us here.
My own story began when I met the small group of brothers who staffed the high school I attended in the heart of New York City . Even with the distance of years, I can still remember what it was about those men that captured my imagination and my heart. They were obviously religious people, and they appeared happy in their work together and in their commitment to it. There was a spirit of sacrifice among them that somehow appealed to my adolescent soul.
And there was passion. This element is at the heart of any vocation worth its salt. Though I may not have recognized it at the time, I realize now that there were some very passionate men in that small group of brothers. In retrospect I can see that, in their love for Jesus Christ and his Good News and for us their students, they shared with us some of the very qualities that our founder inspired in the young men we know today as François, Laurent, Jean-Baptiste, Dominique, and Louis-Marie. Even now I find myself surprised at how subtly God was at work in my life, though I surely would never have used that language when I was fourteen.
I have to say that I was blessed early in life to meet those men who took delight in helping a rather uncivilized crowd of young men to grow up and grow closer to God. These men—many were young themselves—were willing to waste time on us. Time, it was their only currency, and they shared it with us freely and generously. During the years since then, perhaps in imitation or through the mystery of grace, some of my happiest moments have been with young people, sharing their world, their hopes and dreams, their fears and concerns, their questions of faith.
Vocations for Mission and Not Survival
Vocation promotion should never be undertaken solely for survival. Nor is it simply a matter of numbers. Numbers are not necessarily a sign of viability, nor is age the best measure of vitality. Our zeal for mission, then, rather than a desire to survive “come what may,” must be our reason for awakening vocations. This tradition goes back to Father Champagnat. The ever unfolding tale of our institute records that Marcellin's visit to the bedside of a dying teenager is what persuaded him to found a community of brothers with this aim: to proclaim God's Good News to poor children and young people. We know the story well. Discovering that Jean-Baptiste Mongagne knew nothing about his faith, Marcellin instructed him, administered what were then called “the last sacraments,” and went on his way. Returning a short while later, he discovered that the lad had died.
I have often wondered about our founder's thoughts and feelings as he returned home to Lavalla that evening. We can imagine his pace quickening. We know that almost immediately upon his arrival he met Jean-Marie Granjon, who had been a grenadier in Napoleon's army. Picture their conversation taking place on the bridge near what today is the Hermitage. For Marcellin the mission was clear, the reasons for founding a community of brothers evident. As they talked on that bridge, our founder's passion convinced the former soldier to join him and give his heart to a corporate adventure soon to be known as the Little Brothers of Mary.
Marcellin loved the children and young people of his day. More than once he said, “I cannot see children without wanting to tell them how much Jesus Christ loves them, and how much I love them.” In today's world many children and young people are the victims of war, human trafficking, and the streets. Denied an education and other basic human rights, they are in desperate need of hearing God's Good News. And so, I ask you, do you believe as I do that the mission of our institute is as urgent today as it was in Marcellin's day, and that it will remain so for the foreseeable future? If you do, then let us agree that the awakening of new vocations can no longer be a sideline attraction for you or for me. Instead, we need to develop a plan for promoting vocations and then put that plan into action.
A First Set of Challenges
A few challenges before we go on. First, a challenge to my brothers in the institute. If you and I want to make vocation promotion a top priority, most if not all of us will need to arrange our other commitments so as to free up twenty percent of our best time for that work. Why twenty percent? Because there is a lot to learn and a great deal of work to be done. We can all beg off, citing good reasons not to get involved. Lack of time, the demands of ministry, age—who among us has not heard that litany before? But, if you and I want a future for the mission and life of our institute, we need to avoid making excuses and, instead, commit ourselves enthusiastically to promoting vocations.
And now a word to my lay partners. I ask you to join us in our efforts to educate parents, the young people in your care and ours, and the church at large about who we Little Brothers of Mary are, what our life is, and what our ministries are. You know us and know what we cherish and hold dear. Help others come to know us as you do. And help us, too, by inviting young people to consider making our way of life their own. I have no hesitation in asking you to give these efforts top priority. All who share our founder's charism should eagerly promote vocations to the brotherhood he established. God's Good News remains to be proclaimed to more children and young people than we might imagine.
And what happens if all of us—brothers and lay partners alike—decide not to make vocation promotion a major concern and not to give enough time to this important ministry? What are the consequences? Some would say that a failure to act and act decisively would diminish the probability of a vital and vibrant future for our way of life and ministry. Others would be harsher. If we fail to act, they would tell us, we probably do not deserve a future.
In 1822 Marcellin Champagnat faced a vocation crisis, the first in the history of our institute. And how did he respond? By taking action, beginning with his pilgrimage to the chapel of Our Lady of Pity. We do well today to follow his example. Today more than a few people use the term vocation culture to describe an environment in which a call or vocation can take root and flourish. You and I can foster such a culture by believing that vocations to Marcellin's Little Brothers of Mary exist today and that with God's grace and our human efforts we can find and cultivate them.
A Pastoral Plan for Awakening Vocations
A pastoral plan to awaken vocations can help us awaken vocations to our way of life and ministry. A number of provinces and districts already have a well-designed plan in place. Time will tell of its effectiveness. Other provinces and districts can take time or make time to develop a plan. The plan should be comprehensive and include in its details the province or district, all the members, each community, and every ministry—and, of course, all the others who share Marcellin's charism and want to help promote vocations.
In drawing up any plan, you and I are better off concentrating on what can be done rather than lamenting things we cannot change. In some parts of the world, for example, families are smaller than in the past, young people have far more vocational options to consider, and they may make their life commitments at a later age. Neither you nor I can do much to alter these realities. We can, though, invite young men to our way of life and ministry once again, and we can open our homes and hearts to them. We can also help them and others to understand all that has happened in religious life and in our institute during the forty years since Vatican Council ii. Let us do what we can, and not keep wringing our hands about what we cannot change.
In making plans we must be sure they are adapted to the culture in which we live. A universal pastoral plan for vocations is unrealistic. Differences exist between regions, and customs vary. What is quite acceptable in one part of our world is looked upon with suspicion in another. And so I offer below just a few ideas to get your thinking started. Be as creative as you can. And do not forget to include in the plan exactly what you plan to do personally.
a. Province or District : Provinces and districts should have at least one full-time vocation promoter, but everyone should promote vocations. The full-time promoter should help the others to do what they can. There should be a well-designed program that explains contemporary religious life to lay men and women. Some of our brothers will tell you that they feel shaken by the changes in our way of life during the last four decades. In that case, just imagine how shaken the average Catholic may be. In some countries, for example, people feel betrayed and confused about why we no longer staff the local school and do not live in the brothers' house next to the church. A good program could clarify the reasons behind such changes. It could also show that everyone—the laity, bishops and priests, and men and women religious themselves—has a responsibility for recruiting new members for religious congregations. Some among these groups appear reluctant to do so. I cannot help believing that such reluctance may stem from a lack of understanding about our life today.
Catholic parents deserve special attention. At one time they were great allies of ours in awakening vocations. Today many parents are confused about religious life, about why and how people are still living it. Where their trust has been eroded, we must work to restore it and enlist their aid once again.
Our program could include offering an adult education course in a local parish, or as in-service training for faculties in our schools, or as part of parent-teacher conferences, or as an Advent or Lenten series. Some could write articles for their parish bulletin or diocesan newspaper. Others could say a few words during or at the end of Mass on Sunday. The means are not quite as important as the message: our life and mission as brothers is alive and well and ready to receive new members.
The work described above could be coordinated by the full-time province vocation promoter. He should not, however, take on these tasks for a local community simply because its members do not want to. His time is better spent persuading them that the tasks mentioned are rightly theirs and that they have the resources to accomplish them. Finally, the media and the internet, where available, have great potential to awaken vocations. Where a province web page exists, the vocation promoter should make sure that the topic of vocations appears on it and is effectively presented.
b. Local Communities : Local communities have many opportunities to promote vocations. First of all, though, they should as a group agree to a common plan that ensures that their work will be effective and that nothing will be uselessly duplicated. Prayer must be part of any community's plan. Along with this, three or four times a year a community might invite groups of young people from their school or parish to an open house that is focused on religious life. Such a visit, particularly if it is well planned, can communicate more about religious life than a series of lectures would.
Another community might invite parishioners of all ages for a time of prayer, some refreshments, and some friendly conversation, particularly about religious vocations. Many people are willing and ready to participate and help, but they need to be asked. A brother's involvement in a parish's youth ministry program can be the occasion for young people to learn more about brothers and their life. Lay people involved in youth ministry, especially if they know us well, can also raise the topic or answer questions the young may have about religious life.
A community might also arrange to print a pamphlet describing our life and mission and place it in the vestibule of the local parish church. In places where the local newspaper or television station does human-interest pieces, one or two members of the community could commit themselves to write an article or be interviewed about our life and ministry.
c. Our Works : Visibility! That should be the yardstick for measuring efforts to promote vocations in the institutions where we serve. Posters, pamphlets, days set aside to present the history, life, and mission of the Little Brothers of Mary—all these should be regular fare in any school or social-service project in which we are involved. Our colleagues and those whom we serve should know clearly just what it means to be one of Marcellin's brothers.
While being happily aware that our schools, parishes, and agencies touch others' lives well beyond themselves, we must not overlook those with whom we share ministry. There may, for example, be lay faculty members in our schools who have given thought to religious life and our life in particular, but just do not know how to bring up the subject. We should make sure that opportunities exist to discuss the matter, and that they exist in abundance.
d. Each Brother and Lay Partner : If you asked me to suggest one thing that you as individuals could do to promote vocations, I would answer immediately: Invite young men that you know to think about making our life and ministry their own. Such an invitation by a brother is the factor mentioned most often by young persons and by those further along in years as well. So I say to my brothers: Awaken vocations, find persons who in good time can replace yourselves. And to my lay partners I say: Awaken vocations so as to ensure a vibrant partnership between brothers and yourselves. Without enough brothers, partnership with you is not possible. To all, I offer this reminder: Personal prayer is most important. So pray for those who have religious life on their minds. Pray for them daily. Pray for them by name.
If writing is your gift, put it to good use by writing about our life and mission. And if music, or art, or the media world is your passion, use it to awaken vocations. Teach about our life if teaching is your talent; encourage vocations if your gift is to motivate people. Above all, be creative in planning to awaken vocations. Keep asking yourselves how to use your God-given skills to promote vocations. Give twenty percent of your best time to the effort, and do not forget to invite.
Blessings and affection,
Seán D. Sammon FMS
Superior General
Reflection Questions
Spend some time thinking about young people that you know. They might be members of your family, the children of friends, students, those with whom you work in ministry, young people in the parish, or elsewhere. Once you have spent some time thinking about the young people in your life, please turn your attention to the questions below.
Spend some time thinking about what you might do individually to awaken vocations during this year ahead. What skills can you bring to the task, what will be helpful to young people, particularly those with an interest in our Institute, how can you best convey the many dimensions of our life rather than one or another? Yes, take some time to pray, seek to understand what God is asking of you this year in terms of awakening vocations, and then turn your attention to the questions below.
Is there a way you can combine your efforts with others to have even greater influence awakening vocations during this time of grace? Please explain.
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