CHRISTIAN MEDITATION REFLECTIONS #55 08-19-16
PRAYER OF THE HEART
Reflections on John Main and Laurence Freeman’s Christian Meditation Lectures
Presented by The World Community for Christian Meditation
www.wccm.org or www.wccm-usa.org
by
Mary Sargent
Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton
What is the purpose of meditation? In the ”prayer of the heart”, we seek the deepest ground of our identity in God. We seek to gain a direct experience of finding ourselves in God’s truth. We return to simplicity and sincerity of heart. We listen for God’s will, in direct and simple attention to reality. Prayer means yearning for the simple presence of God, for a personal understanding of his word, and for knowledge of his will.
What Thomas Merton is saying in regards to our Christian Meditation practice is that by emptying our minds of all distractions, thoughts and images, we are clearing a pathway on which we can find ourselves in God. We give him a chance to breathe in us through our hearts. In our hearts, we can listen for the will of God to direct us, guide us and lead us to the truth of our reality – The prayer of the heart.
Prayer can mean many different things. Your relative is in the hospital dying. Your prayer becomes desperate. You try to bargain with God, “if you will heal him, I will do this.” Your future depends on your passing this test or getting this job. You beg God to help you out, not really knowing if this is his will for you or not, but you think it is, so you try and make a deal with God. “If you’ll let me pass this test or get this job, I will …” Prayer can be for one’s self or for others or for general things like “World Peace.”
But in The Prayer of the Heart Merton is speaking of, we lay all these check-lists of requested prayers aside. We are opening all of our senses for Christ to enter us. We are looking with our eyes for him in our hearts. We have shut down the many screens of distraction and are simply looking at him. We are listening with our ears. We have turned off the radio, TV, cell phone and all other useless noise to hear only him as he whispers softly in our hearts. In the church of our hearts, we smell the burning candles and Frankincense; the familiar mystical odors that remind us of Christ. Our fingers lay still as we touch the air. Christ is in that air so close to us in silence. And finally, with our mind and body motionless, with our minds resting in the interior silence within us, we can feel the presence of Christ within us. This is especially true after one has just received Holy Communion. The Prayer of the Heart can be done anywhere, anytime.