Good things out of Nazareth

Meet some companions in meditation from a lovely day spent together last Saturday.

Prompted by a sentence in the Catholic cathedral's weekly bulletin - always good to read and inwardly digest a church notice sheet from any denomination before making it into a paper aircraft - I discovered something else I never knew about Fiji. Mind you, this is a list that rapidly expands. We have a national centre for Christian meditation, affiliated to the World Community for Christian Meditation [WCCM]. I didn't know much about that either, though had come across the work of the Benedictine Fr Laurence Freeman OSB, successor to Fr John Main, who brought the ministry into being.

Sister Denise, back row far left, is a Marist with special responsibility for this work throughout Fiji and she lives in community at the beautiful Nazareth Prayer Centre, on a hill just outside Suva, overlooking the bay. She guided the day sensitively, kindly and clearly with a great heart for teaching Christian, meditative practice.

Chapel overlooking the bay

This is what we thought about:

The silent periods of meditation last 25 minutes, introduced and concluded by three soundings of a resonant gong. Within the WCCM, the practice is required twice, at the start and towards the ending of each day. It's a discipline to be absolutely still and focussed, repeating in the mind only the mantra MA-RA-NA-THA Our Lord Come - one of the earliest prayers of the Christian Church in Aramaic, 1 Cor 1.22. Sr Denise was telling us that many of Fiji's schools now encourage children in this discipline of meditation. The younger friends with us on Saturday were certainly a great example: backs straight, hands on knees, eyes closed, in deep concentration. Who says kids can't sit still? Their eyes glowed with a real sense of holy accomplishment when the ending 'gong' struck after 25 mins and they exhaled with big smiles, relief and a giggle or two, collapsing for a brief roll around on the mat.

In helping us into the periods of meditation, we were given wise words. 

St Bonaventure speaks of three eyes: the eye of the body, the eye of the mind and the eye of the heart. Meditation is a  journey to the heart.

Anthony de Mello tells the story of God one day feeling very weary of human beings and asking his angels where he might go to escape them. 'Should I go to the moon?' 'Oh no', said the angels, 'humans go to that place'. 'What about down to the deepest ocean?' 'Afraid not', said the angels, 'they send their submarines down there'. 'So where then?' God sought the advice of his wisest angel. 'Go to the human heart: the soul', said the angel with a smile. 'They never go there'. 

And, on the practice of Christian meditation, don't judge - just do it.  Don't ask..

- how did I feel about that meditation?

- did I get something out of it?

- was it a good experience or a bad one?

- did I do it properly? etc

All these are ego questions. It's not about you, it's about God. Just do it.

Two participants shared testimonies of how transformative the practice of twice daily Christian meditation has become in their lives over the years, though they had been doubtful and sceptical at first.They attested to the 'just do it' philosophy. It made me think of the relentless and ego prompted responses to acts of worship in many of our Churches. Did I like it? Did I get something out of it? Did I agree with the preacher? Did I enjoy the hymns/songs. 

Don't judge. Just worship. Now there's a thought.

The meeting room and some time for focussed prayer-walking outside, being aware of the earth beneath our feet

The glory of God in the grounds of Nazareth Prayer Centre

 A Chapel of touching simplicity and tremendous beauty, looking out over Lami bay, where we had the closing Mass

It was a nourishing day.

And now Monday morning beckons and the first job will be ant elimination, sorry to say. Here's the cupboard, and the floor beneath, where we keep all the course textbooks to post out to students.

Faithful Nisha and Tonia had discovered the activities of our insect brothers and sisters last thing on Friday afternoon. Shamefully, I'm afraid we sprayed them with death potion and will shake corpses out of the books and sweep up on Monday. 

We always kind of hope that students receiving textbooks will find the contents lively and animated, but it can be taken too far.

To make matters worse, as part of the retreat I've just been describing, we'd been reminded yet again about the care of our common home, God's creation, and its fine eco-balance that we're gradually destroying. Pope Francis has much to say about this in his letter Laudato Si which echoes the sentiments of St Francis, gentle champion of all God's creatures.

Oh dear.

Oh dear Oh dear.

Even more to meditate upon.