School of Meditation Weekly Teachings

What are the characteristics of a Christian Meditation group?

The World Community for Christian Meditation has a mission statement:

“To communicate and nurture meditation as passed on through the teaching of John Main in the Christian tradition in the spirit of serving the unity of all.”

Read more »

Communion or union

The early Church fathers had no shadow of a doubt that union with the Divine is possible for all: “God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers and unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illiterate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young and the old.” (Gregory of Nyssa)

Read more »

Attention

Paying one-pointed attention to your word is the essence of meditation. John Main always stressed: ‘Just say your word.’ That is all that is needed. But as you well know the mind just keeps on going off on its day dreams, keeps on worrying or planning. Hence the importance of our word, our aid to help us focus one-pointedly. Read more »

The contemplative tradition

The fact that meditation, contemplative prayer, is authentically Christian can also be seen from the fact that in many Christian traditions silent prayer forms the centre of worship. In the Carmelite tradition St Teresa of Avila was very influenced in the first twenty years of her spiritual journey by a popular devotional book of the time called the ‘Third Spiritual Alphabet’ by the Francisco di Osuna, a Franciscan monk, which recommends praying by repeating a spiritual phrase.

Read more »

Benedict

Can the pursuit of a spiritual path lead to the very egocentricity it is trying to escape? Not infrequently. The Desert monks were acutely aware of this danger especially in solitude and relied above all upon the abba-disciple relationship to avoid it.

Read more »