Discipleship. I’d like to begin with these words from the Second Letter of Peter which describes discipleship.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them we may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desire. (2 Pet 1:3-4)
The key phrase here that relates to meditation as the prayer of the heart, is that we are called to share in the very being of God – to ‘participate in the divine nature’. And the Christian vocation is nothing less than that. It’s the call to remember, and to be conscious of, our vocation to share in the very being of God. This is really what it means to be a Christian. There was an interview once with a black American poet, a woman who was describing her poetry, and the interviewer said to her, ‘I understand that you are a Christian.’ And she laughed, a great belly laugh, and she said, ‘Well I sure hope I will be before I die!’
(Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 1: Discipleship by Laurence Freeman OSB )
