John Main said that meditation is the prayer of faith because we have to ‘leave ourselves behind before the Other appears, and with no pre-packaged guarantee that he will appear’. So here is the risk of meditation, the risk of love, the risk of being alive: leaving self behind before the Other appears, without a pre-packaged guarantee that the Other will appear. And this is why meditation is an act of faith. It’s a repeated act of faith of course if we meditate seriously, regularly, and it becomes an act of love. What begins in faith turns into love through repetition. Keep repeating something faithfully, and if it is something positive, if it is other-centred, it will lead to love. If you keep repeating something that leads to isolation and fear, then clearly this is not an act of faith, it’s an act of addiction or an act of compulsion. There are different kinds of repetition. There’s faithful repetition and there’s mechanical, involuntary, or compulsive repetition. Meditation is repetitive, but it is faithfully repetitive.
( The Brick Wall of the Ego 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
