We should seek to enter into the holiness of Christ who is filled and overflows with the holiness of God. So this involves taking the attention off ourselves, to stop thinking about ourselves, stop trying to be holy. There’s a phrase from the Desert Fathers and Mothers – these were the early Christian monks. The monastic movement was a movement of Christian discipleship. It began in the 4th, 5th centuries after the church had begun to become very institutionalised in part of the Roman Empire. Of course it was from them that we have our teaching on Christian meditation as it has been passed on from one generation to the next. One of their great teachings on prayer is: ‘The monk who knows that he’s praying is not truly praying; the monk who does not know that he is praying is truly praying’. Doesn’t seem to make sense does it? But actually it makes a lot of sense.
( Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 2, Laurence Freeman )
