The Prayer of John Main

“Heavenly Father, open our hearts to the silent presence of the spirit of your Son. Lead us into that mysterious silence where your love is revealed to all who call, ‘Maranatha…Come, Lord Jesus”.

WCCM Meditation Opening Prayer

For about 15 years I have been using this John Main’s Trinitarian prayer to introduce my twice daily, thirty-minute meditation sessions. I thought recently how immensely grateful I was that John Main left us his Trinitarian, communal prayer.

The WCCM community have preserved this prayer as part of the goal of the Community 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.” It is the Trinitarian nature of John Main’s understanding of the ‘prayer of the heart’ that makes our meditation “Christian”. John Main makes clear that, through the work of meditation, we are joining our spirits with the Spirit of Jesus in communion with his and our Abba in our hearts.

John Main explains the Trinitarian nature of meditation, “Meditation is …. an incredibly simple means of leading us into an integral awareness of the nature of our own being and of the central, authenticating fact of our being which is the Spirit (of Jesus) praying ‘Abba, Father’ in our heart.” Speaking of different forms of all prayer (including meditation), John Main says that are all “entrances into the eternal prayer of Jesus which is His loving return to the Father.”

John Main’s prayer is also communal.  When I was first struggling with the practicalities of meditation I thought of changing John Main’s prayer to “my heart” and “lead me” but I soon remembered that Jesus himself taught us to say, “our Father” not “my Father” in the prayer he left us. When we meditate daily we meditate together with a worldwide community and we join our prayer with all those who, in Jesus name and in the power of the Spirit pray to the Father of every family in heaven and on earth, all over the world, in every time zone and place.

Entering into the mystery of stillness and silence in meditation I experience my being resting in God’s being and, for me, John Main’s Trinitarian, communal prayer to introduce our meditation, gives voice to my experience. As the Greeks say, “theology springs from prayer”.