From In Times of Anxiety, John Main OSB, Meditatio Talks Series 2009 C
The way of meditation is not a way of escape. Above all, it is not a way of illusion. We neither try to escape the real world of untidy ends and chaotic beginnings, nor do we try to construct an alternative, illusory reality of our own. What Jesus promises us is that if we do hold him in reverence in our hearts, if we believe in him and believe in the one who sent him, his Father and our Father, then all the chaos and all the confusion in the world can have no ultimate power over us. The stresses, the strains, the challenges, all remain, but they are powerless to defeat us when we have founded our lives on the rock who is Christ.
This is the real task. This is the real challenge that each of us must face: To enter into the reality that is Christ, the rock on whom we can build our lives with absolute assurance that he will love us through all our mistakes, through all our changes of heart and mind, through every moment of our lives, until the last moment of our life, because he is supreme Love.
That is why St Peter tells us of the importance of holding the Lord Christ in reverence in our hearts. Rooted in him we are rooted in the principle of all life, in reality itself. And founded in him, nothing else has ultimate power over us, not even death itself. The challenge is to find our way to him, to find our way to our own heart, so that we can hold him in reverence there.
The way of meditation is a way of learning to die to illusion, to all unreality. It is the way of learning to rise with Christ, to rise beyond ourselves, beyond our limitations, to eternal life. And to do so now, today; not to put off eternal life till the time when we get to heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is among us now, and we must be open to it because, as St Peter says, we must in the Spirit be alive, become alive, with the life of God. As Christians we must never settle for less. Our Christian life is not just a question of getting through our lives. Every word of the New Testament suggests to us that it is of supreme importance that we live our lives in a state of continuous expansion, expansion of heart, expansion of Spirit, growing in love, becoming more firmly rooted in God. Each of us has to understand our potential, that we are an expanding universe, and each of us possesses the potential for an energy–expansion that is not less than infinite.
From Meister Eckhart’s Sermons, First time translated into English by Claud Field M.A., HEART AND LIFE BOOKLETS. No. 22
 Schoolmen have often asked how it is possible for the soul to know God. It is not from severity that God demands much from men in order to obtain the knowledge of Himself: it is of His kindness that He wills the soul by effort to grow capacious of receiving much, and that He may give much. Let no man think that to attain this knowledge is too difficult, although it may sound so, and indeed the commencement of it, and the renouncement of all things, is difficult. But when one attains to it, no life is easier nor more pleasant nor more lovable, since God is always endeavouring to dwell with man, and teach him in order to bring him to Himself.
