The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation

From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation

This paper is a bit of narrative images and concepts and seeks to rest in the theology, something of my personal journey indwelling God. The other two ways to the over the last twenty-five or thirty years center used imagination and feelings; they trying to practice meditation and were the prayer of images and fantasy and contemplation. My account begins in the practice of the examen of consciousness. midstream of my religious life, in the mid All three were ways to the center, ways to 1970s, with my introduction to centering dispose the soul for the great gift of prayer. Basically the journey has been from contemplation. Together they offered a rich centering and centering prayer to Christian and broadly based prayer life. Meditation, the prayer discipline of John Teachers of centering prayer should Main (+1982). have applauded the connecting of centering prayer with other forms of active prayer. Three Ways to the Center Centering prayer is contemplative in intent, but active in method, as are all forms of First, the point of departure. What do meditation. Centering prayer was not I mean by centering and centering prayer? supposed to replace lectio divina, nor to These terms have become familiar and become one's total prayer life. Centering clearly defined today. It was not always so. prayer is a spiritual exercise to deepen one's Centering and centering prayer meant whole spiritual life, animating, for example, different things to different people in the the liturgy and one's devotions. 1960s and 1970s. An example is the article Connecting the three ways put flesh by Thomas E. Clarke SJ in the British and blood on centering prayer by journal The Way titled "Finding Grace at the acknowledging that imagination and human Centre." The title may be familiar, because effort can help in the process of centering. it named a collection of essays on centering Clarke's paper stated a simple and even prayer published by the Trappists in 1978 obvious fact, namely, that the search for and again by Skylight Paths Publishing in contemplation, especially in beginnings, is 2002. The whole article was reprinted not an abstract act; it invokes images and except for the last two pages, which at the thoughts even while it strives to get beyond time represented one of the chief them. All three ways converge to the center. contributions of the article. This was a welcome reminder in the early So I have a quarrel with the editors days of centering prayer. for deleting the pages and not indicating I remember how the insight thrilled they did so. Apparently they wanted to me. I talked about the distinctions with Father highlight the one form of centering prayer John Kane, a Redemptorist, who founded a they were espousing in the booklet, and so contemplative house of prayer in Tucson, dropped two other prayer forms that Clarke Arizona. We both agreed that the article was a was presenting as ways to the center. In the breakthrough because it made room for the article Clarke presented a philosophical imagination at least in the beginnings of exposition of centering and then posed the contemplative prayer. The search for question: How does one make the journey to contemplation was not restricted to forced the center? His answer was threefold. The abstract search; one did not have to empty the first way was classical centering prayer, the mind. Centering prayer was one way to way of dark faith, which proceeds beyond contemplation and a good way, but it was not

Page 1 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation the only way. Clarke's article contextualized Avila, but it was probably closer to the the search for contemplation and freed it from "zelus sine scientia corruit" of St. Bernard: a one-track pursuit based on theoretical "Zeal without knowledge destroys." How textbook definitions. long could I hold on? Only the grace of God Before this time I had a kept me from giving up on the hour. philosophically correct but pastorally My efforts in the hour were the same deficient understanding of contemplation as as my practice in the two daily periods of imageless prayer. I thought "Ignatian formal meditation in my Carmelite contemplation," for example, which consists community over the years. These two in reliving a gospel story, was a misnomer; periods were shorter, usually a half hour the process was meditation, not each, and I was able to handle them, though contemplation. I did not cotton to Morton somewhat haphazardly. Because they were Kelsey's thesis that the imagination ruled the amorphous, I subsequently looked on them prayer practice in the church in the first disparagingly. I thought I had wasted a lot of millennium, and that abstract contemplation time in my mental prayer. I do not think that in the mode of John of the Cross was way now. I have come to take a more benign Johnny-come-lately in the second view. I realize with Woody Allen that millennium. Kelsey argued this position in ninety-five percent of life as well as of his popular The Other Side of Silence. To prayer is showing up. If we are there, my mind, contemplation had no room for putting in time with the Lord, the Lord will images; they belonged to discursive prayer, do the rest. We should not exaggerate the the way of meditation, which was a lesser role of method. species of mental prayer. But here was Tom But method helps. The three ways of Clarke connecting the imagination with Tom Clarke supplied a format for my centering, thereby broadening horizons in contemplative prayer. I would do twenty contemplative prayer. minutes of classical centering prayer, twenty The three ways of centering were a minutes of reflection on the day's readings, significant help to me. Two years earlier, in and then after Mass twenty minutes of 1975, I had made a thirty-day Ignatian journaling. I did not characterize the retreat and came away with the resolution to imaginative parts of my prayer—the biblical spend an hour each morning in mental meditation and consciousness examen—as prayer. I was faithful to the hour, but I contemplative, but I saw them as part of my lacked method. My prayer was amorphous. I pursuit of contemplation. Moreover, the read and reflected, I pondered, mused, active prayers gave permission for elements stirred affections, and made resolutions. I of imagination to enter my centering prayer. also centered and sat for long periods of At this rime I made a study of the silence. But there was no particular order in prayer of St. Teresa of Avila in her early my pondering. After two years of struggle to premystical years to determine how she be faithful to the hour without a clear employed the imagination in her beginning methodology, my prayer had became dry contemplative prayer.2 She later called this and difficult. I "white-knuckled" my prayer, "practice of prayer" active recollection. In holding on to the bench to fill out the hour. the paper I argued that the imagination All this may have been a species of the played a significant role in her practice. Her determinada determinacion of Teresa of prayer was her own making, hence active in

Page 2 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation form; but it was contemplative since her contemplative prayer in an article in Review whole effort was to rest in the deep personal for Religious in 2001.3 Two of the patterns I realization of the Divine Indwelling. This reported engaged the imagination to a small was her whole prayer. Teresa called it "re- extent. These points about the imagination presenting Christ within." Commentators and contemplation are not irrelevant; they sometimes incorrectly interpret this phrase continue to occupy the attention of writers.4 to mean the imaginative recall of some mystery in Christ's life, such as of his being The Move to Christian Meditation scourged at the pillar. The imaginative recall is part of the prayer, but not its heart, since The centering and centering prayer the recall is only the refocusing of the so far described were the focus of my efforts person in moments of wandering. The at daily mental prayer for some fifteen remembrance of an image from the passion years. I did not, however, practice it twice serves the same function as the holy word in daily as was specified by Contemplative centering prayer. The holy word does not Outreach under the leadership of Thomas detract from the contemplative character of Keating. The two periods of twenty to thirty centering prayer any more than the image in minutes, morning and evening, are essential active recollection. for the discipline of centering prayer. These I concluded my paper on Teresa by periods are catalysts for one's prayer life. saying that her prayer was a mixture of They are like workouts in a physical-health imageless and imaged centering prayer. regimen, and their role is to bring one's life Today I agree that the term centering prayer to a deeper level in one's spirit. The outcome should be reserved to the prayer of is the goal of contemplation in Carmelite imageless dark faith. This primary thrust, terminology. however, leaves room for some imagination In the mid 1990s I switched my in the practice of this prayer. prayer practice to Christian Meditation, a Teresa's active recollection, which similar but different form of centering can rightly be called centering prayer, was developed by John Main, an Irish both apophatic, that is, beyond imagining Benedictine from England. I did so mainly and thinking, and kataphatic, that is, with a because I was not satisfied with my practice role for the imagination. These insights into of classical centering prayer. Christian Teresa's prayer confirmed Clarke's Meditation is promoted by the World suggestion and allowed me to accept a Community for Christian Meditation, minor but real role for the imagination in my headed by Laurence Freeman OSB. The own practice and theorizing about major difference between centering prayer contemplative prayer. and Christian Meditation is the holy word As late as the year 2000, I was still versus the mantra. "Holy word" and experimenting with a role for the "mantra" are not synonyms. Their difference imagination in my contemplative prayer. I specifies the two forms of contemplative was on another long retreat at the prayer. Camaldolese monastery at Big Sur in Christian Meditation repeats the mantra, California. For five weeks I practiced usually the biblical prayer "ma-ra-na-tha," Christian Meditation several times each day. which means "Come, Lord," from the begin- I described three different experiences of my ning to the end of the prayer. The holy

Page 3 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation word, on the other hand, is not repeated called the Cornerstone. It is sponsored by continuously, but only as needed to renew both movements, which share the same the consent to the Divine Presence. The space in a former convent in the Carmelite holy word expresses the will of the person to parish of St. Agnes. The Cornerstone offers rest quietly, silently, in the Lord. The programs that are sometimes common to mantra, on the other hand, carries the prayer. both groups and sometimes specific to one John Main does not tire of saying that the of them. It is lay organized and lay directed. mantra is the prayer. It creates the silence that is emptiness and openness before God, The Genius of Christian Meditation the silence that invites the Divine Presence. The mantra nurtures the beatitude "Blessed I have come to see Christian are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" Meditation as a companion piece, a "how to" (Mt 5:8). Purity of heart and contemplation addition to the teaching of St. John of the are the two hinges of the door of the mantra. Cross on the passage from meditation to The mantra is not magic, but a simple device contemplation. This area is one of his to shut down ordinary rational activity in specialties. He defines in precise terms both favor of silence. meditation and contemplation and why the Since I switched my daily practice to transition from one state to the other can be Christian Meditation ten years ago, I have difficult if not traumatic. Meditation for him been faithful to the two times each day. My is a rational activity, the work of the personal preference for Christian Meditation imagination and the discursive reason; it is is not a condemnation of centering prayer; active and self-directed. Contemplation is the same fruits and benefits are available in passive and receptive of the gift of the love both forms. The choice of one or other of the and presence of God. The transition from two disciplines is a personal matter. I feel one state to the other can be disturbing. that centering prayer has a closer affinity Beginning contemplation may look like a with Teresa of Avila than with John of the step backward, even total loss. The old way Cross and that Christian Meditation has a of meditation is no longer appealing or even closer affinity with John than with Teresa. I possible, and the new way of contemplation base these opinions on the similarity is not self-evident. The experience is the between active recollection and centering passive dark night of the senses. It is a great prayer, and a similarity of absolutes between grace, but easily mistaken and open to the nada and the todo in John and the call to misunderstanding. John gives his famous kenosis or self-emptying in Christian three signs to authenticate the state as well Meditation. In the final analysis the two as detailed instruction on the conduct to be approaches are more alike than different. followed. For this reason I have studied them together In discursive meditation one deals and emphasized what is common to them. I with concrete individual acts, striving to have published several articles on the two remove the bad ones and to promote good forms, which I hope to gather into a book. ones. So meditation is analyzing, evaluating, The leaders in the two movements work making choices and resolutions. The soul is closely together and see their ministries as like a window pane, St. John says, and the parallel. One example of this close work of meditation is to remove the collaboration is a prayer center in Phoenix

Page 4 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation smudges of bad habits and replace them contemplative. with acts and habits that are bright with the But it is a complicated teaching. light of Christ. The light of Christ is faith. Along comes John Main who sees The window pane is lighted up by faith- meditation and contemplation in continuity motivated activity. Over time the window with each other and as one process. The becomes clear and the soul purified in the prayer or discipline of Christian Meditation matter of concrete choices. The light of faith is one dynamic that begins with the mantra shines through with fullness, simplicity, and and stays with it through multiple wholeness. This is the light of experiences of God's love. Contemplation is contemplation. The light is always there, the awareness of Abba's love for me, who John of the Cross says. It is part of the state am bonded with the Son in the love of the of grace. The perception of the light, Holy Spirit. The contemplative grows in the however, is dependent on being rid of delib- appreciation of this love and gets ever more erate sinful habits. John writes as follows: deeply in touch with the knowledge and love This light is never lacking to the that the Trinity showers on the world. There soul, but, because of creature is communio, koinonia, participation in the forms and veils that weigh on it reality of God and his creation. This and cover it, the light is never communion is unitive knowledge, of subject infused. If individuals would and subject inhering in each other. It is not eliminate these impediments and dualistic knowledge, from the outside, veils and live in pure nakedness leaving subject and object apart from one and poverty of spirit, as we will another. It is not any particular psycho- explain later, their soul in its logical experience. There is at-oneness, a simplicity and purity would be "common union" or communion, in which immediately transformed into the Trinity and the human being enter into simple and pure Wisdom, the Son what Teresa of Avila called union, namely, of God. (Ascent 2.15.4) "two things becoming one." Communion is Thus these graces, when received, the ontological reality; contemplation adds are "infused light and love," that is, infused awareness and attention. Not every contemplation. The way of contemplation is experience of Christian Meditation is self-awareness of this new state of being. infused contemplation such as John of the One simply opens one's eyes and sees and Cross has in mind. But every experience is basks in the love and presence of God. communion and eventually will bring the At first there will be a going back fullness of contemplation. and forth between meditation and The commitment to Christian contemplation. John of the Cross gives Meditation is a commitment to a way of life. detailed advice on how to recognize the The way is always the same; it is the way of times for the one or the other, that is, when the mantra from beginning to end. The goal to continue to meditate and when to rest in of the prayer is without limits. One stops the contemplative light and love. His saying the mantra only when one is reduced teaching is renowned for its clarity and to silence. These are moments of special effectiveness for spiritual direction and grace that John of the Cross calls "oblivion" retains its place in the life of every budding (Living Flame 3.35). One resumes saying the mantra as soon as the silence is

Page 5 The Published Articles of Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm. From Centering Prayer to Christian Meditation recognized, because that is the sign that the be actualized. When there is space and special mystical grace has passed. freedom, the meditator is caught up in the John Main's program is one of utter prayer of Jesus. That prayer is the one and simplicity. He does not stress, though he only prayer in the world since the may acknowledge in theory, the abstract Incarnation, because it is the love between differences between meditation and con- Father and Son and envelops all of creation. templation or the different degrees of Faithful meditators are woven into that contemplation. But he treats them as one salvific love. spiritual practice and says explicitly that The journey with the Son to the meditation, meditative prayer, contem- Father will traverse the stages of Teresa of plation, and contemplative prayer are all Avila and John of the Cross. Christian synonyms. No need to be concerned about Meditation will be the vehicle, the discipline essences, he seems to say; the important to get one going and to help one stay on the thing is to grow in purity of heart and recep- path. These are astounding claims for tivity to divine grace. The journey is the Christian Meditation. Their justification is same in both John of the Cross and John the beatitude "Blessed are the pure of heart, Main, but it is described from different for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). The silence viewpoints. The older John presents of the mantra produces the purity of heart, objective theology in the manner of the and the reward of purity of heart is the love scholastics; the younger John has made the of God, of people, and of the world found in turn to the subject, and his exposition is the gift of contemplation. experiential and practical. How does silence accomplish this Laurence Freeman remarks that John twofold task? By allowing one to escape Main's purpose was to start people on the from the false self by placing one beyond journey and let experience of the prayer the toils of ego and the world it creates, by teach the rest. The one task proposed is the freeing one from the imprisonment of false mantra. The mantra does not deal with desires. This healing produces purity of obstacles one by one or even supply heart. The new freedom allows one to go building blocks for a spiritual edifice. It deeper into the spirit, the domain of the silences the mind, emptying it of its Trinity. The reality of this state is primary contents. The silence makes room for the and comes before awareness and Spirit to take over. "Be," says John Main," appreciation. The reality is called communio and you are in the Spirit."5 or participation in the life of God; the The Spirit is already there with awareness is contemplation. The Spirit will Father and Son in the Divine Indwelling. If give us contemplation when we are ready. the soul is silent and receptive, the Spirit Contemplation is thus the outcome will pray there beyond images and thoughts, of faithful practice of the mantra. in sighs too deep for words (Rm 8:26). The Contemplation is the life of God received, Spirit will do this because the soul is open the backdrop and engine of one's whole and ready and God wants that mutual spiritual life. It is the life that animates one's indwelling even more than the soul does community relationships, one's ministry, who is sincerely seeking God. John Main's and one's prayer. The short definition is the simple method frees the person so that the realization of God's love for us, "the love of presence of the Trinity can come alive and God poured forth in our hearts by the Holy

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Spirit, who is given us" (Rm 5:5). Contemplation is the outcome of a faithful life. It means claiming what was there from the beginning. It is the Abba experience of Jesus. In his human life Jesus was filled with the Father's presence and love. Certain events like the baptism or the transfiguration were climactic experiences of that love, but Jesus abided in that love always. He looked out upon the world bathed in the Father's love. He was the "beloved Son," and in him the reign of God was established on the earth. That reign is the kingdom of God's presence and love. It is the resurrection experience. It fills the world with the grandeur of God. Christian Meditation promises this contemplation. Each practice will not necessarily bring forth a recognizable, reflexive experience of that love. But every exercise will put one a little more in touch with it and will be an experience of communion, of koinonia, of participation in that love. Transformation is taking place, slowly, incrementally, and the Christian is being formed in the Wisdom of God, the Son of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Christian Meditation can indeed be one practical response of meditation and contemplation in our troubled times.

Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote for us last in July- August 2003. His address is St. Agnes Catholic Church; 1954 North 24th Street; Phoenix, Arizona 85008.

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Notes

1 The Way 17 (1977): 12-22. 2 "Teresa of Avila and Centering Prayer," in Carmelite Studies 3 (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1984), pp. 203-209. 3 "An Experience of Christian Meditation," Review for Religious 60 (2001); 419-431. 4 See, for example, Brian V. Johnstone CSSR, "Keeping a Balance: Contemplation and Christian Meditation," Review for Religious 63 (2004): 118-133. 5 John Main: Essential Writings, ed. Laurence Freeman (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), p. 105.

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