Friday, October 14, 2005
"LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation"
This document was issued October 15, 1989 by the Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith.
The document addresses the forms of Christian prayer and meditation as opposed to non-Christian prayer and meditation.
Some points from the document with my comments added between *:
- Christian prayer is always determined by the structure of the Christian faith, in which the very truth of God and creature shines forth. For this reason it is defined, properly speaking, as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God. *An empty mind cannot "dialogue".*
- grace...is not a good proper to the soul, but must be sought from God as a gift. Consequently, the illumination or superior knowledge of the Spirit ("gnosis") does not make Christian faith something superfluous. *In other words, the illumination found in other religions is not good for a Christian.*
- [The Early Church] Fathers insisted on the fact that the soul's union with God in prayer is realized in a mysterious way, and in particular through the sacraments of the Church. *The sacraments are the primary channel of grace. Dispensing with them is a bad idea.*
- The meditation of the Christian in prayer seeks to grasp the depths of the divine in the salvific works of God in Christ, the Incarnate Word, and in the gift of his Spirit. These divine depths are always revealed to him through the human-earthly dimension. Similar methods of meditation, on the other hand, including those which have their starting-point in the words and deeds of Jesus, try as far as possible to put aside everything that is worldly, sense perceptible or conceptually limited. *The Incarnation sanctified the sense-perceptible world. What God made is good and we shouldn't try to escape it.*
- With the present diffusion of eastern methods of meditation in the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find ourselves faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt, which is not free from dangers and errors, "to fuse Christian meditation with that which is non-Christian."...To this end, they make use of a "negative theology," which transcends every affirmation seeking to express what God is, and denies that the things of this world can offer traces of the infinity of God. *Dispense with doctrine at your own peril.*
- man is essentially a creature, and remains such for eternity, so that an absorbing of the human self into the divine self is never possible, not even in the highest states of grace. *We are not God.*
- the emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us. *Meditation that focuses on an empty mind is not Catholic.*
- God is in us and with us, but he transcends us in his mystery. *God will forever be "other."*
- On the path of the Christian life, illumination follows on from purification. *First you have to make the sacrifices and do the penance, then maybe God will give you the gift of contemplation. This is one reason why it is usually monastics in cloistered communities who embrace poverty and sacrifice who have been given this gift.*
- [The] method of getting closer to God is not based on any "technique" in the strict sense of the word. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the Gospel. Genuine Christian mysticism has nothing to do with technique: it is always a gift of God, and the one who benefits from it knows himself to be unworthy. *Chanting OMMMM, or anything else isn't going to make it happen.*
- Some physical exercises automatically produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even phenomena of light and of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. To take such feelings for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life. Giving them a symbolic significance typical of the mystical experience, when the moral condition of the person concerned does not correspond to such an experience, would represent a kind of mental schizophrenia which could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations. *If your life doesn't reflect holiness, those nice feelings are not gifts of the Holy Spirit.*
- The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality which cannot be "mastered" by any method of technique. *Forget the mantra. Take up penance.*
