Faith Development
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
In any important relationship we pay attention to the other person and to what they have to say to us, through words or otherwise. In meditation, by bringing our attention to our mantra, we leave ourselves open and vulnerable to a graced encounter with Christ.
Practices such as Lectio Divina and meditation help us to deepen our relationship with Christ and make it ever more personal”
Another vital aspect of deepening a relationship, of moving towards intimacy, is that it calls us to be vulnerable in the presence of the other person; to be open to revealing something of our inner selves – especially how we feel about this relationship; perhaps about our fears about committing ourselves more fully to it or our fear that we may want it more than the other person; perhaps a worry about potentially losing our independence, of letting go some of the freedoms of the single or solitary life. We need to be able to speak about the things that matter most to us in life, even if we are uncertain about them and we don’t really know how to articulate them. We need to be willing to think out loud and be open to the responses of the other as they struggle to understand us better and to help us figure out how we might grow into relationship together. Sometimes we discover that the other person knows us better than we know ourselves and the two-way conversation is really about getting to know ourselves better!
So, we speak to them, not as you might address a large group, in broad, semi-formal terms but we speak informally, openly, from the heart, taking the risk that they may not like what our inner thinking reveals about us. We let them see behind the facade of the persona we present to the world. Every time we enter into a personal relationship with someone – every time we recognise and pay attention to them from the depths of our being – we leave ourselves open and vulnerable to being changed. We can say, in Christian terms, that we truly encounter Jesus in and through them; and, we hope, they may experience him in and through us. Our period of meditation then, is a period when we let go of our everyday pre-occupations, of our existential uncertainties, and steep ourselves in his presence by bringing our attention to our sacred word.
Lectio Divina
We can also pay attention to Jesus by being attentive to his word and taking the time to savour it. The practice of contemplative reading of Scripture, Lectio Divina, can help us to move beyond simply hearing the word to relishing it, to allowing it to touch our hearts as if it was spoken, not to others over 2,000 years ago but directly to me by Jesus today. When we give that kind of attention to his word, we begin to internalise the essence of his teaching. We make a home for his word in our hearts and come to understand what that might be asking of us right now.
But we must also be willing to speak back to Jesus in our hearts about how such dawning understanding makes us feel; about how sometimes, perhaps often, we resist that call; how we seek to avoid the personal action it requires of us.
Practices such as Lectio Divina and meditation help us to deepen our relationship with Christ and make it ever more personal. Personal here does not mean becoming more individualistic; on the contrary, the more deeply we follow his way, the more we realise that we are one with all of creation and with all of humanity. We come to know that we inter-are, all dwelling in God in whom we all live and move and have our being. We begin to apprehend, if not fully comprehend, the mystery of our being in Christ and Christ being in us. And our relationship with him becomes ever more deeply personal.
By committing to the practice of twice-daily meditation we strive to ensure that we are grounded in our true-self, that all of our actions arise from that ground”
Over time, we come to appreciate its fruit in our life as we become more willing and less wilful, more compassionate and responsive to the call to be our true-self; to respond to life from that deeper awareness of union with God and with all of creation. Jesus says: “Anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind.” (Matt 6:24) From a contemplative perspective we understand that this calls us to ensure our way of being in the world is not dominated by the ego, by our psychological and emotional conditioning, by our desire for power, prestige, and possessions. By committing to the practice of twice-daily meditation we strive to ensure that we are grounded in our true-self, that all of our actions arise from that ground. As Merton says: “We cannot love and live on our own terms.”
The other side of the coin to the question “Who do you say I am?” is to imagine yourself asking Jesus the question rather than the other way round! Asking Jesus “Who do you say I am?” And to hear the answer our faith gives us: “You are a beloved child of God. I dwell in your heart and you in mine.” And to live your life from that place of deep, intimate knowing.
