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Non-Christian meditation
b. The ecumenical openness must be conducted
according to the norms of the Church and you will exclude any
tendency to religious syncretism.
c. You also avoid to compromise with pressure
groups of ideas either integrist or avant-gardist. To the
spiritual path in accordance with Saint Bruno, is appropriate
great sobriety and modesty, remote from any controversy.
d. We progress, all together, in the respect of
the Magisterium
of the Church. (Gd 9)
- Letter
to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of
Christian Meditation
- Some old men said, "If you see a young man climbing up to
the heavens by his own will, catch him by the foot and throw
him down to the earth; it is not good for him." Sayings
of the Desert Fathers
- Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico,
discusses his concerns regarding techniques
of non-Christian meditation.
excerpted from: A call
to vigilance, Pastoral Instruction on New Age
- In Cardinal Ratzinger's booklet, Letter
to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of
Christian Meditation ,
he quotes the Pope. On p. 34, footnote 12, he writes "Pope
John Paul II has pointed out to the whole Church the example
and doctrine of St. Teresa of Avila who in her life had to
reject the temptation of certain methods which proposed a
leaving aside of the humanity of Christ in favor of a vague
self-immersion in the abyss of divinity. In a homily given
on November 1, 1982, he said that the call of St. Teresa of
Jesus advocating a prayer completely centered on Christ "is
valid even in our day, against some methods of prayer which
are not inspired by the gospel and which in practice tend to
set Christ aside in preference for a mental void which
makes no sense in Christianity. Any method of prayer is
valid insofar as it is inspired by Christ and leads to
Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life" [(cf.
John 14:6). See Homilia Abulae habita in honorem Sanctae
Teresiae: AAS 75 (1983) 256-257].
- So if we want to focus, we can center our lives on Jesus
Christ; if we want to pray, we can think about, and mostly be
with Him during our prayer time. We can meditate on
the Passion, practice virtues, and ask Him to take us up into
authentic contemplation one day, if He so desires. We
can remind ourselves and others that Jesus, is, the
Way, the Truth, and the Life.
- "The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word
who became flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand
his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the
Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses
approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in
prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to
know how he hears our prayer" Catechism
of the Catholic Church 2598 .
The Quies PCLC are guided in their prayer life by the model of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, in his prayer to the Father. As
such, we aim to live a life of sustained prayer of the
heart, as both Jesus modeled and as the Carthusian
tradition has taken as its guide. Life in the cell, whether in
the Charterhouse, or in the open world for a PCLC, in the
inner sanctum of the heart, is guided by repose: to
abide in Him from whom we receive our being. That this
is our starting point and our aim, means that we invite to
distinguish the prayer of the heart from, for example,
syncretically inspired efforts which appear divergent to the spiritual
path in accordance with Saint Bruno. We encourage and
support growth in intimate relational prayer, in silence
and solitude, and aim to aid all those in our fellowship
to expand in this ancient form of
Christian prayer that, as we say, must be distinguished
from contemporary, even if popular, movements.
- Jesus
Christ the bearer of the water of life , A Christian
reflection on the “New Age”
- My brothers and sisters,
“let us make haste to know the Lord”, the Risen One! As you
know, Jesus, perfect man, is also our true God. In him, God
became visible to our eyes, to give us a share in his divine
life. With him a new dimension of being, of life, has come
about, a dimension which integrates matter and through which
a new world arises. But this qualitative leap in universal
history which Jesus brought about in our place and for our
sake – how is it communicated to human beings, how does it
permeate their life and raise it on high? It comes to each
of us through faith and Baptism. This sacrament is truly
death and resurrection, transformation and new life, so much
so that the baptized person can say together with Paul: “It
is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal
2:20). I live, but no longer I. In a certain way, my
identity has been taken away and made part of an even
greater identity; I still have my personal identity, but now
it is changed and open to others as a result of my becoming
part of Another: in Christ I find myself living on a new
plane. What then has happened to us? Paul gives us the
answer: You have become one in Christ Jesus (cf. Gal 3:28).
Through this process of our “christification” by the
working and grace of God’s Spirit, the gestation of the Body
of Christ in history is gradually being accomplished in us...
(Benedict XVI, Homily at Saint Paul's Church in Luanda,
March 21, 2009)
- Chemins de la Contemplation Yves
Raguin s.j. Raguin a
passé une grande partie de sa vie en Orient et
connaît parfaitement le bouddhisme. Contrairement
à d'autres, il a su voir parfaitement où se trouve
la frontière et il a une page audacieuse pour dire
que la contemplation chrétienne démarre d'emblée
là où le bouddhisme s'arrête.
- Paths to Contemplation Yves
Raguin s.j. Raguin has spent much of his life in
the Far East and knows Buddhism perfectly.
Unlike others, he has been able
to see perfectly well where the border is and
he has a bold page to say that Christian
contemplation starts right where Buddhism
stops.
- Syncretism
- Ecumenism
- Quietism
- Gnosticism
- Prayer of
the heart
- Redemptoris
Missio
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