White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

Learn to Meditate Like Jesus

EVERYBODY PRAY!

Contemplative prayer is a quiet, private and yet intensely profound method of reaching communion with God. Christian contemplative prayer is sometimes called Christian meditation.

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OUR FATHER
The Inner Sacrament?
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray the Our Father (the Lords Prayer), did he intend for them to sing the words of the prayer while standing and holding hands? Indeed, did He intend for them (or us) to say the words out loud? Or instead, could it be that the Church has overlooked a very deep and profound spiritual experience that many Christians have been searching for?

As told in the gospel of Luke, Jesus had just finished praying when one of the disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John (the Baptist) taught his disciples." (Luke: 11,1 New American Bible) Jesus responded by teaching them the Our Father. Jesus did not respond by standing, holding hands with them, or singing out loud. In fact, nowhere in scripture are the disciples described as praying the Our Father together in this manner.

What I am about to say may shock many of you and may not seem significant to others. After six years of personal study, reflection, and analysis, I have made a discovery that could, if confirmed by fellow Christians, have a major impact on our Church and our world.

I submit that with the Our Father, Jesus instituted an inner Sacrament by teaching the disciples a particular type of contemplative prayer. This prayer is practiced by sitting quietly together or alone, and uttering a single word mentally, in a particular fashion, for an extended period of time. I further speculate that the words of the Our Father are a sort of commentary on this particular type of contemplative prayer. To clarify this suggestion, let's examine what is meant by "contemplative prayer."

Contemplative prayer can be best characterized as listening to God or resting in God. In contrast, when we think of prayer, we typically think of reciting some sort of prayer or speaking our concerns in thought or aloud. We make some sort of petition, or ask for something, or praise God for this or thank Him for that.

Contemplative prayer, on the other hand, is a way we turn our attention inwards. We do not try to coerce or force our awareness, but rather we let go into deeper levels of ourselves until we are totally immersed in the Kingdom within. Our goal is not concentration on a particular thought or group of thoughts.

While our typical use of prayer requires an active physical recitation of many words, contemplative prayer strives for stillness and silence. All we have to do is call in a nice easy way and be ready to accept an answer. In this way we experience a simple loving knowledge of God called infused contemplation. We cannot force ourselves into this state; all we can do is show our intention to be totally in God's presense and sacrifice the time to do so. This disposes us to an interior union with our Creator. God grants us his grace peacefully, gently, openly.

Contemplative prayer is simple to practice but must be learned. It is hard to describe the state of infused contemplation we can reach through some form of contemplative prayer. In order to truly understand it, we have to experience it. By analogy, if I gave you a can of root beer and asked you to read the ingredients, would you know what the root beer tasted like? Not at all. You would have to drink it to discover the taste.

Reciting the Our Father out loud has served as a common spiritual tradition among all Christian denominations. This practice does have a spiritual dimension and shoud be kept as part of our prayer life. However, just as an elementary school student goes on to high school so too we graduate to deeper levels of the Lord's prayer. Jesus had a deeper experience in mind.

St. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Carmelite nun who was named Doctor of the Catholic Church for her teachings on contemplative prayer and spirituality, considered the Our Father the perfect prayer:

"I am astounded when I consider that in its few words are enshrined all contemplation and perfection, so that if we study it no other book seems necessary. For thus far in the Paternoster (Our Father) the Lord has taught us the whole method of prayer and of high contemplation, from the very beginnings of mental prayer, to Quiet and Union."
-St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

St. Teresa was right. Everything is in the Our Father - not just as a prayer but as a commentary on how to pray. The prayer tells us how to pray, when to pray, why to pray. Jesus did not just give his disciples some words to say - he gave them insight on contemplative prayer.

He said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be your name.'" (Luke:11,2) The first thing He says is "Father." In the language that Jesus spoke, an intimate form of the word Father is Abba.

I propose that the word "Abba" is the sacred word that Jesus gave to his disciples to use when he instituted the inner Sacrament of contemplative prayer. St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises prescribes a prayer similar, yet distinct from, what I suspect Jesus had in mind:

"The person may be kneeling or sitting, whichever suits his disposition better and is more conducive to devotion. He should keep his eyes closed, or fixed on one position, not permitting them to wander about. He should then say, "Father," and reflect upon this word as long as he finds meanings, comparisons, relish, and consolation in the consideration of it. He should then continue the same method with each word of the "Our Father." During the contemplation on the "Our Father," if he finds in one or two words good matter for thought, relish, and consolation, he should not be anxious to pass on, even though he spend the entire hour on what he has found."
-St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises

In Matthew 6, 5-13, Jesus gives us instructions on prayer, including the Our Father. He says to "go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you." This raises several questions. Could "secret" mean to keep our prayer to ourselves, that is, inside ourselves? Is Jesus instructing us to pray in an inward fashion? And also, how will the Father repay us?

St. Teresa emphasized praying in an inward fashion which she called recollection:

Remember how important it is for you to have understood this truth - that the Lord is within us and that we should be there with Him...It is called recollection because the soul collects together all the faculties and enters within itself to be with its God. Its Divine Master comes more speedily to teach it and to grant it the Prayer of Quiet, than in any other way.
-St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

Jesus is instructing us to pray silently - in an inward fashion. And the Father will repay us by filling up our soul with infused contemplation. Jesus goes on to warn: "In praying do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words." That statement leads me to conclude that we need not utter more than the first word of the Our Father, "Abba." I suggest that we need not dwell intellectually on the meaning of the words to the Our Father, but rather let go and listen. In this way we can love God not only with our mind but also our heart, soul and strength, with our whole being. Although there are many levels of understanding to the words of the Our Father we should examine them in the light of contemplative prayer.

"Our Father, who art in heaven." Jesus is telling us where to pray and that we need not look outside of ourselves for our Holy Father. The actual word Jesus used, to address the Holy Father was "Abba." We too, should address the Holy Father as "Abba," since we are all children of God.

"Hallowed be Thy name," is what Jesus was instructing us to do with "Abba" inside ourselves, and what our God performs in our souls during this process.

What will happen? "Thy Kingdom come." We experience a deep silence within ourselves. We receive infused contemplation. God fills up our souls. What we are given inside ourselves by God, we express on earth through our daily actions. "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

"Give us this day our daily bread." Jesus is not just speaking of physical nourishment, but of spiritual nourishment as well. Spiritual nourishment is actual knowledge of God. How often should we seek infused contemplation? Daily. Our daily bread.

"Forgive us our trespasses." The Our Father leads to interior forgiveness of sin. St. Teresa seems to confirm this.

"What would become of the world if there were no water for washing? Do you know what cleansing properties there are in this living water, this heavenly water, this clear water, when it is unclouded, and free from mud, and comes down from Heaven? Once the soul has drunk of it, I am convinced that it makes it pure and clean of all its sins; for, as I have written, God does not allow us to drink of the water of perfect contemplation whenever we like: the choice is not ours; this Divine union is something quite supernatural, given that it may cleanse the soul and leave it pure and free from the mud and misery in which it has been plunged because of its sins."
-St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

"As we forgive those who trespass against us." This prayer has a healing effect, not only on the individual but also on others. The hurt which we carry around in our psyche, caused by things people have done or failed to do, starts to be released. We are no longer burdened with hatred or resentment toward those who have wronged us. I've seen a dramatic change in myself in the ability to forgive. I've seen my hatred turn into understanding and compassion. I can specifically recall times when I have awakened from a very powerful dream after a morning meditation. My body would not want to move. I could tell that great changes had been occuring in my soul, like a thunderstorm that blows through bringing in fresh air but causing considerable havoc. Yet my body would be perfectly still and frozen. When the storm was over and I was awake, it felt like a great burden had been lifted and all day long I felt a joyful light feeling accompanied by a deep inner peace. To me it seemed by the nature of the dreams that psychological blocks caused by trespasses against me and by me were being removed in order that I might be more able to give and grow. In other words, this was a "for-giving" in the deepest sense of the word.

"Lead us not into temptation: but deliver us from evil." Basically, that is what the Our Father is doing - delivering us from evil. It keeps us on track, doing what we are supposed to be doing, rather than being tempted into careless sin and its consequences.

We can learn from St. Teresa's lead:

"For love of the Lord, then, sisters, accustom yourselves to saying the Paternoster in this recollected way, and before long you will see how you gain by doing so. It is a method of prayer which establishes habits that prevent the soul from going astray and the faculties from becoming restless. This you will find out in time: I only beg you to test it, even at the cost of a little trouble, which always results when we try to form a new habit. I assure you, however that before long you will have the great comfort of finding it unnecessary to tire yourselves with seeking this holy Father to whom you pray, for you will discover Him within you.

May the Lord teach this to those of you who do not know it: for my own part I must confess that, until the Lord taught me this method, I never knew what it was to get satisfaction and comfort out of prayer, and it is because I have always gained such great benefits from this custom of interior recollection that I have written about it at such length."
-St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

St. Teresa pleaded with her nuns to practice this prayer for six months, and I suggest the same to you. Sometimes you will not have a deep spiritual experience, and you may just want to get up and move around. Other times you will know you are having a profound experience. The point is that you have to be persistent about doing it regularly.

In this regard, note that immediately after teaching the Lord's Prayer in Luke, Jesus gave the disciples a parable about being persistent, concluding: "And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Jesus is telling us that if we are persistent in practicing the Our Father (in a contemplative way), that we will experience infused contemplation.

I suggest that we raise this contemplative form of the Our Father to the level of a Sacrament, an inner Sacrament. When we think of the seven Sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony), we think in terms of an outward sign instituted by Christ and producing interior grace. Perhaps a broader definition of a Sacrament is needed. Like the seven Sacraments, the Our Father was instituted by Christ and produces interior grace. However, it does not start with an outward public sign but rather with an interior recollection. This interior recollection leads to interior grace, which in turn produces outward public signs: our daily activities become more aligned with the will of God.

The inner Sacrament could provide an interior foundation missing in the spiritual lives of many Christians. The lack of an interior foundation has limited the spiritual dimension of all the other Sacraments. By introducing the inner Sacrament of the contemplative Our Father to all active and inactive Christians, all the other Sacraments will be revitalized. In turn, our Church will be revitalized leading to a spiritual renewal around the world.

In short, I propose that we expand our practice of the Our Father during Church services to include a contemplative dimension. I have discovered a method of interior recollection which can be practiced alone or in church together. By utilizing the sacred word "Abba" in a particular fashion while sitting quietly with our eyes closed for ten minutes or longer we can experience the contemplative dimension of the Our Father. This method could be easily learned and could provide the deep spiritual experience that many Christians have been searching for.

Even if what I say seems far-fetched or unbelievable, I strongly recommend that you test my experience with your own. As St. Teresa pleaded with her nuns to test this interior recollection, I, too, plead with you to keep an open mind and test this tree by its fruit. And please do not fail to comprehend the great significance of the discovery. I am convinced that if this inner Sacrament could be fully realized by all Christians, we could be on our way to solving the major problems that we face in our world today.

Peter is a lay person.

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