Editors do not like repetition or self-indulgence, nor for that matter do readers. However, I am not a novelist trying to entertain, but a teacher trying to make known the Good News. But it has been so watered down and diluted, that it is only Good News for those who want to live it superficially, so long as it does not impinge on a life in which self and self-seeking has long since displaced God and God-seeking.
We are living in apocalyptic times and apocalyptic times demand apocalyptical action for ourselves and for others. God and his love can only reach out to the world through those who are radically open to receive his power and glory in prayer, so they can be changed and God can change the world through them.
Early Spirituality was Lay Spirituality
Religious orders and pastors to whom we looked for spiritual inspiration and education in the past and recent centuries are abandoning the faithful, and leaving them as sheep without shepherds, so it is necessary to look elsewhere. That is why I am putting before the reader the Spirituality that God gave us in all its simplicity, as it was first practised and taught by Jesus Christ himself, before it was introduced into the early Church. Here it was lived and firstly practised by our spiritual ancestors who were predominantly married laity, whose spirituality was firstly learnt and practised in their own homes long before religious life as we have come to know it, existed.
Would that religious orders return to the contemplative spirituality that once animated them and so prosper as they once did. We need them to inspire, lead, and guide us, as they have done in the past, but we have already waited too long. Let us laity now return to our origins, in the true and certain knowledge that the same Holy Spirit who originally supported guided and animated our first forebears will do so once again.
If we continually wait for renewal that we think will come from the top down, then we may find we have to wait for Doomsday. We already have the dogmatic teaching and infallibility of the Church to keep us on the straight and narrow, and excellent Catechisms to interpret it for us, and a unique Catholic spiritual tradition to nourish us. Why wait any longer – carpe diem
Back to the God-given Spirituality
We need to return to those early Christian centuries when, thanks to the Risen Christ, an explosion of God-given love and the generosity of so many red and white martyrs, enabled the love that transformed them to do likewise for others. This was achieved for an unprecedented number of converts and in an extraordinary period of time, to demonstrate to all and for all time, the irresistible power of love unleashed on the first Pentecost day.
Divine love never stops being poured out and is always ready and available to those who are prepared to give daily quality space and time to receive it in their personal prayer. This is where the spiritual journey really begins and where it must be sustained. For unless the love that is generated in a personal and ongoing encounter with Christ progressively grows, then all else will degenerate into no more than external flummery.
Every committed Catholic is brought up to say our morning and evening prayers, to make our morning offering, to use the prayers handed down and to participate in the Mass as the centre of our whole spirituality . However, the time always comes when Christ reaches out to us personally and calls us to a deeper personal relationship with him that can change our lives. It may be through a book that is read, a Christ-like person who is met, a sermon that is heard or even through a direct spiritual experience that is felt. Then a new and personal relationship with Christ can begin.
A Personal Example
But what is the next step? How do we get started once we are aware that we are called to come to know and love Christ in a way that we have never experienced before? How can such a relationship begin? Let me give you an example from my own personal life.
I was deeply affected by a combination of the influences that I have just described, however one personal problem with which I was afflicted gave me an incentive that kept me persevering when otherwise I might have given up. I am referring to my dyslexia. Whereas everyone else seemed to have a future ahead of them which could be attained by their academic success, I alone, it seemed at the time, had no hope of following them.
My only hope was to turn to the God who knew all things to help me in my need. I could more than hold my own in any argument with my friends, three of whom went on to Oxford for the sort of degree and future that I knew would never be possible for me. God was, if you like, my only hope, and prayer by all accounts was the only way to contact him. Meditation, it seemed, was the only way to come to know and then love him. Love was the only way to enter into him so that a two-way loving relationship would open me to the truth and the wisdom to put that truth into practice.
The School Spiritual Director
The school spiritual director to whom I turned pointed me in the right direction, and that was to the scriptures in the time that I was to set aside for meditation. It does not mean reading them as they were read at the Reformation to seek out texts to prove divine approval for one’s own personal misconceptions, leading to a proliferation of different Christian sects .
Nor does it mean reading them to arm oneself with texts for confrontation with adversaries from other denominations or to pass examinations in scriptural studies or to bolster up academic treatises.
Nor does it mean reading them to discover the virtues that were embodied in Christ’s life in order that we can acquire them for ourselves. Nor does the time for meditation mean time for poring over our own sins and human failings and working out strategies to overcome them and practise the virtues that we wrongly believe is the way to become a perfect Christ-like person.
Catholic Meditation is always Theocentric
Like prayer itself, meditation is at all times theocentric or God-centred, so that our love for him will enable his love to do for us what nothing else can do. If, as I have suggested earlier there should be a time for a brief examination of conscience, then let that time be clearly and distinctly separate from time for Meditation.
Finally, nor does it mean endlessly repeating mantras, in the mistaken belief that it can lead to instant mystical contemplation. It cannot, nor has it ever been able to do so, despite the pseudo-mystics who continually misquote authentic Catholic mystics from the past, out of context, to suggest otherwise. Next I will describe and detail true Catholic Meditation.
David Torkington’s latest book outlining the journey from Vocal prayer, through meditation to Mystical Contemplation can be found at The Primacy of loving – David Torkington