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Silence and Stillness in Every Season: Daily Readings with John Main
Many thousands of people across the world have found their spiritual lives enriches by the daily practice of Christian meditation, the method of silent prayer taught by Benedictine monk John Main. It is a tradition which draws on the ancient wisdom of the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the early Christian Desert Fathers.John Main wrote several books on contemplative prayer before he died in 1982, but this collection is the only one to draw the essence of all his teachings into one volume. Paul Harris has devotedly selected the essential extracts from each of John Main's works and arranged them here in an attractive and practical daily readings format.
- GenresPrayerSpirituality
380 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
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Paul Harris
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 11, 2017
Silence, not the absence of words, but another language... I have been drawn to it ever since I can remember.
True, I tinkered a bit with the more social or 'extroverted' type of prayer. During my totally weird and short-lived foray into various kinds of pentecostalism and preacher-oriented churches, I always found myself ending up in some kind of subculture that never lived up to the real experience of God's presence in my own silent retreats. I thought it was due to my shut-in personality that I was more interested in Ignatian exercises, trappist writings, contemplation or concepts like 'dark night of the soul' of saint John of the Cross. I also bought this book on a whim, because I liked that it dealt with silent prayer. Now I have finished it I think that silence is more than just a preference.
John Main, the English Benedictine, rediscovered the amazing tradition of meditative prayer of one word that goes back into the Church Fathers. I guess someone may be put off by the fact that he calls this prayer word a 'mantra', which has only weak association with the eastern meditation as that tradition did not get into the Western mainstream at Main's time. The purpose of Christian meditation is to participate on Jesus' prayer, to experience the ever so mystical relationship between the Persons of Trinity. This does not only go beyond the general mistaken view of prayer being just a conversation in which one supplies God with information, but also beyond the state that theology calls pax perniciosa, meaning one's dwelling on their own spiritual ideas of God as a substitute to the real presence of God. Meditation in John Main's view (as I understood it) is simply the art of being and letting God be God. A form of prayer with no expectations, a necessary discipline of via negativa that brings true freedom, because whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it (Luke 17:33).
To me it is a big relief and a difficult task at the same time. I should say that this compilation of Main's writings provides rather the encouragement (one short quote a day) when one choses to start to meditate; it is not conceived as a manual. The simple task of meditation involved repeating the prayer word without distractions of mental images or thoughts, even if they get blissfully spiritual. It is far from easy. In connection to this I recall Tomáš Halík's interpretation (in Chci, abys byl) of Matthew 17:20: Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Halík sees this text as referring the necessity of faith so concentrated and undistracted that it is as firm as a seed that contains all essentials to growth, so it is not small in any way. I think this can be what meditation should lead us to, but it is good to be noted that John Main doesn't claim it is the only way of prayer to be practices. Rather, he encourages to incorporate it as an aspect to the fullness of the sacramental life. For its simplicity I also consider meditation to be a wonderful ecumenical prayer.
But what do I get from all this? The question should be irrelevant. Still, I see that after a few month's practice of meditation some things within me subtly began to change. The only one of those I am able to articulate at this point is that I am definitely more detached from my turbulent feelings. Those feelings are part of me, but they slowly cease to control my decision making. It is very refreshing to not have to comply to that modern cultural imperative of 'doing what you feel like', thus to be more grounded in reality. Yet this is only like a treasure I found along the way.
The rest is silence.
(God Carrying Us by Soichi Watanabe)
True, I tinkered a bit with the more social or 'extroverted' type of prayer. During my totally weird and short-lived foray into various kinds of pentecostalism and preacher-oriented churches, I always found myself ending up in some kind of subculture that never lived up to the real experience of God's presence in my own silent retreats. I thought it was due to my shut-in personality that I was more interested in Ignatian exercises, trappist writings, contemplation or concepts like 'dark night of the soul' of saint John of the Cross. I also bought this book on a whim, because I liked that it dealt with silent prayer. Now I have finished it I think that silence is more than just a preference.
John Main, the English Benedictine, rediscovered the amazing tradition of meditative prayer of one word that goes back into the Church Fathers. I guess someone may be put off by the fact that he calls this prayer word a 'mantra', which has only weak association with the eastern meditation as that tradition did not get into the Western mainstream at Main's time. The purpose of Christian meditation is to participate on Jesus' prayer, to experience the ever so mystical relationship between the Persons of Trinity. This does not only go beyond the general mistaken view of prayer being just a conversation in which one supplies God with information, but also beyond the state that theology calls pax perniciosa, meaning one's dwelling on their own spiritual ideas of God as a substitute to the real presence of God. Meditation in John Main's view (as I understood it) is simply the art of being and letting God be God. A form of prayer with no expectations, a necessary discipline of via negativa that brings true freedom, because whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it (Luke 17:33).
To me it is a big relief and a difficult task at the same time. I should say that this compilation of Main's writings provides rather the encouragement (one short quote a day) when one choses to start to meditate; it is not conceived as a manual. The simple task of meditation involved repeating the prayer word without distractions of mental images or thoughts, even if they get blissfully spiritual. It is far from easy. In connection to this I recall Tomáš Halík's interpretation (in Chci, abys byl) of Matthew 17:20: Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Halík sees this text as referring the necessity of faith so concentrated and undistracted that it is as firm as a seed that contains all essentials to growth, so it is not small in any way. I think this can be what meditation should lead us to, but it is good to be noted that John Main doesn't claim it is the only way of prayer to be practices. Rather, he encourages to incorporate it as an aspect to the fullness of the sacramental life. For its simplicity I also consider meditation to be a wonderful ecumenical prayer.
But what do I get from all this? The question should be irrelevant. Still, I see that after a few month's practice of meditation some things within me subtly began to change. The only one of those I am able to articulate at this point is that I am definitely more detached from my turbulent feelings. Those feelings are part of me, but they slowly cease to control my decision making. It is very refreshing to not have to comply to that modern cultural imperative of 'doing what you feel like', thus to be more grounded in reality. Yet this is only like a treasure I found along the way.
The rest is silence.
(God Carrying Us by Soichi Watanabe)
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January 7, 2020adfa
October 14, 2010
keeeerrrrrrreeeeeeennnnnnn
dalem banget, suka ama endingnya
dalem banget, suka ama endingnya
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews