Matthew under the arm 110
Yesterday was a difficult day. I was feeling depressed and tired. Matthew's Gospel had been with me for all this time and I felt I had come to know Christ less and less, let alone be known by Him. Columba had a terrible habit of slapping me in my lower back when I looked low, as if to say: 'Snap out of it!' He was always nauseatingly free of depression. Bad tempered frequently, but not morose, like me! To make matters worse several pilgrims had been gathering for days at various junctions of the pilgrim route to meet with Columba and ask him questions and catch pearls from him. Watching all this, made me hugely jealous! I want that kind of following and admiration, but I daren't tell anyone... This morning, Columba insisted that we rose even earlier than usual to leave the inn. 'Why?' I asked him. 'The worst part of my personality is that I want to hold onto those I have come to love.' 'But all they would want to do is to say thank you!', I added thoughtlessly. 'Precisely!' Columba quipped.
Matthew 22:34-40….
The two greatest commandments have a simplicity to them that disturbs. They are imperative. The whole person must move out to The Otherness of God. In the slip-stream of this movement is the love of neighbour. The development of the personal spiritual life happens as a consequence of this attitude and activity. However, the inner life is where the well-spring of The Spirit is. The Love and Service of the other person is a reflex reaction to the inner life.
Wait still on My Life and My Love that your life may be Christ-like in simplicity and service
In your meditation, it is important to remember a simple process. You move in, in order to move out. That is why that pattern must be explicit in Christian Liturgy. The Eucharist is a process of moving in to offer 'ourselves' (the community of faith... the 'Body'), then to receive the sacrament, the active sign of God, in order to move out to give. That is why all prayer is Eucharistic, sacramental. In meditation, 'we' move into pray in silence in order to offer our 'lives' in Love to God, with all your distractions, doubts, hope and emptiness. We then move out, while still in meditation. Otherwise the meditation bears little or no relationship to living.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 22:34-40….
The two greatest commandments have a simplicity to them that disturbs. They are imperative. The whole person must move out to The Otherness of God. In the slip-stream of this movement is the love of neighbour. The development of the personal spiritual life happens as a consequence of this attitude and activity. However, the inner life is where the well-spring of The Spirit is. The Love and Service of the other person is a reflex reaction to the inner life.
Wait still on My Life and My Love that your life may be Christ-like in simplicity and service
In your meditation, it is important to remember a simple process. You move in, in order to move out. That is why that pattern must be explicit in Christian Liturgy. The Eucharist is a process of moving in to offer 'ourselves' (the community of faith... the 'Body'), then to receive the sacrament, the active sign of God, in order to move out to give. That is why all prayer is Eucharistic, sacramental. In meditation, 'we' move into pray in silence in order to offer our 'lives' in Love to God, with all your distractions, doubts, hope and emptiness. We then move out, while still in meditation. Otherwise the meditation bears little or no relationship to living.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Labels: Meditation in Community
posted by Martin at 6:52 pm
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