Failed again

Friday, Jan. 16, 2015

I failed even before I got started.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to increase my spirituality, and to do that I decided to attend the six-month workshop on Christian meditation that began last Thursday.

I’ve always been interested in meditation, and the Catholic tradition of contemplative prayer goes far back in Church history. The desert fathers undertook this practice, as did an entire litany of saints, including Hildegard of Bingen and John of the Cross. Theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Thomas Merton wrote about it. Father Thomas Keating is one of the more prominent current adherents.

Not that I think I’m on level with any of the aforementioned, but on the principle of “if it’s good enough for them, maybe it’ll work for me,” I decided to try it.

Jesuit Father Richard Hunt, administer of Saint Florence Mission, is leading the workshop. He has master’s degrees in divinity and theology, and has studied and practiced various forms of meditation.

So I headed up to Ogden and joined the 20 other people for the session, only to hear Fr. Hunt say, “Contemplative prayer should not be undertaken as a spiritual improvement project.”

But! But! But! That was my entire reason for taking the workshop! After all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, in meditation, “[t]he mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. …” while in contemplative prayer “the Father strengthens our inner being with power through his Spirit ‘that Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith’ and we may be ‘grounded in love.’”  

All that sounds like meditation and contemplative prayer are ways to increase spirituality, so why can’t that be the reason for doing it?

Because, Fr. Hunt said, meditation and contemplative prayer should be done only to spend time with God. While a deepening spirituality might be a result, expecting any such thing is setting oneself up for failure. 

So there I sat, wondering if I should bother with the workshop. I already spend time with God: I go to Mass every Sunday, and sometimes during the week. The problem is, I usually get distracted during formal prayer. One reason I wanted to take Fr. Hunt’s workshop was to learn how to get beyond these distractions and appreciate the Mass.

Friday brought even more discouraging news. Pope Francis, in his homily, said, “You can follow thousands of catechism courses, thousands of spirituality courses, thousands of yoga or Zen courses and all these things. ... Only the Holy Spirit can prompt your heart to say ‘Father.’” (see story, p. 5)

Great. No less an authority than the Pope is telling me I’m a failure for trying meditation to deepen my spirituality. 

But then I recalled the time we spent on Thursday in contemplative prayer. It began with a chiming bell. I closed my eyes and repeated the Jesus prayer. And repeated it. And repeated it. And repeated it. And was very sorry when the bell chimed again to bring us back to the real world.

Did I experience God? No. But the calm I did experience leads me to believe that maybe, just maybe, the Holy Spirit is prompting my heart. At least I can pray that it is so.