Welcome to Contemplative Corner 

Each month CC will offer a short meditation for you to contemplate. In a fast moving world where we are bombarded with information from all sides, CC invites you to slow down and be present with the wisdom teachings of the Christian tradition and those in solidarity with these teachings from other traditions. CC also has resources for you to further your interest should you want to deepen your understanding of contemplative practices.

            You are on this web page for a reason — curiosity, intellectual interest, Divine guidance.  Now, as you read slowly, let your heart and mind be open and consent to the presence of the indwelling of the Divine, and be transformed.

 

Advent 2019

The beginning of December marks the start of Advent in the church calendar. Advent, meaning “coming,” is a time when the faithful are urged to set aside time to pray and let the soul recall what it knows beneath its fear of the dark uncertainty of life. This is a time we wait in anticipation to celebrate the coming of the One who brings a new beginning.

But what does it mean to celebrate Christmas? Better to rephrase the question and ask: how do we celebrate Christmas? If as Christians we simply “think” about the Incarnation of the eternal Word, even with sincere desire, is this celebrating Christmas? Of course it is impossible to tell someone how to celebrate Christmas, as each of us must discover this for themselves — with the help of Grace.

This Advent we have two meditations. First is from Karl Rahner’s essay, Thoughts on the Theology of Christmas¹, which offers what he calls a “recipe” for how a Christian Christmas should be celebrated… “or at least to give a few pointers towards such a prescription.”

Second is this visio divina by our very own Betty Cole.  Thank you Betty! 

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How to Celebrate Christmas

by Karl Rahner 

            Have the courage to be alone. Only once you have really managed to do this, and have achieved it in a Christian way, can you hope to give the present of a heart filled with the Christmas spirit – in other words, a gently patient, courageously collected, softly tender heart – to those whom you are striving to love. This present is indeed something you should place under the Christmas tree, otherwise all other presents will simply be an unnecessary expense which could be incurred at any time of the year.  And so for once try to endure your own company for a while.  Perhaps you can find a room where you can be alone. Or you may know a lonely walk or a quiet church.  Don’t speak, then, not even with yourself nor with the other with whom we dispute and quarrel even when they are not there.  Wait. Listen. You must not keep quiet in this way simply in order to be able to speak about it later on.  You must enter into this silence in such a way as to be resolved never to leave it again, in so far as you really make the appeal to this silence and into this silent infinity your last word standing on its own account and not existing for the sake of anything else, something which no one else need hear apart from the one to whom it is really addressed. So: Stop, be silent, wait. Do not cast furtive glances towards some strange mystical experience. Nothing but the dispassionate clarity of truth should appear in this silence, nothing but what is pure and silent.  Do not express yourself.  After all, you are to accept yourself (this after all is already almost more than merely a prelude to the soft song of the angels): you are not to empty yourself in self-accusation, nor to escape from yourself by too unconcerned a rejoicing, nor to empty your own self in a smug small-minded way (for then you would have perceived nothing, neither of the celestial heights nor of the abysmal depths of you own existence).  You must allow yourself to approach silently nearer and nearer to yourself: the past, the present and the future, in this moment of silence …all the waters of your life which flow away and run out and which are collected in the one basin of a heart aware of itself…Perhaps you will realize – if you admit it honestly – how distant you are from those with whom you are in daily contact and with whom you would ordinarily say you are united in love. Perhaps you find nothing in yourself but weakness, wretchedness and things you would rather escape into the business of everyday life. Perhaps you will not be aware of anything but an uneasy feeling of emptiness and deadness. Endure yourself! …One must look at the invisible and let the silent speak in stillness.  Do that, but be careful. Do not call it God. Do not try to derive enjoyment from it, as if it were a part of yourself. It is a mute pointer in the direction of God, something which in its namelessness and boundlessness gives us a hint of God which is more than just another thing, added to those with which we normally have to deal. It points to Him. Through it, He allows us to become aware of His presence, if we are quiet and do not take flight and run away from the mysterious being which lives and acts in this silence.

            But, all this is merely the beginning, the preparation for your celebration of Christmas. If you manage to stay alone with yourself and to let the silence speak to you of the true God, then this loudly calling silence will become strangely ambiguous. This infinity, which silently surrounds you, does it …drive you back into your limited day life?…Does if fall upon you with the merciless loneliness of death so as to make you run away from it into the more familiar sectors of your life…Or is it that which waits until you are open to its very self as something coming, the promised beatitude? If it said nothing, then we would find it quite impossible to celebrate Christmas from our heart. It tells us something, even quite exact: the message of Christmas told from within…this message is told to us by God at that point of the heart to which we should return; it is told to us by the light of the Christmas grace which enlightens everyone who comes into the world.

            “… Christmas tells you in the experience of solitude to trust the nearness, it is not emptiness; let go and then you will find; give up and then you will be rich.  For in your interior experience you are no longer dependent on the hard tangible phenomena… you possess much more than any such phenomena, for the infinite has become nearness. This is how you interpret your interior experience; you must experience it in this way as the most solemn feast and celebration of the divine descent of eternity into time –  of the infinite into the finite. This feast takes place within you, even within your very self. It takes place within you when you are silent, when you wait and when in faith, hope and love, you interpret correctly (that is, in the light of Christmas) what you experience…If we accept the silent immensity that surrounds us as something distant and yet at the same time near and overpowering – as a protecting nearness and a tender love which does not make any reservations; if we have the courage to understand ourselves in this way, which is possible only with grace and in faith, then we have had the Christmas experience of grace in faith. This experience is very simple; yet it is the peace promised to men of good will who are pleasing to God.”

FOOTNOTES

1. Rahner, Karl. “Thoughts on the Theology of Christmas.” Theological Investigations, Vol. 3, 1974. 24-34.

During this Advent season, we pray that you can find time to be alone with yourself and in silence celebrate “the Divine descent of eternity into time.”  It is this Divine descent that lives within you.  In this way, you will truly know how to celebrate Christmas.

 

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Putting it Into Practice

Commit to cultivating a contemplative practice. A commitment to a practice of sitting in silence for a period of 20 minutes, once or twice a day, is good. If you need to start with 10 minutes, do that till you are able to sit in silence for 20 minutes.  It is best to learn traditional techniques of contemplation under the guidance of a teacher or experienced practitioner. Here at ASC we have a weekly meeting of Centering Prayer every Tuesday, in the Chapel from 6:45pm to 8:00pm, where we practice contemplative prayer in a group setting, followed by 10 minutes of walking in silence, ending with a short reading and discussion. No experience with meditation is necessary to participate. Yet, even just ten to twenty minutes of following the arc of your inhale and exhale while in a seated posture, with eyes closed or gazing downward, can be transformative. Click “Contemplative Practices” below to see other forms of contemplative practice here at ASC.

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What is Contemplation?

Contemplative practices facilitate and deepen our relationship with God. The more we practice and allow the transformation process to happen, the more we are able to experience the Indwelling Presence in everything we do. Contemplative practices give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear God calling us to the banquet that is our lives, as they are.

Contemplative Practices at All Saints Church

Centering Prayer

Centering prayer is a form of contemplative prayer that is rooted in the Christian tradition and the wisdom saying of Jesus, “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to God in secret. And God, who sees in secret, will repay you” (Mtt 6:6). It is a discipline of intentional silence, where the individual in trusting faith, empties their self to become entirely receptive to God’s divine love. This is a prayer of surrendering life as lived on our terms to receive the indwelling love of God given to us.  Each person chooses a word to help them keep focus and as a reminder of their intention to remain open to God’s love. This practice can be done alone or in a group. Over time, it is best to do CP for two twenty-minute periods per day.  At All Saints Church we meet Tuesday evenings in the chapel.

Meditation

Here we allow ourselves to settle in silence, to come home to the refuge of who we really are as God’s own.  We sit in fellowship in our All Saints chapel, resting in the stillness of the Spirit. We listen. We keep watch. We let the healing, transformative presence work its mystery in us.

Taizé

This form of worship includes simple songs and chants in different languages, readings, silences and prayers.  At All Saints Church we have monthly and weekly gatherings.

Labyrinth

The labyrinth is like a maze you walk through, except there is only one path from start to finish. A form of movement meditation, this is an ancient spiritual tool, steeped in spiritual mystery and practiced all over the world. Our labyrinth at All Saints Church is a replica of the medieval labyrinth of France’s Chartres Cathedral.

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Carol Hekman Richard Redman

carol@centeringprayer.org richard@centeringprayer.org

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Union with God is not something any of us needs to acquire. It only needs to be realized. By way of intentional silence and self-surrender into the practice of contemplation the illusion of separation from God is dispelled.

Martin Laird, OSD