Salesian Literature

Chapter 2  :  Meditation – the first step in prayer or mystical theology

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Meditation – the first step in prayer or mystical theology

 

Meditating is an idea that finds a frequent place in holy Scripture.  All it means is thinking intently and repeatedly about something in such a way as to give rise to good or bad emotions.

 

Meditation, therefore, has a good purpose or an evil purpose.  However, since Scripture generally uses it in reference to the attention given to the things of God, to awaken love for them, the common consent of theologians has canonized it, so to speak – just as they give a good meaning to angel and to zeal, but a bad meaning to demon and to guile.  So that now, when we refer to meditation, we are understood to be thinking of the kind which is holy, which is the first step in mystical theology.

 

Meditation means thought, but thinking is not always meditating.  There are times when the mind harbours thoughts for no rhyme or reason but to pass the time.  That kind of think, however intent, cannot be called meditation; it is simply thought.  Sometimes we think about something intently in order to learn its causes, effects, characteristics; such thought is called study.  But when we think of divine things, to grow not in knowledge but in love … that is called meditation.

 

What it comes to is this: thinking and studying centre round all kinds of things; but meditation, in the way I am using the word here, has to do with those things only that will make us good, devoted to God, if we reflect on them.  So that meditation is simply a thought that we welcome again and again, that we harbour intently in our minds, in order to prompt our wills to give way to emotions which are holy or to make resolutions which are good.

 

Here and there among the flowers flies the bee in the springtime; not at random, but of set purpose; not for sheer delight in the gay flowered pattern of the countryside, but in search of honey.  When it has found some, it sucks it in and carries it off to the hive, where it sets skilfully to work on it, separating the wax to form a comb in which to keep the honey for the following winter.

 

It is the same with a devoted soul in meditation.  From mystery to mystery it goes, never at haphazard or to gain comfort from seeing the wondrous beauty of divine things, but with the intention and purpose of discovering motives for loving God, for practising virtue.  These it embraces, when it has found them, enjoying them, locking them within its heart, where it sets apart what it feels will conduce to its progress, and ultimately forms suitable resolutions against time of temptation.

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