Meditation in the Christian Tradition.

The Zoom experience includes a body awareness exercise and scripture in song to assist us and bookend the silence. The Zoom call will begin with a period of interaction with other participants, a time of prayer, 10 minutes of silence and then a brief period of interaction at the end.

The aim of this group is to provide a weekly commitment that can assist in participants developing their own daily meditation practice.

Robyn Stokes facilitates the group, assisted by Liz Lee.

What type of Christian Meditation is this?

Following the tradition of John Cassian  and the early Christian fathers in the fourth century, and rediscovered by John Main in 1970s. The form it takes is as follows:

• Sit down.
• Sit still with your back straight.
• Close your eyes lightly.
• Then interiorly, silently begin to recite a single word – a prayer word or mantra. We recommend the ancient Christian prayer-word “Maranatha”.
• Say it as four equal syllables. Breathe normally and give your full attention to the word as you say it, silently, gently, faithfully and above all – simply. The essence of meditation is simplicity.
• Stay with the same word during the whole meditation and from day to day. Don’t visualise but listen to the word as you say it.
• Let go of all thoughts (even good thoughts), images and other words. Don’t fight your distractions but let them go by saying your word faithfully, gently and attentively and returning to it immediately that you realise you have stopped saying or it or when your attention is wandering.