Christian Meditation

12.30 – 1pm every Friday

An Introduction
A definition of prayer is the raising of the heart and mind to God. Mostly from childhood we are taught to pray with the mind, to ask God for what we and others need. Meditation is the prayer of the heart. It is a prayer of faith. In silence we accept that God knows our needs. We learn to meditate by letting go and learning to be.

How can we do this?
We need silence, stillness and simplicity. In silence we can be at one with our own centre. We need to be still physically, sitting or however we are comfortable; but the challenge is to have stillness of the mind. In simplicity we have to learn to put our mind at rest. We have a good guide to this in the first Christian monks, the desert fathers of the 4th century AD. Like them, we use a single sacred word, a mantra and repeat our mantra during the time of meditation. An ideal mantra is MA-RA-NA-THA, an Aramaic prayer of the early church meaning, ‘Come Lord’.’

An ideal way to learn to meditate is with a group. Collectively we seem to strengthen and support each other. Our group meets in our church from 12.30 – 1pm every Friday. Our routine is to listen to a short introductory theme, meditate for 20 minutes, then finish with a short prayer.

This meditation seems to meet the needs of many modern people in their search for a deeper spiritual life. Please come and join us.