An experience in meditation

Thursday, February 02, 2017

The Feast of the Presentation

This feast is indeed one of my favorites because it was at the Mass for the Feast of the Presentation in 1983, that I finally committed myself to becoming a monk at Saint Anselm Abbey. Therefore I celebrate this feast as an anniversary.

That being said, today I would like to share with you an experience I had last night in meditation. For what it is worth, here goes:

When I began my meditation I found it very difficult to let go of my thoughts about a number of things that have been happening in my country these past two weeks. It was a frustrating experience and at one point I almost stopped trying to meditate. “What’s the use?” I asked myself.

But then I became aware of what was going on inside beneath my thoughts. When I looked there I found a mixture of dark emotions: mainly anger, fear, frustration and a feeling of helplessness: I could do nothing to “solve” or “save” what is going on these days.

Finally, as I prayed the Jesus Prayer (or tried to), I focused not any any thoughts about what’s been going on, but rather simply on the emotions themselves which I identified to myself as a body of pain. And as I focused on that pain it became not must my pain but rather the pain of a majority of Americans at this point in our history. And so I felt the pain and experienced it not only for myself but also for everyone and anyone else who was carrying the same body of pain with them.

Time passed. I simply hung out with the pain and emotion. No thoughts about what was causing the pain, simply the pain itself.

A lot of the pain went away as I continued to meditate. But more importantly, I had ceased running the “tapes” in my head about the concerns I had brought to the meditation. And for a blissful period, I was free of those thoughts and simply rested in the Lord with my pain.

Today I find that as I recall this experience and breathe deeply, once again I can get free of any distressing thoughts about things. A bit of the pain is still there, and that is fine. I remember that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He took to Himself all the pain of the entire human race for all of history, and I realize that he also took my own pain to Himself.

And that makes all the difference.

Perhaps this will help you as well. As always, take what you find helpful and leave the rest aside.

God bless you!