Excerpts from Thomas Merton’s “Contempletive Prayer”

During my meditation time, I’ve been experimenting with contempletive prayer.  The basic idea is to sit quietly, remaining open to God’s presence and leading.  Today I thought I would share with you some of Thomas Merton’s guidance about this spiritual discipline:

“What is the purpose of meditation in the sense of the ‘prayer of the heart’?  We seek . . . to gain a direct grasp, a personal experience of the deepest truths of life and faith, finding ourselves in God’s truth.”

“We return to simplicity and sincerity of heart.”

“We wish to lose ourselves in <God’s> love and rest <in God.>” (Note that I have changed the masculine pronouns referring to God to the noun “God.”)

“We wish to hear <God’s> word and respond to it with our whole being.”

“We aim at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and our situation.”

“<We renounce> all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities.”

“What am I?  I am myself a word spoken by God.  Can God speak a word that does not have meaning?”

“Does God impose a meaning on my life from the outside, through event, custom, routine, law, system, impact with others in society?  Or am I called to create from within, with <God>, with <God’s> grace, a meaning which reflects <God’s> truth and makes me <God’s> word?”

“We wish to embrace God’s will in its naked, often unpenetrable mystery.  I cannot discover my “meaning” if I try to evade the dread which comes from first experiencing my meaninglessness.”

“. . . my life and aims tend to be artificial, inauthentic, as long as I am simply trying to adjust my actions to certain exterior norms of conduct that will enable me to play an approved part in the society in which I live.”

“. . . we should let ourselves be brought naked and defenseless into the center of that dread where we stand alone before God in our nothingness, without explanation, without theories, completely dependent upon <God’s> providential care, in dire need of the gift of grace, mercy, and the light of faith.”

“When we seem to possess and use our being and natural faculties in a completely autonomous manner, as if our individual ego were the pure source and end of our own acts, then we are in illusion and our acts, however spontaneous they may seem to be, lack spiritual meaning and authenticity.”

“Meditation implies . . . a permanent disposition to humility, attention to reality, receptivity, pliability.”

“If our hearts remain apparently indifferent and cold, we should at least realize that this coldness is itself a sign of our need and of our helplessness.  We should take it as a motive for prayer.  The waiting .. . itself will be for us a school of humility.”