We had a wonderful day in Dublin on Saturday, 09 November led by Fr Donagh O’Shea on the theme of Meditation: Falling Awake; and on the following weekend in Cork. Donagh reminded us that if ever we have difficulty falling asleep, the one thing we know for sure won’t work is trying to fall asleep! It is the same with meditation – we can’t make it happen – we can’t just switch it on like a light – and trying really hard doesn’t work. Instead, we simply adopt a receptive stance, leaving ourselves open to the possibility a graced experience of stillness and silence.
We spend so much effort all day long on all of our daily tasks, doing one thing after another and we so easily alienate ourselves fromour true-self. Every time we sit in meditation, our practice brings us home to our true centre. All day long our consciousness is divided by the multiplicity of demands on our time and energies but when we sit in meditation we create the conditions for undivided consciousness. As we fall awake to a deeper consciousness we discover that we participate in it and we develop a heart-felt knowledge of the mystery in which we live and move and have our being.
When we first start to meditate it can be challenging to make a commitment to meditate for even 20 minutes every day and he suggested instead making a commitment to meditate every day, but without committing to a specific number of minutes. That can make it less of a task, less something that you are doing; you choose to simply be for a while. He suggests that you will find that time growing every day. He reminded us that nothing is every really ‘finished’ in life so we shouldn’t think of ‘finishing’ our meditation either! Our aim in meditation is to become deeply aware of God’s presence in our lives and that desire doesn’t end when we stand up after our meditation but continues in our hearts as we get on with our day.
Saul, after Jesus spoke to him on the road to Damascus, went into the desert to contemplate the dawning realisation that he was part of Christ’s body. And, preaching as Paul, he stressed that we too have been given that gift which we can reflect on every day and strive to live our lives from that perspective. When we experience failures or disappointments in life, we must remember that even broken pots can let the light in and shine through. As Leonard Cohen’s wrote ‘there is a crack in everything- that’s how the light gets in‘. What is important in life is not ‘success’ but being true to who we really are.
We are part of Christ’s body and, as we often say at the end of prayers, we ask for God’s help ‘through Christ our Lord‘. Because meditation is ultimately personal spiritual experience, through our practice we discover for ourselves who we truly are, not what someone else tells us we are. We discover that our true identity is in Christ. Next time you meditate, imagine you are a feather on the breath of God, falling awake.
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THE GARMENTS OF GOD by Jessica Powers
God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments—
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am dust.
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I need not go abroad
to the hills of speech and hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.
from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers. ICS Publications.
Reflection by Noel Keating:
Jessica Powers was an American poet whose grandparents hailed from Co Waterford and who became a Carmelite nun at the age of 36. She lived in an age where prospects for women were narrow and socially defined. She went to work as a secretary in Chicago in her late teens, but we are told spent her free time reading poetry in libraries and later writing her own verse. It is clear from her poetry that Jessica was keenly aware of God’s abiding and providential presence throughout her life.
Regarding this poem, The Garments of God, Robert Morneau writes that ‘Even in the dark night of the soul and of the senses, Jessica held tenaciously to the faith conviction that God was present in her soul. To believe that God abides in the deepest recesses of our being when there is no vision or when we know that we are morally unworthy of God’s love is a supreme act of trust.
In this poem Jessica Powers shares something of her heart. It is not the prayer of high praise or lowly contrition, nor one of joyful thanksgiving or humble petition, but rather the simple prayer of a child in the dark frantically clutching the garments of God’s voluminous, merciful robes. She feels no need for assurance for her senses or intellect; she is firmly convinced that God will not abandon her: ‘I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.’
The opening line of this poem reads: God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul. Typically when I meditate I turn the lights down – except when meditating online! So I love the image these lines evoke for me – I am sitting in the darkness of my room with the intention of simply being with God who sits on a chair of darkness in my soul. Imagining the immediacy of God mirroring how I am sitting – the two of us sitting together in this dim-lit room, right here, right now is a great way to begin the practice. It reminds me of how 12-year old Canadian girl Alex described sitting down to meditate. She said ‘When I hear the bells ring at the start of meditation, I imagine God is ringing my doorbell and I open my heart to let Him in.’
As Morneau observes: for the poet and the mystic, the presence of God is direct, immediate, intense.’ While we often think of God through the mediaeval image of God draped in bright, majestic robes – an image I think She would be horrified by – Jessica Powers instead imagines God is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments – not velvet or silk and affable to the touch, but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch, and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
When we sit in meditation, we sit side by side with God in whom we put our complete trust. Like our poet, we know that to be with God we do not need go abroad to the hills of speech and hinterlands of music for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still. Instead, our journey is a journey inwards to where God dwells within us. And, as we repeat our mantra in stillness and silence we too have this potent prayer through good or ill: here in the dark we clutch the garments of God.
WCCM is a friend of the ‘Laudato Si’ Movement (LSM) whose mission is ‘To inspire and mobilize the Catholic community to care for our common home and achieve climate and ecological justice, in collaboration with all people of good will.’ Read more about ‘Contemplation with Creation’ here.
