Conferences IX & X - On Prayer

John Cassian

Summary of Main Points - cont.

So again John Main crossed the Atlantic that his grandfather and the Celtic monks had looked over. Every letting go was a deeper centring on God. In Montreal he was able to experiment with his vision of a new monasticism where laypeople and monks could meditate together. Monasticism was from its beginnings with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, a movement of lay people, an alternative lifestyle based on values of silence, stillness and simplicity. The Oblate community in Montreal became a sign that these monastic values were relevant to people in many walks of life. The new monasticism would be primarily a lay monasticism. The practice of Christian Meditation was the distillation of the essential monastic spirit. In meditating every day, twice a day, people could share in the heart of what the monastic movement, which began in the fourth century, was all about - the search for God. He writes:

“All of us need to find something, some principle in our lives that is absolutely reliable and worthy of our confidence. All of us feel this impulse somehow or other to make contact with this rocklike reality.”

Alongside the sharing of practice, the teaching of Christian Meditation became John Main’s principle work. The early monks had transmitted their wisdom by word of mouth. John Main took his place within this oral tradition, through the weekly meditation groups at the priory, through his retreats on Meditation in England, Ireland and the U.S. and through the tape recordings of his talks distributed to a growing meditating community. The other ancient Christian form of communication was the letter and John Main began his quarterly newsletter. He was pleased that technology and telecommunications could help the spiritual path. But he always reminded his readers and listeners that the important thing was commitment. He wrote:

“Meditation cannot be reduced to a commodity and the Spiritual tradition is not a supermarket to shop in or a stock market to gamble on. Because we do think in these terms however there can be a real danger that meditation is presented in terms of return and pay off… the only important thing is that your spirit lives.”

John Main’s teaching on prayer was always practical. His concern was to help people into the silence of pure prayer, into accepting a state of poverty, with no thoughts, no images. This was, as Julian of Norwich put it, a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything. He taught the way of the Mantra not as a technique but as a discipline. A technique would involve the ego trying to get something but the mantra helps to purify the heart through the letting go of desire. That was why it is important to stay with the same mantra. Rootedness leads to growth as the word moves from the mind to the heart. By saying the word we learn commitment; by listening to the sound of the word within us we learn attentiveness. These are the first steps beyond self-consciousness as we realise that it is not us who are praying but the spirit is praying within us. “Say the Mantra”, John Main says; “Until you can no longer say it”. Gradually we enter into the silence beyond the ego, but precisely because this is beyond the ego we don’t choose when to stop saying the word. There is a pernicious peace where we stop the work of meditation and try to posses the experience. Rather, John Main says, we should ‘enter into the experience’ by saying the word continually, letting go of self-consciousness.

The ideal mantra John Main recommended was the word Maranatha, meaning “Come Lord” but repeated silently interiorly as four equally stressed syllables Ma-ra-na-tha. Not only was this one of the most ancient Christian prayers, in the language Jesus spoke, but it also has a harmonic quality that helps to bring the mind to silence. Other words or short phrases could be used but he saw it as important that during the meditation one doesn’t think about the meaning or use the imagination. The use of a sacred word in an unfamiliar language, like Aramaic, helps to lessen this. Also if possible it is best to receive a mantra from a teacher so that from the beginning one practises as part of a tradition and in a spirit of self-transcendence. Distractions will always come but one simply comes back to the word, with no discouragement and, at the end, no evaluation. Meditation is a pilgrimage, the important thing is simply to be on the way, not where one is on it. In fact in meditation we are all beginners. Each time we sit down, morning and evening for our two half hours, we are beginning again.

In this practice of Christian meditation John Main felt was distilled the heart of monastic spirituality; pure prayer lived out in obedience, stability and conversion of life; turning away from selfishness, finding ourselves and the whole world centred in God. This tradition of poverty of spirit, he felt, could be made accessible to people in all walks of life. Twice daily meditation and complete fidelity during those times to the sound of the Mantra was a monastic tradition well suited to our modern need for silence, stillness and simplicity. It was also true that meditation created community. A growing Oblate community and an extended world community started to share a common life inspired by a common practice.

In John Main’s quarterly newsletters from Montreal he kept people connected, encouraged them to continue ‘on the way’ and began to offer a profound Trinitarian theology of meditation. The basic fact of Christian awareness, John Main felt, was that the human consciousness of Jesus dwells within us and is in union with us. If we can be open to that then the union is consummated, is fulfilled, then we go with Jesus on his journey to the Father. This love of Father for the Son and Son for the Father is the Holy Spirit which prays within us. Therefore the prayer of Jesus, his Spirit, his life, in us, is our prayer. In meditation we give up my prayer and become one with his prayer, his journey beyond himself to the Father. That is what it means to pray in the Spirit and Truth. In this Trinitarian communion we find our full humanity by sharing in the Divine nature.

In 1980, after only six years of teaching Christian meditation, and at the age of fifty-four, John Main was diagnosed with cancer. The community at Montreal had expanded into new premises, was accepting monastic novices and had opened a women’s community. John Main continued to lead the Meditation groups and keep up his correspondence with mediators around the world. Weakened by his illness many felt him to be more and more transparent to God. Faced with the vulnerability of the human condition his last talks convey more and more the urgency he felt in the communication of Christian meditation and also the gentleness whereby that practice is lived out. In one of his last talks he was asked ‘what was the best way to prepare for meditation?’ He answered “by little acts of kindness”. It was he felt the genius of St Benedict’s rule that self-transcendence was always in the fullness of our humanity. In his last months he lived more and more completely in the present moment. When one morning he was found fallen from his bed during the night, his disciple Fr Laurence said they would laugh about it one day; John Main looked at him, smiled and said: “Why not laugh about it now?”

On December 30th 1982 John Main took the last step on his pilgrimage. He died peacefully. The community he had founded had attracted people from all over the world because of the depth of its practice and teaching. In that community he had always been an icon of Christ. The more vulnerable his illness made him the more obvious the source of his inner strength became. “As we are unformed”, he said, “Christ is formed in us”. “The mystery of love”, he wrote, “is that we become what we delight to gaze upon, and so when we open our hearts to his light we become light.” John Main was often felt to be a larger than life personality. The meaning of his life certainly went beyond his death at the early age of fifty-six. He once said that “humanity is most Godlike when we give ourselves without measure; when we love, and it is without measure that God gives himself to us”. The expansiveness and generosity of his spirit showed a life rooted in God. His humour and humanity showed, as he said, that “the saint is not superhuman but fully human”. His vision of a ‘new lay monasticism’ continues in the World Community for Christian Meditation, founded in 1991. What began as a small seed has grown into a tree, with meditation groups, retreats and seminars all over the world. That seed was the life and teaching of John Main.