Meditation

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Meditation
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Order of Plan

• Politic
• Career
• Family
• Jesus
• Ministry
• Friends
• Education

• Where is the exactly right place for Jesus?

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Order of Plan

• Family
• Friends
• Career
• Education
• Ministry
• Politic

Jesus
God is not the subject of our life, but rather He
is the One who plans our life I learn to look
on this other person and thing not simply with
my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective
of Jesus Christ.
(Benedict XVI, CL, 18)
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Three Major expressions of Prayer(ccc 2699)

• Vocal prayer
• Meditation
• Contemplation
• These three expressions have one basic trait in
  common
• serene of heart.
• (because the soul encounters the Lord of peace)

When someone has this serene of heart, does it
mean that this person is free from difficulties?
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Grades of prayer by saint Theresa
Avila

• Vocal prayer
• Meditation
• Contemplation

• 1. vocal prayer
• 2. meditation
• 3. affective prayer
• 4. prayer of simplicity
• 5. infused contemplation
• 6. prayer of quiet
• 7. prayer of union
• 8. prayer of conforming union
• 9. prayer of transforming union

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PROGRESSIVE PURIFICATION

• Active purification
• (predominate ascetical stage)
• Passive purification
• (infused prayer mystical stage)

• vocal prayer
• meditation
• affective prayer
• prayer of simplicity
• infused contemplation
• prayer of quiet
• prayer of union
• prayer of conforming union
• prayer of transforming union

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Jesus Vocal Prayer

• What?
• when?
• Where?
• How?

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Meditation is

• - the mind seeking to understand the
  supernatural truth
• in order
• - to love it
• and carry it out into practice
• with the assistance of grace.
• NOTE
• - without discussion us there is no
  meditation.
• - meditation has doublfinality
• one intellectual and the other affective and
  practical

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Double finality of meditation

• 1. Intellectual to arrive at firm convictions
  concerning some supernatural truth.
• (by this intellectual alone, it is not a true
  prayer. It is study, a preparation for prayer.)
• Affective and practical true prayer is the act
  of love aroused in the will on the presentation
  of some supernatural truth by the intellect. It
  is an intimate contact between the soul and God.
  
• Yet, meditation is completed only when the soul
  puts love into action.

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In Brief

• In meditating, we actively ALLOW God to purify
  our whole being by informing, reforming,
  conforming, and transforming our mind, passions,
  will, and actions
• - want what God wants
• - feel what God feels
• - desire what God desires
• - see what God sees
• - do the way God does
• - reject what God rejects

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John 4

• In the gradual unfolding of this encounter, it
  is clearly revealed that love is not merely a
  sentiment. Sentiments come and go. A sentiment
  can be a marvellous first spark, but it is not
  the fullness of love. Earlier we spoke of the
  process of purification and maturation by which
  eros comes fully into its own, becomes love in
  the full meaning of the word. It is
  characteristic of mature love that it calls into
  play all man's potentialities it engages the
  whole man, so to speak. Contact with the visible
  manifestations of God's love can awaken within us
  a feeling of joy born of the experience of being
  loved. But this encounter also engages our will
  and our intellect. Acknowledgment of the living
  God is one path towards love, and the yes of
  our will to his will unites our intellect, will
  and sentiments in the all- embracing act of love.
  But this process is always open-ended love is
  never finished and complete throughout life,
  it changes and matures, and thus remains faithful
  to itself. Idem velle atque idem nolle 9to
  want the same thing, and to reject the same
  thingwas recognized by antiquity as the
  authentic content of love the one becomes
  similar to the other, and this leads to a
  community of will and thought. The love-story
  between God and man consists in the very fact
  that this communion of will increases in a
  communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our
  will and God's will increasingly coincide God's
  will is no longer for me an alien will, something
  imposed on me from without by the commandments,
  but it is now my own will, based on the
  realization that God is in fact more deeply
  present to me than I am to myself.10 Then self-
  abandonment to God increases and God becomes our
  joy (cf. Ps 73 7223-28).
• (Benedict XVI, DEUS CARITAS EST - CHRISTIAN
  LOVE, 17)

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• There was a scholar of the law who stood up to
  test him and said, Teacher, what must I do to
  inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, What
  is written in the law? How do you read it? He
  said in reply, You shall love the Lord, your
  God, with all your heart, with all your being,
  with all your strength, and with all your mind,
  and your neighbor as yourself. He replied to
  him, You have answered correctly do this and
  you will live.
• But because he wished to justify himself, he said
  to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus
  replied, A man fell victim to robbers as he went
  down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped
  and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
  A priest happened to be going down that road, but
  when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite
  side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and
  when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite
  side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
  was moved wine with compassion at the sight. He
  approached the victim, poured oil and wine over
  his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him
  up on his own animal, took him to an inn and
  cared for him. The next day he took out two
  silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with
  the instruction, take care of him. If you
  spend more than what I have given you, I shall
  repay you on my way back. Which of these three,
  in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers
  victim? He answered, The one who treated him
  with mercy. Jesus said to him, Go and do
  likewise. (Luke 1025-37)

• 3 stages in meditation

act of love aroused
charity impels us to put love into action.
Discursus
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Important Note

• Failure to make efficacious resolutions is the
  reason why many souls who practice daily
  meditation get little or no practical benefit
  from this exercise of prayer. They insist too
  much on that which is merely a preparation for
  prayer. They pass the time in spiritual reading
  or speculation, but they do not make acts of
  love, nor do they make any practical
  resolutions.
• (Fr. Jordan Aumann, OP)

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Variety of subjects for meditations

• Some scene or mystery form the life of Christ.
• The life and virtues of Mary or the saints
• A particular virtue to be acquired or uprooted,
• A truth from dogmatic theology
• The prayer and actions of the sacraments, the
  Mass and the liturgy.

• The guiding principle to select the subject
  matter is that what is needed at a particular
  time and will be beneficial according to ones
  capacities.
• For young people or beginners
• - imaginative meditation (scenes from the life
  of Christ, Mary and the saints)
• - liturgical meditation (prayer and actions)
• - moral meditation (which help one to uproot
  the vices and cultivate virtue)

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Methods of Meditation

• Method of St. Ignatius Loyola
• - Acts of faith and reverence in the presence
  of God.
• Preparation - General preparatory prayer to
  ask the grace of making a good meditation.
• - Composition of place (exercise of the
  imagination)
• - Petition for the special grace sought in the
  meditation
• - Exercise of the memory to recall the
  material to be meditated upon.
• Body of the - Exercise of the intellect by
  reflection and consideration of the material of
  the
• Meditation meditation and practical
  applications and conclusions to be drawn from it.
• - Exercise of the will by arousing devout
  feelings and affections and by
• making practical, particular
  resolutions.
• - Colloquy or conversation with God.
• Conclusion
• - Vocal prayer, such as Our Father, Hail Mary,
  ect
• Carmelite Method
• - Preparation

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Practice of Meditation

• Regularity in prayer is of extreme important.
• Best time for meditation when ones mind is most
  alert and one can be recollected. Perhaps,
  early in the morning, the late afternoon or late
  at night.
• Duration adjusted to the need of each but not
  too brief (only preparation) or too long
  (stifled and became penance).
• Place the church is the most fitting place
  because of the sanctity of the place, the
  presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the
  solitude.
• Posture Two extremes should be avoided
  excessive comfort and excessive mortification.
  Kneeling, seating or standing whatever way
  helps to recollect and attention in discursive
  prayer.

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Important Note

• Experience proves that
• there is absolutely nothing
• that can supply for the life of prayer,
• not even the daily reception of the Eucharist.
• (Fr. Jordan Aumann, OP)

?
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Progressive Purgation

• Active purification
• Passive purification

• Active Purification
• (with the help of grace, we do all in our power
  to rid of ourselves of all the impediments to the
  divine action)
• Purification of the external senses five senses
• Purification of the internal senses
• imagination, common sense, memory, estimative
• Purification of the passions
• Purification of the intellect
• Purification of the will

• Passive Purification
• (God alone does the act of purification)
• Night of the senses
• Night of the spirit

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Novena of Praise and Thanks to the Sacred Heart
sample

• Third day- Our Call to Humanness
• Scripture reading (Eph. 215 314-19)
• This was to create a single New Man in
  restoring peace through the cross this then is
  what I pray, kneeling before the Father Out of
  his infinite glory, may he give you the power
  through faith, and then, planted in love and
  built on love, you will with all the saints have
  strength to grasp the breath and the length, the
  height and the depth until, knowing the love of
  Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are
  filled with the utter fullness of God.

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Meditation

• Each one is called to fullness of life through
  the love of Jesus.
• He came to make all things new, to restore all
  things in him,
• that our humanness, through weak, might be
  strong in him.
• The Father sent his Son to take on human nature
  to share with us the power
• of his Spirit that our inner nature might grow
  to the full stature in Christ.
• The only thing that can make us complete and
  whole is the love of God
• given to us through the heart of Jesus.
• Only when we are free can we be completely
  human.
• We are freed through the love of Jesus and his
  suffering humanity.
• The freedom gained in the love of Jesus
  unshackles the mind
• and empowers the spirit of man to expand to his
  full stature.
• Through his strengthening of our humanness we
  grow in the love that makes us whole.
• We can be completely human only when we give
  ourselves completely in love.
• Only love makes our actions human.
• Our call to renewal is essentially dependent on
  our ability to love with Christs love.
• Human are able to speak, but if we speak with
  tongues of angels and men but do not have love
  we are nothing. Humans are able to believe
• but if we have faith to move mountains but have
  not love, it is worthless.
• As humans we can make sacrifices, even our own
  bodies

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Prayer

• Heart of Jesus, we thank you for making it
  possible for us to be whole through the greatest
  of all gifts you give us love. We thank you for
  freeing our minds from the darkness of deceit and
  filling them with the light of your truth for
  freeing our hearts from the evil of selfishness
  and giving them the generosity to love, to give
  for others. We praise you, Jesus, for the great
  love of your Sacred Heart that has shown us the
  path to wholeness. We praise you for the love
  that makes it possible for us to grasp with all
  the saints the breadth and the length, the height
  and the depth of your love which is beyond all
  knowledge, that we might be filled with utter
  fullness of God which alone makes us whole. We
  will proclaim your call of love and wholeness to
  all.