At the risk of losing my audience during the course of the first sentence let me say at the outset that this post will be about a prayer practice which could be called ‘sequential meditation’. Long term followers of my work will notice that it is essentially the same method advocated in Hesychasm and the Seven Sorrows of Mary but with different objects for the mind to direct its attention towards. For the benefit of those who have not yet read that seminal work let me briefly summarise.
The Orthodox Christian tradition in particular developed a method of prayer where a word, phrase or sentence taken from Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition or the Liturgy is constantly repeated by the praying person. During times set aside specifically for meditation or contemplation this word, phrase or sentence, associated with the ingoing and outgoing breath, becomes the sole thing said, done or considered. My suggestion was that in this electronic epoch where from an early age the mind is developed more or less deliberately to not concentrate on one thing for any length of time but rather to switch between tasks every few moments it would be a good idea to vary the Orthodox schema (there’s a pun in that but I’ll leave you to do the research yourself) to the extent of providing a sequence of words, phrases or sentences so that moving from one to the other a contemporary praying person may still manage to devote a good chunk of time to contemplation.
My previous work required a focus, as you may have guessed by now, on the Virgin Mary, and the seven subjects for contemplation were all pretty much necessary or the sequence wouldn’t have made the same sense. This proposal here has a different focus and you can drop or add-in objects of contemplation as best suits you because none of the words, phrases or sentences requires the other ones to be present for your prayer to make sense to you.
I have written elsewhere about the benefits, indeed the necessity, for approaching and departing from the core prayer practice via some bridging prayers so I won’t repeat that here. Also I hold to the belief that a technique is just a technique and success in prayer depends upon the grace of God and not purely upon our effort. We can dispose ourselves to receive His Spirit through how we pray but He will give or withhold His gifts as He wills, when He wills. So I make no wonderworking promises anent this prayer practice. It has helped me and it may help you. That is all that I can say.
So. The first object of attention is-
Thou lightest my Lamp, O Lord
O my God enlighten my darkness
(cf. Psalm 17/18:28/29)
Indrawn breath for the opening line, outgoing breath for the second line.
Notwithstanding the benefits of the bridging prayers the mind still requires some settling down at the very beginning of a set period of contemplation. Here the help of God is invoked directly for that purpose using words that have been used before us for thousands of years. Together with that petition we ourselves should do what we can not only to keep our focus on the words but also to link our heart’s desire with their explicit meaning. Now is as good a time as any to mention that you are unlikely to succeed in keeping that focus for very long. The mind bounces around and does its own thing. What you can do as soon as you notice that your mind has wandered is to direct it back to the intended object as well as you can for as long as you can. Then when you notice further wandering do the same thing again. Don’t get angry, impatient or annoyed, still less discouraged. Cultivate the virtue of patience and the skill of perseverance.
Once you feel it is time to move on you can re-focus on the words-
God is Light,
And in Him is no darkness at all.
(cf. 1 John 1:5)
Indrawn breath for the opening line, outgoing breath for the second line. Because the lines are of markedly different length this may take some practice to get just right.
Hopefully with the mind more settled we can turn our attention away from ourselves and onto Him who is the object of, not only our contemplation but of our whole life. What do I mean when I use words like ‘attention’, ‘focus’, ‘contemplation’, in this context? Well, I don’t mean ‘analysis’ or ‘ratiocination’. Just hold the words, look at them with the eyes of your mind as you would look at a beautiful thing or person with the eyes of your body. My conscious mind isn’t necessarily the best part of me; so if I still it for a while it will do me no harm. This does not mean, however, that the whole mind is stilled. Beneath the surface the depths of mind and heart are engaged with what or Whom the eyes of the mind are gazing upon. Holding that gaze for as long as you comfortably can is the object of this exercise.
Having done that next up we have-
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
And the Word was God
(cf. John 1:1)
Indrawn breath for the opening line, outgoing breath for the second line.
The fact that there exists an uncaused First Cause would only be of academic interest to us if He was, as the Deists supposed, merely the builder of a mechanism to which He subsequently paid no further heed. But He is not. And the Logos of God, here translated as Word, is the principle of God active in the Cosmos which He has created. Theologically it makes sense to substitute ‘Logos’ for ‘Word’ in the prayer but when I first encountered the verse as a child it struck me with immense power even though I had no idea what it meant. So for me it would be a distraction to use any other form of words. If you are not troubled with my baggage then feel free to discard it.
And then move on to-
[And] The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
Full of grace and truth.
(cf. John 1:14)
Indrawn breath for the opening line, outgoing breath for the second line.
If we hadn’t become accustomed to it the totally, or at any rate a totally, mind-blowing thing about the active principle of the uncaused First Cause is that not only does He take a positive interest in us, He is among us, as one of us. Only, He is full of grace and truth so that our emptiness of those things may be supplied through Him. As Elon Musk might say, let that sink in. And just do that. Contemplate it. Be grateful for it. Love Him who has done it. You may or may not wish to use the word ‘and’ at the start of the phrase because it follows on from the previous prayer. Alternatively you may wish the prayer to be self contained. That is for you to decide, I go for the second option.
And then move on to-
With Wisdom lies eternal life,
And in her friendship is pure delight.
(cf. Wisdom of Solomon 8:17-18)
Indrawn breath for the opening line, outgoing breath for the second line.
OK, so this is where it begins to get complicated. Throughout the Old Testament, especially in its Greek form, the Septuagint, Wisdom is referred to as a female quality. In the liturgy of the Catholic Church many of those Wisdom texts are applied during Marian Feasts to Mary, the Mother of God. Indeed, one of Our Lady’s titles is Sedes Sapientiae, ‘Seat of Wisdom.’ There is more however. Wisdom (which is Sophia in Greek) is acknowledged by the Church as a gift of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus Himself as the Logos of God is also, it would seem necessarily, His Sophia too. If you were applying your analytical or reasoning mind to all this it may well boggle. Fortunately this is not a theological exercise but a contemplative one so fuzzy thinking will be permitted. Hold in your mind that eternal life, friendship and pure delight can be found if you keep company with Wisdom, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Or any one from four.
Once you have maxed out on that you can move on to-
Jesus,
Mary.
Indrawn breath for the opening word, outgoing breath for the second word.
The sequence of the sequential meditation tends from the abstract to the concrete, from spiritual to incarnational. God who is Light and Logos and Wisdom has a name and a face in this world. And that name is Jesus. He has a privileged path by which He comes to us as one of us, in whose flesh, of whose flesh, the Logos is made Man. And the name of that path is Mary. Knowing these things, if we just hold fast to the pure names of Jesus and Mary our pre-conscious, subconscious, unconscious mind will gaze at them and be transformed by them, in them, through them, and in, some sense, into them. Just try to keep bringing your conscious mind back to the names and hope that they and the grace of God will bring you to the promised eternal life then and pure delight now.
And finally-
Immaculate Mary,
Mother of Jesus.
Indrawn breath for the opening words, outgoing breath for the second group of words.
We end by considering the human person who knew, and knows, and who loved, and loves, Jesus Christ better and more than any other human in all history. We consider why she received such a privilege, she was and is Immaculate, and of what that privilege consisted, she was and is the Mother of the Son of God. And, as Eve is the mother of all living persons in the physical kingdom so Mary is the mother of all, of each, who are alive in the Spirit. It is good for us to remember with love our Mother, she certainly never forgets to love us.
And then we say our bridging prayers and are done.
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The picture is of St Sava’s Cathedral (The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom) in Belgrade, Serbia, and is credited to orthodoxianewsagency.gr
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