MARIANIST TRADITION OF PRAYER
KIND OF TALK: PERSONAL OR HISTORICAL? What Joan told me
Hard to decide how to focus: Try to combine a bit: what do I, rooted as a Marianist, find helpful for a life of prayer?
Much hist of prayer in Church, much Cham, little my own attempts to appropriate
Start w Fr Cham as man of deep prayer – deeply formed – inherits various strands of tradition
Lived it uniquely in his time
1. PRAYER AND MEDITATION, ESP. NOT SO MUCH PRAYERS
If look at “prayers”, devotions:
3:00 (community, vocation, mission)
Act of consecration daily
Magnificat – favorite Marian prayer
Other devotions as normal, as inclined: rosary, stations, adoration, etc. as normal Xtians
2. IMPORTANCE OF MEDITATION – DAILY HOUR FOR SM
Core of spiritual life
If unusual circumstances, other things could go, not this
Incompatible with vocation (for SM)
Internalizing, pesonalizing
Great Xtian tradition
A little lost today: going to India to learn meditation......
Urgent need to recover
3. I began, as Chaminade did, with a “Jesuit” style prayer
a. Scripture based usually
b. Considerations, affections, resolutions
c. Methodical, logical, busy mind, imagination, feelings, conscious, analytical
d. To make you a better person
e. Discernment
f. Deep value, good start, advice to you –
g. Fits some types better than others, might be a starting point
h. Often come back to
4. Chaminade at seminary 1780s: Sulpician prayer
a. Modification of Jesuit style
b. More feeling
c. Aim: form good priests – other Xts
d. Adoration, communion, cooperation
e. faith in head, heart, hands
f. More feeling, non-verbal, non-analytical
g. Mysteries of Xt
h. Deep spirituality, words and concepts for Cham
i. Used until end of life
j. Great emphasis on the “presence of God”
k. Just be aware, live in awareness
l. Me, too, feel need for not so analytical, more feeling-type prayer
5. Chaminade and scriptural heritage: Benedictine prayer
a. scripture, lectio, liturgy, personal application
b. Bible in Cs day: not so available, not so encouraged
c. Cham deeply immersed
d. Love for bible, love for liturgy, tho diff from today
e. Med on creed: each truth lights up from inside, principle of life
f. Not vision, experience but faith – don’t ever expect something different
g. Not activism or effort but faith, Providence – slow discernment, looking for signs
h. Mantra, Jesus prayer, breathing, murmuring
i. Vip for me – may depend on personality type
j. Very relaxing, concentrating, approaching oriental med, early Church
6. Carmelite: mystical experience (Teresa, John)
a. cautious, but mysticism VIP:
b. Cs prayer of faith, presence of God
c. Caution about Jansenism: vs. overly enthusiastic displays, overly rigorous
d. Caution about Quietism: doing nothing: need for effort, active approach
e. Yet Cham seems to have had such experiences
f. Pure faith as key
g. My experience & others: sometimes a feeling takes over; pure fe is key
h. Prayer of simplicity (Teresa); PRAYER OF FAITH –
i. this is what prayer is for: to penetrate oneself w faith, faith of the heart
7. Oriental prayer – meditation – using esp Benedictine, Carmelite styles
Not heady, we have more ideas and methods
Sense, feeling, attitude, new level of awareness
PRAYER OF FAITH AND PRESENCE OF GOD as Cs best work:
2 quotes
Chaminade: PRESENCE OF GOD – we are in God like fish in water, quote Writings on Mental Prayer, 379ab
Quote from Merton
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