Meditation and Contemplative Prayer
Main articles: Christian meditation and Christian contemplation See also: Aspects of Christian meditationChristian meditation is a structured attempt to get in touch with and deliberately reflect upon the revelations of God. The word meditation comes from the Latin word meditārī, which has a range of meanings including to reflect on, to study and to practice. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (such as a bible passage) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God.
Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God that marks Christian communion.
At times there may be no clear-cut boundary between Christian meditation and Christian contemplation, and they overlap. Meditation serves as a foundation on which the contemplative life stands, the practice by which someone begins the state of contemplation. In contemplative prayer, this activity is curtailed, so that contemplation has been described as "a gaze of faith", "a silent love".
Read more about this topic: Christian Prayer
Famous quotes containing the words meditation and, meditation and/or prayer:
“Meditation and water are wedded for ever.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The real meditation is ... the meditation on one’s identity. Ah, voilà une chose!! You try it. You try finding out why you’re you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voilà une chose!”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Is not prayer also a study of truth,—a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)