Meditating has become “trendy” these days, a thing to do. Not for the sake of the soul, of course, rather for Vagely understood overall health, balanced mind, and (possibly) longer life. Fasting is also advised, twice a week preferably. Again, no connection to God, or penance or any kind of religious practice. Fast is prescribed as a weight control, to allow you to keep youthful figure and keep the body at its best. I know several sworn atheists fasting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, too – in expectation of Friday evening culinary abuses.
To think that our Catholic Friday fast – from meat alone – was replaced in many western dioceses with “other practices”, mostly to put the Catholics on the same level as the Protestants – a false ecumenism, so common these days.
Medical research, that small (and often misleading) god of our troubled times confirms the benefits of both meditation and fasting. The sooner you start the better, then… and so my teenage granddaughter was asked to bring a yoga mat to school…
Meditating without Holy Scripture and fasting “for yourself” is like drinking from an empty cup. No life saving water within, no real hydration. Eastern type meditations seem also to make people somehow detached, distant, less caring about those living next to them. Slim figure makes you move better, feel healthier, but if all of it is just about YOU, if you are constantly focused on yourself, how can you serve God and your neighbour? Even if the body lasts longer and functions better, will you become immortal? Cicero used to say that you cannot call “long” something ( he was writing about a concept of “long life”) that eventually ends.
So it is good to fall in love with the Old and New Testament, with our Scriptures and meditate on daily readings. Not that it is easy at first.
You have to tear yourself out of the noisy and demanding world to which you belong. You have to find a quiet spot, a quiet time somewhere. In time you can do it practically anywhere. I have seen people reading the Bible and meditating in airports, parks, university halls, even restaurants and cafes.
The most important difference between God-less meditation and God-filled meditation is staying connected with the Love of your life. Knowing that Love better and deeper… becoming one.
Anyone who has ever been in love with a woman or man knows the desire to know all about the object of love – his or her childhood adventures, former and current friends – everything. Here the goal of this loving curiosity is also – to become one.
So you take the copy of the Holy Book and seek out the Reading for the day. One – two sentences or passages seem to beacon you – stop and let them enter your heart and mind.
My favorites in the today’s readings are the following words. I fell in love with them years, years ago.
“I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me and heard my cry.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God”
“He stooped toward me” becoming man, spanning the abyss of difference between the created and Creator, by being born in poverty of Bethlehem, dying… He, the Lamb, stoops to me even now – forgiving my sins, taking them upon Himself, then embracing me, saving me… me and mine, me and all who turn to Him. Oh, what a joy…
“The reason why”
Maria Kozakiewicz