On a cold winter night on January 20th, Father Tom gave a talk on silent prayer at his parish church of St Patrick’s Fallowfield. About 35 to 40 people attended from the Ottawa Area; some who practice Christian meditation and some who had never meditated before.
Father Tom gave a profound talk on how God speaks to us in silence. Here are a few of the points that had an impact on me:
How important it is to be silent, active listening to God “be still and know that I am God”. How well we who meditate know that phrase. Jesus spent a lot of time in silent prayer. Two thirds of the time in dynamic silence with the father. Father Tom said, “The church has to learn to pray in silence.”
Lectio Divina – the meditative reflection over scripture as prayer. Father said, “sometimes when we read scripture or the psalms, even though we have read them many times before, suddenly we get it. The light goes on, we see it clearly.”
God is the only one that can transform us. The language of God is God in man; the language of God is silence. Only God can do the work in us when we are open to receive it, when we make ourselves ready for his divine grace.
Father Tom said, “Showing up to give God our time in prayer, is a prayer.” I thought, how true that is for meditation. Father John Main asked us to be faithful and committed to our daily prayer of meditation, and to meditate for twenty to thirty minutes twice a day.
Father Tom gets up at five thirty am every morning for prayer time, even when he has time off he still gets up at that time. He said he needs this time of prayer to keep him anchored for the day. Many of us may feel the same way; it is our prayer time that keeps us anchored also. It is being constant; listening to God in the silence; standing firm in ones belief. Showing up for God; that is a prayer; thank you Father Tom.
The evening continued with a talk by Eva Hegmann who gave us a very informative talk on the early beginnings of contemplative prayer, which John Cassian, a Christian monk, wrote about in the conferences in the fourth century. Cassian’s work came to the knowledge of Father John Main in the ’60s and he brought this way of contemplative prayer to the western world. Francie d’Annunzio then explained how to meditate as Father John Main had taught us. Then, Louise Rathier played Laudate Dominum on her guitar and led us into meditation. John Bryant followed with a psalm. We finished with warm refreshments and friendship before we headed off into the cold night.
Francie d’Annunzio, St. Patrick’s Church Fallowfield