MEDITATION, FIRST STEP IN PRAYER OR MYSTICAL THEOLOGY
The word “meditation" is much used in Holy Scripture. It means nothing else than an attentive and repeated thought suitable to produce either good or bad emotions. The first Psalm says: Happy are those who do not follow the advice ofthe wicked or take the path that sinner's tread... but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night (Ps 1:1-2). But in the second Psalm: Why have the nations raged and the peoples, why have they meditated on useless things? (Ps 2:1).
Meditation, therefore, is made for good and for evil. However, the word meditation is usually used in Holy Scripture for the attention we pay to divine mysteries in order to awaken [in us] love for them. Hence, this usage has been, so to say, canonized by the common consent of theologians, just like the words “angel" and “zeal". Similarly, “fraud" and “devil" have been given a bad meaning. Thus, now when we say meditation, we intend to speak about that which is holy. With meditation we begin mystical theology.
Every meditation is a thought but every thought is not a meditation. Many times we have thoughts in which our spirit wanders without purpose or any aim for the sake of enjoyment. Thus we see common flies flying here and there on the flowers without drawing anything from them. This kind of thought, however attentive it may be, cannot be called meditation. Hence it should be called simply thought. Sometimes we think intently of something, to learn its causes, its effects, its qualities. This thought is termed study. In it the spirit acts like insects which fly indiscriminately over flowers and leaves to eat them and nourish themselves with them. But when we think of divine mysteries, not to learn but to love them, it is meditating. This experience is meditation. In it our spirit is not like the fly which seeks simply pleasure nor like the insect which eats and fills itself. Our spirit [in meditation] is like a sacred bee. It goes here and there on the flowers of divine mysteries to draw from them the honey of divine love.
However, many are always dreamers. They are attached to some useless thoughts almost without knowing what they are thinking about. It is astonishing that they pay attention to it only by oversight. They would like not to have such thoughts. The witness to it is the one who said: My thoughts are distracted, tormenting my heart (Job 17:11).[1] Many also study. By hard work, they fill themselves with vanity, being unable to resist curiosity. But there are few who occupy themselves with meditation to warm their heart with heavenly love. In short, thought and study occupy themselves with all kinds of objects. But meditation about which we are speaking now concerns only about objects the consideration of which can make us good and devout persons. So that meditation is none other than an attentive and repeated thought kept up willingly in the mind. Its aim is to arouse the human will to holy, salvific emotions,[2] deliberate decisions.
The word of God, in fact, explains very well in what does meditation consist by an excellent comparison. Hezekiah wishes to express in his canticle the careful reflection he made on his suffering: I will cry like a young swallow and will meditate like a dove (Is 38: 14). For my dear Theotimus, the young swallows open wide their beaks when they chirp. On the contrary of all the birds, doves make their murmuring with beaks closed and shut up. They roll their voice in their throat and chest without any sound coming out except by way of re-echoing and resounding. This little murmuring serves them equally to express their grief as well as their love.
To show that in the midst of his sufferings he was making many vocal prayers, Hezekiah says: I will cry like a young swallow I open my mouth to utter before God many mournful laments. To witness that he also made use of mental prayer, he adds: I will meditate like a dove. I will roll and turn round my thoughts in my heart by an intense reflection. Thus I will stir myself to bless and praise the supreme mercy of my God. He has withdrawn me from the gates ofdeath (Is 38:10). He had compassion on my misery. Thus says Isaiah: We growl or make noise like bear's and moan meditating like doves (Is 59:11). The noise of the bear's relate to exclamations by which we cry in vocal prayer and moaning of the doves to holy meditation.
The doves make their murmuring not only on occasions of sorrow but also of love and joy. To make us aware of it, the sacred spouse, describing the spring time of nature in order to express the graces of spiritual springtime, says: The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land (Song 2:12). Hence in the spring time the dove begins to warm up to love which it shows by its cooing which becomes more frequent. And soon after: O my dove, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your heart is sweet and your face is lovely (Song 2:14) and graceful. He wishes to say, Theotimus, that the devout human spirit is very pleasing to him when it presents itself before him and when it meditates to warm itself to awaken spiritual love. The doves do so to awaken themselves and their mates to their natural loves. Thus [Hezekiah] had said: I will meditate like a dove. He expresses the same idea in a different way: I will think over again before you, O my God, all my years in the bitterness of my soul (Is 38:15). For, to meditate and to think over again, for stirring up emotions, is the same thing.
Moses advices the people to recall the favours they received from God and adds this reason: Therefore keep the commandments ofthe Lord yourGod, by walking in his ways and by fearing him (Dt 8:6). Our Lord God himself gave this commandment to Joshua: This book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it (Josh 1:8). What is expressed in one passage by the word meditate is declared in another as thinking over again. Repeated thought and meditation lead us to arouse emotions, resolutions and actions. To point out this, it is said in one passage and the other that we should think over again and meditate on the law to keep and practise it. It is in this sense that the apostle [St. Paul] exhorts us: Consider who endured such hostility against himselffrom sinners so that you may not grow weary or lose heart (Heb 8:3). When he says “consider" it is equivalent to saying “meditate." Why does he wish that we meditate on the holy passion? Certainly, not that we become learned but that we may become patient and courageous on the path to heaven. David says: Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long (Ps 119:97). He meditates on the law because he cherishes it and he cherishes it because he meditates on it.
Meditation is simply mystical rumination.[3] It is necessary that we may not become unclean (Lev 11:3,8; Dt 14:3,6). One of the devout shepherdesses who followed the holy Sulamite invites us to meditation. For she assures us that the sacred doctrine is like a precious wine. This wine deserves to be drunk not only by the pastors and theologians but also to be carefully tasted. It is as if saying chewed and deeply thought over. She says: Your throat [voice] in which the holy words are formed is a very good wine worthy of my Beloved to drink and for his lips and his teeth to ruminate (Song 7:9). So the blessed Isaac, like a clean and pure lamb, went out into the fields towards evening to be alone, consult and dialogue in spirit with God (Gn 24:63). It means to pray and to meditate.
The bee in springtime flies here and there over the flowers. It is not a random flight but with a purpose, not to recreate itself alone seeing the variety of vivid colours of the landscape, but to search for honey. When it finds honey, it sucks it, loads itself with it. Then it carries it to the hive, skillfully works on it separating wax and making comb with it. In the comb, the bee preserves the honey for the following winter.
A devout human spirit in meditations is similar to the bee. It goes from mystery to mystery not at random, not simply to gain comfort by seeing the wonderful beauty of these divine objects but with determination and of set purpose to find motives of love or some heavenly emotion. Once the human soul has found them it draws them to itself, relishes them and loads itself with them. It brings those motives and emotions and locates them in its heart. It keeps separate what it sees suitable for its progress and finally makes decisions appropriate to the time of temptation. Thus the heavenly bride in the Song of Songs flies like a mystical bee sometimes alighting on the eyes, on the hair of the Beloved. Thus she draws the sweetness of a thousand loving passions observing minutely what she finds rare. So that burning with sacred love she speaks with him, she asks him questions, she listens to him, she sighs, she aspires, she admires him. The [heavenly Bridegroom] on his part pours forth in her heart brightness, lights and sweetness without end. But this is done so secretly that we could say of this dialogue of the soul with God, as sacred text speaks of God and Moses, Moses being alone on the top of the mountain, he spoke to God and God answered him (Ex 19: 19,20; 33:11).
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[1] This reference given in the text does not correspond with NRSV
[2] In the Introduction, we have translated affection as “good movements of the will." Introduction, Second part, ch. 6
[3] To ruminate is to be immersed in deep thought. Mystical here may imply affections or emotions as thought alone does not make a meditation according to SFS.