Moment of Christ: The Path of Meditation

by John Main

"Learning to meditate is the most practical thing in the world. You require only one quality when you begin. That is seriously to want to learn to mediate."The central message of the New Testament is that there is really only one prayer and that this prayer is the prayer of Christ. It is a prayer that continues in our heart day and night. John Main describes this prayer as the stream of love that flows constantly between Jesus and his Father. This stream of love is the Holy SpiritIt is John Main's conviction that is it the most important task for any fully human life that we should become as open as possible to this stream of love. In order for us to do this we must learn a way that is a way of silence - of stillness - and this by a discipline that is most demanding.John Main talks about the many aspects of silent prayer: the way of the mantra, leaving distraction behind, fullness of life in love and silence. A striking feature of the book is its emphasis on simplicity, on transcending self-consciousness and moving beyond "techniques" of prayer.

Genres: Religion

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

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John Main was a Benedictine monk who taught Christian meditation.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing about John Main's foreword, Laurence Freeman remarks in the preface to this little book: "it seems to me that he knew it would be his last written message and so he compressed into a few hundred words an experience of prayer and a zeal to lead others into it which, to me, is the essence of wisdom's grand simplicity." This book is a helpful and accurate summary of what Christian Meditation is about, as practised by John Main. For those wishing to learn about this form of prayer - repeating a sacred word or phrase silently with oneself in order to encounter Christ within you - this book is a very good place to begin. It is not written with nail biting suspense, nor is it other loaded with jargon or complicated theology. It is a gentle working through essential themes.