‘Why I Meditate’ with Vincent Maire
A conversation with Vincent Maire
Since 2004, Vincent has followed the contemplative prayer practice of Meditation in the Christian Tradition. He is a teacher, oblate and Auckland regional coordinator NZCCM. He regularly organises retreats and community days and is a member of the Earth Crisis Forum, an outreach of the World Community for Christian Meditation which is based at Bonnevaux Abbey near Poitiers, France.
What have been the gifts of having a personal meditation practice in your life?
My discovery of meditation in the Christian tradition marked the end of a very long period in a spiritual wilderness. The simplicity, the stillness, the silence of the twice-daily practice was healing and opened me to new and enriching ways to build an ever-expanding relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
How has this practice borne fruit in your life?
When I worked as a hospice chaplain, I found that my years of using this form of prayer had prepared me well for a role that often involved working in stillness and silence. It is a prayer of presence, of being and not doing. I also discovered that my half-hour periods of morning and evening meditation were the perfect way to start and end a day devoted to care of the dying.
We say that meditation comes before action. Meditation has made me aware of gifts I didn’t know I had, and how to use those gifts for the benefit of others rather than for my own needs. The insight that “meditation shrinks the ego and allows the soul to grow into the space that’s left behind” is both true and liberating.
How important has community been in supporting your meditation practice?
We say that meditation creates community and I have certainly found this to be true. At the heart of my community are the people I meditate with every week. We encourage each other in so many ways. The Christian meditation community is global and being in contact with and meditating with people from other countries and cultures is uplifting.
How has Christian meditation influenced your spiritual journey?
Christian meditation opened me to the great and long tradition of contemplative prayer which is the doorway to Christian mysticism. It introduced me to the writings of the great mystical seekers and teachers including Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and our own John Main OSB.
The Jesuit theologian Karl Rainer (1904-1984) famously said, “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist.”
The ever-increasing interest globally in contemplative prayer, of the monastery without walls movement, (of which WCCM is part) is evidence that this form of prayer is feeding a great spiritual hunger for a deepening connection with God.
The world is responding to Jesus’ invitation to “go into your inner room” (Matt 6:6) hence why meditation in the Christian tradition is referred to as the prayer of the heart.