The Prayer Group

 

Led by Fr Stuart, a small friendly Prayer Group meets once every month in the Lady Chapel.  Through prayer, intercession, meditation and sometimes music, we gain strength from sharing each other’s Christian journey.  Our main sources of information and reading come from Dom John Main.  We always use the word ‘maranatha’ as our mantra.  (‘Maranatha’ is the final word in the New Testament and roughly translates as ‘Come Lord).

 

There are several approaches to meditation.  My first experience, with my late husband about thirty years ago, involved a group with an Indian Guru background, at the London School of Meditation in Lower Belgrave Street.  I did not really understand this, although it was a simple discipline, neither an alternative health therapy nor a transcendental theme, which I think sometimes frightens people from getting involved in the word meditation.

 

One Sunday I read in the St Matthew’s news sheet: ‘Newcomers of any faith are welcome to join an established Meditation Group on Wednesday afternoons at 2.30pm and/or 8.00pm at St Ann’s Convent, 10 The Downs’.   I was intrigued to rediscover more about something which had been popular amongst my generation in the ‘Sixties when the Beatles went to be taught by the Maharishi in India.  On the streets of London in those days flowers were handed to us, bells were heard tinkling and Afghan coats were worn. 

 

I found the meeting at St Ann’s to be Christian Meditation at its finest.  Each session was lovingly prepared in turn by the members and hosted by three friendly and very interesting nuns in a tranquil library room, overlooked on one wall by a picture of the Madonna and Child and with a large orange candle in the centre of the room, lit at the beginning of each meeting.  This practice had been going on for sixteen years in the same house, and since that first visit I have continued to attend.

 

The meetings begin with music, such as a Gregorian chant, followed by a poem or piece of prose read by one of the members.  John Betjeman’s poem about Advent is a favourite.

 

This is followed by twenty-five minutes of silently repeating a mantra, which surprisingly goes by quickly, probably because one is supported by the group, though there is a possibility of euphoria and sleepiness.

 

The hard part lies in remaining faithful day by day to the Meditation, at home, alone, for at least twenty minutes.  Morning and evening is advised to begin with and preferably at the magical times of dawn and dusk.

 

I have read that this practice, maintained, will build up like a house, brick by brick, until one enters an open space where ‘God in our hearts can become a reality, which can gradually flood our whole being, enabling relationships with others to grow in depth and understanding’ wherever we find ourselves.  The happy circumstance of people from at least five different faiths gathered together, discussing their religion amicably, proves that interconnection and unity are alive and at work in the world.  To quote Fr Stuart’s description, I now find meditation ‘like an oasis of tranquillity in a troubled world’.

 

Why not join us?  Fr Stuart or I would be very pleased to tell you more.

                                                                                                             Jill Smith