A Little Essay for Those in Centering Prayer Communities
We all know how
lots of us Christians come to Christmas.
Some prepare for the Nativity by going through the season of Advent.
That’s good. Some go to Christmas concerts and listen to Christmas music.
That’s all well and good. Some decorate their homes to make them look festive.
That’s just fine. Some get ready for Christmas by buying gifts for friends and
family. That’s good and thoughtful. Some prepare a special Christmas dinner and
invite guests and family to come and enjoy the food and one another. That’s
exciting. Some make sure they read
Luke’s Christmas story when the family gets together. That’s surely worthy of
imitation. Some go out on evenings near to Christmas and sing carols to
neighbors and those in nursing homes. O,
that’s very good! On Christmas Eve some go to a special service and receive
Holy Communion. That’s so wonderful. Some make it a special point to help the
poor, work for justice, and promote peace. That’s great. All of these are good, wonderful, and great
ways to come to Christmas, and they are to be encouraged.
But contemplatives have another way of
coming to Christmas that is the best way.
In addition to many of the ways mentioned above, contemplative
Christians have learned to read the Scriptures contemplatively and then pray quietly,
often with only a word or two. They
simply let Christmas come to them. Here’s
how it happens within a contemplative woman, man or child. By emptying themselves of their egos, the
noise of one’s culture, and the preachy stuff of one’s religion, she or he
becomes a “virgin” like Mary. The contemplative realizes that deep within
herself or himself there is what Thomas Merton calls Le Point
Vierge, “the virgin point”:
[It’s] a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives . . . [it] is the pure glory of God in us . . . like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.[1]
As Carl McColman tells us in Answering the
Contemplative Call, “It’s virgin
in the sense of a kind of profound spiritual innocence” (24). Some call is the apex of our soul; others say
in the deep well of our life. Sometimes I think the virginal point is the image
of God mirrored in our hearts. However
you and I imagine it, it’s where God, the Divine Mystery, connects with us. It’s within, deeply hidden and silent.
We sense it like a woman senses the presence of her womb, often waiting for its emptiness to be filled with new life. All of this contemplatives intuit and sense to be so. Just so, sensing and waiting for the Lord, a contemplative practices quiet longing and desire for God. When she or he reads, for example, in Luke that Christ was born in Bethlehem, the contemplative knows that, like with Mary, Christ is most truly present when he is received, conceived, and born in one’s own Bethlehem, one’s own heart/womb—at Le Point Vierge, the virginal heart, the womb wherein Christ comes and is given birth. The virgin point, one’s the innermost secret heart, lies within—innocent and willing to receive and conceive like Mary--without an agenda, without preconceptions, without words and images, without ideas and notions about God or notions as to how Christmas should be celebrated. A contemplative is happy to be like Mary: empty, bare, spotless, untouched, vacant, waiting, and virginal. The contemplative does nothing except whisper “yes” in heart/womb/emptiness so God may quietly and in holy silence--without hindrance--place Jesus into his or her life.
We sense it like a woman senses the presence of her womb, often waiting for its emptiness to be filled with new life. All of this contemplatives intuit and sense to be so. Just so, sensing and waiting for the Lord, a contemplative practices quiet longing and desire for God. When she or he reads, for example, in Luke that Christ was born in Bethlehem, the contemplative knows that, like with Mary, Christ is most truly present when he is received, conceived, and born in one’s own Bethlehem, one’s own heart/womb—at Le Point Vierge, the virginal heart, the womb wherein Christ comes and is given birth. The virgin point, one’s the innermost secret heart, lies within—innocent and willing to receive and conceive like Mary--without an agenda, without preconceptions, without words and images, without ideas and notions about God or notions as to how Christmas should be celebrated. A contemplative is happy to be like Mary: empty, bare, spotless, untouched, vacant, waiting, and virginal. The contemplative does nothing except whisper “yes” in heart/womb/emptiness so God may quietly and in holy silence--without hindrance--place Jesus into his or her life.
Just so, the contemplative is most truly
Bethlehem, the stable, or the cave where Jesus is born. The contemplative
becomes the manger into whom Mary places Jesus. The contemplative hears the
shepherds coming in from the fields to visit to worship Jesus in her or his
heart. The magi enter the
contemplative’s heart with gifts for Jesus. Christmas and all of Christmastide is within.