Perth evangelist Eddie Russell of Flame Ministries International has issued a warning about Christian meditation in the lead-up to a Perth visit by Fr Laurence Freeman OSB, the head of the World Community for Christian Meditation.
In a facebook post entitled The truth about Fr Freeman’s so-called "Christian" Meditation (an open letter to the Church)," Mr Russell provided a link to a page on his organisation’s website listing a number of concerns about Christian Meditation and spiritual practices taken from other traditions. "These words and practices are introduced to [Catholics] by plausible people and they are never questioned," the page states. “The result is that many Catholics may be practising New Age occult religions without realising it."
Mr Russell says that he regards the use of a mantra and the inward looking nature of meditation to be "a subtle corruption of authentic Christian Mystical Theology which I believe is leading so many spiritually hungry Christians away from the tree of life."
Authentic Christian prayer, he says, is a movement out of oneself towards God. He asserts that passing "into the innermost core of our being" through the discipline of meditation can elicit unhelpful "repressed material" and is dangerous in allegedly leaving people open to suggestion and possible demonic influence.
Responding to the page on Flame Ministries website, Tom Gannon, director of Campus Ministry at Notre Dame University which is hosting Fr Laurence Freeman on 16 February, said he respectfully disagrees. “Benedict XVI has written a lot about the future of the Church resting on three things that are, I believe, three sides to the same reality that I would call God, those being Truth, Love and Beauty. When you truly hear it, feel it, or see it, you don’t need to explain or defend it. It is obvious,” Mr Gannon said. “For people who have practised Christian meditation, the ‘emptying’ and invitation for Jesus to come is just that. As a friend of mine says, for it to be true you have to fall in love, you can’t be pushed and you don’t jump.
“One of the important realities in this puzzle is that we need to be open to God speaking to us, but also open to God speaking to others in different ways. If you judge the tree by the fruit, Christian Meditation produces a bountiful harvest.”
For info on Fr Laurence Freeman’s visit to Notre Dame, call 9433 0580. The above-mentioned webpage can be found at
www.flameministries.org/word.htm.