Contemplation or Meditation?
The actual usage of the Anglican Rosary can vary from person to person. One of my goals, in this series, is to dive into the ideas behind this wonderfully diverse practice.
So what does it mean to pray on the beads? Is there a difference between contemplation and meditation?
In secular usage, contemplation means something like “thinking about a topic with great focus”. For the Christian, it means substantially more. Contemplation involves the quieting of the mind, allowing one to perceive God’s glory without distraction. Contemplation, sometimes called theoria, is heavily emphasized in the Eastern Christian tradition. So much so that they speak quite strongly against imaginative prayer.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I think when many Christians visualize the idea of “renewing your mind”, they do so without even being aware of the most ancient prayer traditions. When Orthodox Christians read Romans 12:2, they bring certain presuppositions to the table. And since the New Testament was written in Greek, it seems wise to consult their tradition.
The word “mind” in this verse, is the Greek word nous. Now I am no expert on the topic of Eastern spirituality, but I know they look at this verse and identify it with contemplation or theoria. The orthodox concept of theosis goes very deep and is very ancient. With everything I’ve learned about it, I find it very compelling, and I encourage everyone to read up on the idea of it. That said, if I speak on it too much, I am sure I will fall into some sort of error. The reader may find it more reliable to do their own research, or I’m sure you can find an orthodox priest willing to explain the concept in more detail. They will certainly be more qualified to discuss it then I.
As far as this post goes, theosis is very closely involved with the idea of theoria, and the main takeaway from the idea is that it involves total stillness of the mind. That is to say, a mind undistracted by the imagination.
This puts contemplation in direct contradistinction to meditation.
Meditation engages the imagination to shape one’s thought world. The Marian Rosary is a perfect example of the use of the imagination in Christian prayer. Each Mystery involves a substantial amount of mental imaging and meditation upon the ideals and cultural memories they represent. The imagination, then, helps shape the character of the Christian.
Whereas contemplation theoretically secedes the prevalence of a persons feelings, meditation instead emphasizes those feelings and uses them to shape the mind. Both have value in the western tradition.
While the Anglican rosary can be used for contemplative practice to prayerfully remove distractions, I usually use it in a way which is meditative.
In one sense, we are creatures designed to use our imaginations to interpret the world of ideas. These ideas translate into character development behaviors, which in turn influence our life and our salvation. When we imagine the crucifixion of Christ, we are doing so based on the ideas that we have been offered through the collective imagination of our culture. No one alive today witnessed the crucifixion of our Lord. Even so, we all have a vivid picture in our head of what that might’ve looked like. We try to place ourselves subjectively into His shoes (or sandals, as it were). This allows us to experience substantial empathy, but also allows us to draw closer to the ideals which made His sacrifice so very meaningful.
Indeed, imaginative meditation can be an essentially empathic exercise. Personal imagination, passed down by tradition, becomes embedded in the religion, language, and temperament of a local culture. What was once a private imaginary exercise becomes part of the collective imagination of families, communities, and congregations. When we consider the life of an ancestor or cultural hero, we engage our imaginations to walk where they walked, and do what they did, and be where they were. We try to feel what they felt and think what they thought, and be all that they became.
Imagination is built into the human experience. It is inseparable from it, and gives those in the present the means by which to interpret the events of the past. The same imaginative impulse shapes our perception of the future, and perhaps becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is a sense in which we need both of these types of prayer. We hear God in stillness. And yet so many spiritual lessons are gleaned through imaginative meditation. I would suggest that these are potent and useful tools in the Christian life.
There’s more to be said - much more - and I can’t wait to explore these concepts together.
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