ALL CALLED TO CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

by Amber Sturgess

Fr. Bede believed that all Christians are called to contemplative prayer—to pure prayer which leads us into the secret place of the heart to experience God in the spirit. He understood that through contemplative prayer and meditation “there is a Christian mystery that can be experienced in the depth of the soul and answers the deepest need of our human nature.”¹ Following in the path of Fr. John Main, Bede taught that we can enter into this Christian mystery by practicing meditation with a mantra. Although all forms of prayer are a means of seeking the divine, not all forms of prayer lead to true contemplation where the soul is fully absorbed in God. Bede discovered that we come to true contemplation through an intuitive way of knowing, that is, an experience of oneness with creation and with the divine through a passive and receptive condition of the heart. Praying with a sacred mantra opens the heart to divine grace and brings the heart of the imagination and the head of reason together. His own spiritual journey reveals the development of prayer in his life from simple repetition, to a longing to know God, and to a deep silent communion and union with the divine.

As a Benedictine monk in England, Bede lived and breathed the Divine Office, the daily communal prayer consisting of the recitation of psalms and canticles, readings of Scripture, and the celebration of the Eucharist. He learned to appreciate the Divine Office for the “special grace and virtue”² that it offered, but he also found it to be an obstacle to pure contemplation. Bede developed a way through the complexity of the divine office by reminding us that “prayer is an essentially simple act. It is the ‘raising of the heart and mind to God.’”³ If we keep the notion of simplicity in mind while praying we can withdraw the mind from distractions and through the “rhythm of the words” focus on the presence of God.⁴ Bede suggested that “if we approach the divine office as a sacrament, through which we are to be brought into the presence of God, we shall find that God gradually reveals himself to us. . .” through the revelation of the mystery of God, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of the Church.⁵ He felt that in order to know the mystery, we have to open to the words, the symbols, and allow them to penetrate into the heart to dwell in us and then we become part of the greater mystery beyond the words. Although Bede formulated an intuitive and contemplative method to bring discursive prayer from the mind down into the heart, he never accepted it as a form of pure prayer “where all thoughts and images are totally transcended, and the soul is absorbed in God.” ⁶

After 25 years as a Benedictine monk, Fr. Bede went to India to find the other half of his soul. He was searching for a depth that he could not find in Western prayer and worship. Bede recalled that he was learning contemplation in the monastery, “though I must emphasize. . . we had no method of meditation. Saint Benedict didn’t give any. . . obviously there was a real weakness in having no proper method of prayer to discipline the mind and to open it to the deepest level of union with God.”⁷ In his longing for union with God, the mysterious sustaining oneness of all things, he learned that this peaceful bliss could only be reached through a receptive heart, a surrendering of ourselves through grace to the unknown darkness of God. “For, each of us, of course, the degree in which this union is realized depends upon his disposition and the special grace he may receive; but the way is there open for all, and it is the way to the closest conceivable union with God.” ⁸

In India, Bede underwent a profound transformation as he opened more and more to the intuitive side of himself and surrendered to the divine feminine and the sacredness of the earth and our bodies. He became a Christian sannyasi. Naked, he reentered the divine womb of water and died, a sign of “total surrender to God beyond all form, names, images, concepts. . .,”⁹ and he was reborn and clothed in the kavi, the saffron-colored-robe, a symbol of being clothed in the spirit of fire. He also learned how to pray and meditate using a mantra, sitting in the Yoga lotus position thus bringing his body as well as his heart and mind to God in prayer.

Bede’s method of contemplative prayer draws from the Benedictine and Yogic traditions and consists of a relaxing comfortable posture, the silent repetition of a sacred mantra, a reliance on the grace of God, and the support of a spiritual guide or community. He emphasized the necessity of using a sacred mantra, like the name “Jesus” or “God,” because when we meditate we enter into the unconscious part of ourselves where we encounter our shadow, the repressed emotions and desires, and the collective unconscious, the sufferings and joys of all humanity. The sacred mantra acts as a life line to the risen Christ, the one who has already descended into the depths of the unconscious and has overcome these forces of darkness. When we meditate all of our wounds are opened up and exposed to the grace of God for healing which is why Fr. Bede cautioned against practicing meditation alone without the greater support of more experienced practitioners.

Before Bede became a Benedictine monk, he had studied English literature in Oxford, England, and he had a profound love for the Romantic poets, Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth. After moving to India, he recalled that one of his favorite quotations from Keats, “Let us open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive,” had made a deep impression on him and he didn’t fully understand why until he learned to meditate with a mantra. The path to union with God is not an act of accomplishment through “grasping, achieving, and domination,” rather, the path to the divine comes when moved by God’s grace we enter a “state of receptivity” where we become “receptive, attentive, [and] open to others.”¹⁰ He further learned that the Holy Spirit was seeking him throughout his whole life through relationships, poetry, nature, and prayer, always calling him into the contemplative arms of divine mystery. Fr. Bede also observed in his ministry as a monk and a priest that God is calling all of humanity, regardless of religious or spiritual traditions, to the way of meditation, “to open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive” to the eternal love and oneness, the point where we are all intimately connected.

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¹ Bede Griffiths, The New Creation in Christ, (Springfield: Templegate Publishers, 1992), 73.
² “The Divine Office as a Method of Prayer,” Life of the Spirit, 6 (1951), 77.
³ Ibid, 77.
⁴ Ibid, 78.
⁵ Ibid, 79.
⁶ Bede Griffiths, “The Priesthood and Contemplation,” Orate Fratres, 25, 8 (July 1951), 350.
⁷ John Swindells, ed., A Human Search: Bede Griffiths Reflects on His Life, (Liguori: Triumph Books,
1993), 62-63.
⁸ Griffiths, Orate Fratres, 352.
⁹ Swindells, 77.
¹⁰Griffiths, The Marriage of East and West, (Springfield: Templeton, 1982), 156.

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Amber Sturgess is an Episcopal priest and an interfaith spiritual director. She has been a long time admirer of the life and works of Bede Griffiths. She is currently serving as Interim Vicar at St. George's Episcopal Church in Antioch, CA.