A confrere once asked me to guess what he was thinking. When I replied that I had no idea what was on his mind, he smiled and replied, “Thoughts.” I knew then that I had fallen for his trick. What else would he be thinking if not thoughts?
We have thoughts all the time. We have memories of the past, imaginations of the future, and thoughts about the present. But how many of those thoughts are from God? How many of them lead us to God? How many of them bring us to be faithful to God at a given moment? We lose a lot when we hardly ask such questions about the nature, origin, and direction of our thoughts.
Jesus’ parable in Matthew 21:33-43 shows what happens when our thoughts are completely different from the thoughts of God. The landowner had nothing but good thoughts towards his tenants, and he did everything with loving care to provide all their needs: “He planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it and built a tower.” He was expecting the tenants to give him his portion of the produce at the right time. In thinking only good and giving all the good to the tenants, he is an example of God who lamented about His unfaithful people, saying, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?” (Is. 5:4)
However, the tenants had nothing but bad thoughts towards the landowner, and they acted on their bad thoughts. They were ungrateful and failed to give him the produce of the land at the right time. They were violent towards the servants who were sent to them: “The tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and the third they stoned.”
The landowner continued to respond with mercy by sending his son to reestablish right relationships with them after their infidelity and violence. He thought, “They will respect my son.” But they continued to show their hatred for him by despising and killing his son, “But when the servants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’” Their thoughts remained completely different from those of the landowner.
When Jesus asked what the landowner should do to the tenants, the chief priest and elders responded, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper time.” By killing the son, the tenants lost their lives and everything else.
We too can be like these wretched servants. We can receive God’s blessings and lose them all because our minds and attitudes are completely different from the mind of God. The more gifted that we are, the more we should strive to think and act like God, the giver of all gifts. Unless we allow God to shape our minds according to His own, we will abuse His gifts and eventually lose them.
One way in which we can think Godlike thoughts is through meditation. I am not referring to any of the New Age, self-focused styles of meditation, whose goal is self-awareness or enlightenment. I am speaking about Christian meditation that entails deep reflection on objective and unchanging truths and mysteries of our Faith.
The Catechism teaches us that in Christian meditation, “the mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking” (CCC 2705). We must meditate on the word of God, the saving mysteries of Christ’s life, and the perennial teachings of our Catholic Faith and morals. We must allow these objective truths to engage our minds and hearts till they challenge the way that we think, feel, and act.
In Phillippians 4:6-9, St. Paul reminds us of the necessity of Christian meditation in these words, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is pure, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” He emphasized the following benefits of assiduous meditation on divinely revealed truths:
1. Frees Us from Anxiety
Meditation dispels our anxieties: “Have no anxiety at all.” We grow in our knowledge of God by serious reflection on what He reveals to us in Scripture and in the Church’s Tradition. Our anxieties are dispelled as we grow in our trusting knowledge of God and His power and love for us through meditating on His words.
2. Teaches Us Our True Needs
Meditation brings us to know our true needs: “In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” We easily confuse our true needs with our unlimited wants in life. Divine truth allows us to see our truest need, i.e., what we need to be faithful to God at the present moment. We also bring to prayer our true needs after we have allowed God to reveal Himself to us.
3. Helps Us See with the Eyes of God
Christian meditation also helps us to see ourselves more the way that God sees us. God reveals our true selves to us as we meditate on His word. This truth deepens our gratitude because we begin to see our gifts from God as we allow God to reveal Himself to us in meditation.
4. Gives Us Peace
Meditation also gives us access to the very peace that is found only in the heart of Jesus: “Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” This is the very peace that Jesus promises to us when He said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you” (Jn. 14:27). We have access to this peace only through our communion with Jesus Christ, who is forever “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
5. Trains Us to Persevere in Faithful Deeds
Lastly, meditation brings us to persevere in Christlike deeds: “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.” Christian meditation is not just about feeling inner peace or knowing about ourselves. It also brings us to imitate Christ more closely.
We Catholics have to be very careful. Jesus Christ has offered us everything that we need to be faithful and victorious over evil in our lives and in the world. He has given us the Scriptures and a Magisterium to aid us in authoritative interpretation of divine revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He has given us seven sacraments that are powerful means of grace in every stage of our lives and in every Christian vocation. We have the prayers and examples of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the angels, martyrs, and saints to journey with us and assist us in our pilgrimage to heaven.
We can lose all these things if we are not pondering these mysterious gifts carefully. Jesus always has good and loving thoughts towards us, and He always acts on them. He gave us all these gifts for a purpose, and He continues to give us many graces today. Through meditation, we can be faithful to the divine purpose in all these gifts and use them in a way that leads to true peace. This is because Christian meditation “deepens our convictions of faith, prompts the conversion of our hearts, and strengthens our wills to follow Christ” (CCC 2708).
Without serious meditation, we will abuse them and lose them all. This may explain why many Catholics abandon their faith today. They never knew the value of what they had or the purpose they received them in the first place. They lost all because they never made the serious effort to ponder deeply the gifts and the purpose of the gifts in their lives.
The Blessed Virgin Mary meditated on God’s words all the time; in good or in bad times, “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk. 2:19). She is also the Queen of Peace who was faithful to Jesus till the very end.
May she help us also be people of unceasing meditation on the word of God so that we never lose what God has given to us but find true peace by being faithful to Him and His unchanging purpose for His gifts.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Photo by Christian Harb on Unsplash
