I had met Father Frans on my last Sunday in Taipei. He was the visiting priest and on behalf of the parish there, he had presented me with a certificate of participation since I was a lector there. When he found out I was Singaporean and going back to Singapore soon, he very warmly slapped me on my back. There were too many people that day to talk to as it was my last Sunday at St John Bosco's, but I remembered Father Frans from Holy Cross days.
Upon my return, I googled Father Fran's email address and dropped him a short email message. He replied to say he is now transfered and based out of Taipei. And he also sent me a Word doc with this message, which I will reproduce here because I think it is really helpful! It's a little long though... happy reading!
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Frans De Ridder, cicm
Beijing, 15th March 2009
1. Who is my God?
Of late the word “God” evokes in me something like a warm caring benevolent, healing energy and presence. I think this is a good development, a healthy evolution. It has to do with presence and not with existence. Christianity is not about to prove the existence of God, but rather His presence. This keeps surprising me in the Gospel of St. John 14: 7-11
If you know me you will know my Father too.
From this moment you know him and have seen him.
Philip said: “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’
Jesus said to him:”Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say:
”Show us the Father?”
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?
You must believe me when I say that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me,
or at least believe it on the evidence of these works.
I tend to believe that in fact many people who call themselves believers practice “de facto” archeology. Many a Christian thinks that these wonderful words were true 2,000 years ago in Jesus Christ, and that we have to believe that as we do believe past history. This makes many a believer look backwards, maybe with some nostalgia and vague wishful thinking, fast fading away in the demands of modern hectic life. Christianity however is not about archeology and past history. It is about our history, it is a burning reality. It is actuality! It must become our experience once again. The reason why in the West the churches are empty…Maybe also why in Japan Christianity has not made any significant break through as it is too cerebral, too much enshrined in Western philosophy and scholastic thinking.
God’s life and God’s love were not incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth only. God’s love and God’s life are flesh and blood in our flesh and blood. Incarnation is not relegated to the past. We believers in 2009, we are the incarnation of God’s life and God’s love. We are called to be and to become the visibility of the invisible God: the way we love one another.
That is the calling or the revelation in Christ. We could call it faith in the divinization process. All of us have to keep growing into our true divine nature, wherein we become our true selves, human beings filled with the utter fullness of God. Ep 3,19
The great challenge, the vocation of each and every believer is the awareness. We have to become aware of who we really are, and not what/who we think we are.
2. How do I nurture this relation with God?
Meditation/contemplation is my answer!
It may be good and important to specify what I mean by Meditation. In fact I prefer the word contemplation. Why? For quite many of us the word meditation is related to thinking, analyzing and understanding. It is an intellectual process. It is matter of the head. This would-- among other things-- mean that only the bright scholars can enjoy God, excluding 99% of humanity. In that case God is very unfair. If my parents, and my grandmother who was part of my family of origin, cannot experience it, then God is unfair.
Contemplation is not an intellectual exercise at all in which we reflect upon theological propositions. In contemplation we are not thinking about God at all, nor are we thinking about his son, Jesus, nor of the Holy Spirit. In meditation we seek to do something immeasurably greater. We seek to be with God, to be with Jesus, to be with His Spirit. It is one thing to know that Jesus is the revelation of the Father; it is one thing to know that Jesus is our way to the Father. But is it quite another thing to experience the presence of Jesus within us, to experience the power of His Spirit within us and in that experience to be brought into the presence of His Father and our Father. (John Main)
The great question is How? The answer is here:
Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert.
Silently, interiorly begin to say a single word. We recommend the prayer-
phrase ‘ma-ra-na-tha’. Recite it as four syllables of equal length. Listen to it
as you say it, gently but continuously. Do not think of anything-spiritual or
otherwise. If thoughts and images come, these are distractions at the time of
meditation, so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate each
morning and evening for between twenty and thirty minutes.
Twice a day, morning and evening, for half an hour!
It leads us into: dwelling in my love, (John 15:9). Jesus self consciousness becomes our self consciousness. Jesus self awareness becomes ours… more and more. It is a never ending journey. Each time we meditate we enter deeper into God’s infinite mystery.
Every time we meditate we take another step into the divine life that enlivens, brings to fullness, everyone who opens himself to it by taking this step of turning from self. (id.page 105)
The simplicity, absolute poverty of the mantra, dismantles the ego, melts away the self centeredness. It is hard work. Yet, it pays off. It is very much an Eastern Spirituality.
This is my main task, my way of keeping in touch with God and nurturing the relationship. I would even say allowing God to grow in me: daily, twice a day sit in absolute stillness, saying the mantra. And the good news is also that practicing this way: twice a day, morning and evening half an hour, gradually becomes a 24 hour day and night habitual state of mind: dwelling in God, learning to do everything from within God, the God wherein we live and move and have our whole being. (Acts 17: 28).
Meditating, contemplating seeing things from within God, is being transformed until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. (Ep 4,13) It is the “spirit” of Jesus, the spirituality of Jesus. “And when everything is subjected to him (God), then the Son himself will be subject in his turn to the One who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all! 1Cor.15: 28)
It is absolutely simple...but not always easy. It can be hard work. It calls for discipline, for “making time”. It calls for “focus-ing” on God, the only necessary. The one who has God, nothing s/he shall want. (St. Teresa of Avila)
