Catholic Meditation

Meditation does not necessarily mean praying. For some it may mean deep thinking related about the spiritual things. In the traditional Christian terms, "meditation" is altogether a different concept as compared to other religions. In some religions it may involve thinking about the spiritual leaders, but in Christianity it is just the opposite: it is a thoughtful undertaking which is similar to prayers.

While meditating the body should be in proper position. It can be done kneeling or sitting. While sitting the feet should be slightly back flat on the floor, hands on the lap, palm down; head bowed and shoulder a little bit forward. Choosing a topic helps in meditating and something should be chosen from the Gospels and can be any topic recorded by the Evangelists.

There are four steps of meditating in Christian tradition. They are:

1) Placing oneself in God's presence:

Here one needs to think that he is being constantly watched by God. He is always waiting for us to come to Him. This doesn't mean that one should always go to a church to feel His presence. Before meditating one should bring to mind God's presence and it may take some time.

2) Ask for God's help

It should be recognized that without God's help nothing can be done. Benefits from meditation are God's free gift and is not a result of natural thought process. It is good to ask for help from saints apart from God.

3) The third step is actual meditation and consists of two steps.

The first thing to do is to imagine the scene. Thinking about the surrounding, about people, place, what they look like and what they are doing helps. Besides imagining the appearances any background noise or smell can be added into the imaginary scene.

The second step is to imagine interacting with people as much as possible. While imagining talk to people as if one is actually present and listen to what they have to say.

4) The fourth step includes thanking God for helping to meditate and all those people who helped while meditating.

Thus, with the help of these four steps we can meditate and it would help us in finding solutions to a few of our daily problems