ANOINTING THE SOUL
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THE SOUL Poetry, Meditation and Healing
PAUL KRAUS
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ANOINTING THE SOUL: Poetry, Meditation and Healing © Paul Kraus, 2020 ISBN 978 1 925494 51 8 First published, May 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by ST PAULS PUBLICATIONS – Society of St Paul P O Box 906 Strathfield NSW 2135 Australia www.stpauls.com.au Cover and internal design by Domenika Fairy
ST PAULS PUBLICATIONS is an activity of the priests and brothers of the Society of St Paul who place at the centre of their lives the mission of evangelisation through the modern means of communication.
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For John Main, OSB, in deepest gratitude
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The essay Discipline and Liberty, taken from Moment of Christ, Prayer as the Way to God’s Fulness, by John Main, edited by Laurence Freeman, OSB, Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2010. Copyright © The World Community for Christian Meditation, 1984, 2005 and 2010. Reproduced with permission from rights@ hymns.co.uk; Meditation, first published in In Good Spirits: Harnessing the Healing Power of Positive Emotions, by Paul Kraus, Michelle Anderson Publishing, Melbourne, 2014. The ABC of Meditating, from Faith, Hope, Love & Laughter: How They Heal, by Paul Kraus, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1999. My Father, from In Good Spirits, by Paul Kraus, Michelle Anderson Publishing, Melbourne, 2014.
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FOREWORD In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wound. St John of the Cross
Paul Kraus, like the great poet St John of the Cross, has used many images to convey to us how the divine anointing of our souls takes place. Throughout this book he illustrates how listening in silence to the Holy Spirit deep within ourselves makes us familiar with this healing unction. So we begin to experience healing within ourselves and discover in wonder the spiritual heart of our own life. Many years ago, Paul Kraus suffered a serious, life-threatening illness. He experienced feelings of anxiety, fear and powerlessness, but also a precious hope for a good outcome and a deeper experience of the power of God. Christian Meditation brought a healing light to shine in and around him and stilled his worried mind. For Paul it was that frightening diagnosis that brought him to this practice and so to a journey of transformation, of ever becoming. Perhaps our starting point is another of life’s burdens or just a constant urge to find what is ‘the more’ for us. In this selection of poems, he shares with us not merely his personal story of healing, in its fullest sense, but his lifelong search for the best that human beings can be — ‘in poetry, music, art, traces of the divine in each of them.’ He lets us look through the door which God opened for him and inspires us to work courageously for our fulfilment in our own way: 7
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Can we open the door to reality, to love and find the journey in silence and peace while truly knowing a state of being in this here and now? God’s first language: silence … all else transcriptions of this compelling sound … This is a book to use often as you sit down for your daily meditation time. It will encourage you to be faithful in prayer and will lead you to what Paul calls the ‘Eternal Light’, the wonder and mystery of the eternal Christ, the presence of Jesus. As the writer has been anointed by oil, may the Spirit anoint the souls of those who read these poems. Carmel Moore RSJ Founder of Living Waters Meditation Centre, Newcastle, New South Wales.
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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 DISCIPLINE AND LIBERTY (John Main, OSB) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
MEDITATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 WHEN YOU MEDITATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 STILLNESS, SILENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 SPIRIT OF CONTEMPLATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 UTTER SIMPLICITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 UNDERNEATH THE STARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 THE ABC OF MEDITATING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 A PEACEFUL HEALING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 WHEN WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 A SERAPHIC FIRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 THE CANCER RETREAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 CONVERGENCE OF GLORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 MEDITATION — PRAYER OF THE HEART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 THE KINGDOM WITHIN YOU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 THE SOUND OF SILENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 MEDITATION — A NEW REALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 A PILGRIMAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 A PARADOX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
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A MEDITATION ON NATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 THE MANTRA — FULLY PRESENT NOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 JOYFUL STILLNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 FREEDOM TO HEAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 MEDITATION IS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 A LOVING PRAYER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 A VIBRANT GRACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 CONVERSATION OF THE HEART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 VOICES OF HOPE AND HEALING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 I REMEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 EDWARD ELGAR’S LUX AETERNAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 THE PEACE OF CHRIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 A PRAYER FOR SILENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
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INTRODUCTION This collection of poems, written for the most part, in a traditional, rather than a contemporary style is concerned with the mysterious nature of the ways in which God heals. The following poems have been written over the past twenty years and longer as a measure of my gratitude to God for delivering me from cancer and heart disease. My life has been positively and deeply influenced by meditation, which helped me greatly, after the medical profession claimed I only had a few months to live, suffering from the cancer known as mesothelioma. In God’s goodness and wonder, especially helped by enormous self-discipline in nutrition, lifestyle, anointing, blessing and prayer, I have overcome almost insuperable medical odds. In a small but significant way, these poems are a testimony to the way God has been with me and ultimately healed my life, not merely from cancer, but in a much fuller way, letting go of regrets, forgiven from past sin and redeemed by God’s grace shown so abundantly in Holy Scripture. One could argue that I have been healed in a mystical way. Some of the following poems illustrate this phenomenon. God has, at times, worked mysteriously. The words from John Main in Discipline and Liberty that follow, as well as the poems are hopefully inspiring for everyone. May people find them touching, encouraging and a testimony to the ways in which God heals. Some people die in a healed state and indeed, there were times when I felt that soon I would enter God’s heavenly kingdom. Nowhere in these poems do I suggest that curing is synonymous with the fullness of healing, which has a far 11
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broader meaning, more inclusive and with eternal consequences. I hope that those across the world, especially meditators in the Benedictine tradition of the World Community of Christian Meditation, might find these poems helpful and enjoyable. I also hope that this volume brings a sense of greater meaning to their lives. Virtually all of these poems concern our practice of meditation in which we are able to share the love of God in Christ in the silence of our hearts. I trust that the beauty of stillness and silence will be found by everyone who meditates within this tradition. Paul Kraus
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DISCIPLINE AND LIBERTY John Main, OSB.
One of the things that I suppose everybody strives for in their life is to discover a real liberty of spirit. We are constrained by so many things — by fear and by trying to project the image of ourselves that we feel others expect. I think people suffer a great deal of frustration because they cannot be themselves and cannot make contact with themselves. James Joyce once described one of his characters as ‘always living at a certain distance from himself.’ Now what Jesus came to proclaim was precisely this liberty. The liberty to be ourselves and the liberty to find ourselves in him, through him and with him. Meditation is simply a way to that liberty. It is the way to your own heart. It is the way to the depth of your own being where you can simply be — not having to justify yourself or to apologise for yourself but simply rejoicing in the gift of your own being. Freedom is not just freedom from things. Christian liberty is not just freedom from desire, from sin. We are free for intimate union with God, which is another way of saying we are free for infinite expansion of Spirit in God. Meditation is entering into that experience of being free for God, transcending desire, sin, leaving it behind; transcending ego, leaving it behind, so that the whole of our being is utterly available to God. It is in that profound availability that we become ourselves. Consider these words of Jesus: Turning to the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, ‘if you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my disciples; you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32).’ 13
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Meditation is simply dwelling within the revelation, dwelling within the vision of God. In meditating each of us must learn to be wholly still and that is a discipline. When you meditate you should spend a few moments just getting into a comfortable sitting posture. But then all of us some time during our meditation feel like moving and by not moving, by staying still, we will undergo what may perhaps be our first lesson in transcending desires and overcoming that fixation that we so often have with ourselves. So I want you to understand that meditation does involve this real discipline and the first discipline we probably have to learn is to sit quite still. That is why it is important to take care of the practical details like wearing loose clothing, and finding a comfortable chair or cushion to sit on, so that you can be comfortable and so enter in fully and generously to that discipline. Then you close your eyes gently and begin to repeat your word — ‘Maranatha’. The purpose of repeating the word is to gently lead you away from your own thoughts, your own ideas, your own desire, your own sin and to lead you into into the presence of God, by turning you around, by turning you away from yourself towards God. Say the word gently but deliberately, say the word in a relaxed way but articulate it silently in your mind, ‘Ma-ra-natha’. Gradually, as you continue to meditate, the word will sink down into your heart. And this experience of liberty of spirit, the uniting of mind and heart in God. As you begin to meditate all sorts of questions will arise in your mind. Is this for me? What does it mean? Should I be doing this? Am I getting anything out of it? And so forth. All these questions you must leave behind. You must transcend all self-questioning, and you must come to your meditation with childlike simplicity. Unless you become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 14
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So my advice to you is, say your word, be content to say your word and allow the gift given by God. Don’t demand it. We should come to our meditation with no demands and no expectations, but with that generosity of spirit that allows us to be as present as we can to ourselves and God.. Meditation is very simple. Don’t complicate it. As you meditate this should become more and more simple, not more and more complicated. As you know, nothing in this life that is really worth having, can be had without a considerable amount of self-transcendence. It is the real loss of self that brings us the joy. And meditating is having the nerve to take the attention off yourself and put it forward, to put it forward on God, to look ahead. We are used to dwelling in a world with thousands of mirrors, seeing ourselves, seeing how others see us, constantly. Meditating is a definitive smashing of all the mirrors. It is looking, not at reflections of things, not at reflections of yourself. It is looking at the reality that is God. And, in that experience, being expanded into infinity. That is liberty of spirit. The liberty is the fruit of the discipline and so if you want to learn to meditate it is absolutely necessary to meditate every day. Every day of your life, every morning and every evening. There are no short cuts. There are no crash courses. There is no instant mysticism. It is simply the gentle and gradual change of direction. The change of heart that comes is to stop thinking of yourself and to be open to God, to the wonder of him, to the glory of him and to the love of him. From Moment of Christ, Prayer as the Way to God’s Fullness. Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2010. (Used with permission.)
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