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The complaint of some is that "sacred word" is too close to Eastern methods. My own practice is inconsistent, sometimes a word, sometimes a phrase, scripture passage or thought. I don't usually use a visual. More often it is an invocation., I sometimes like Hebrew words.It's the same as CP using the method of closing your eyes and using a meaningful
word from Scripture or other place. It's called a "Sacred Word." For myself it's just "Lord Jesus."
In either case, we place ourselves in the presence of God who dwells within as you stated.
St Teresa of Avila called it "Mental Prayer." It doesn't matter if our eyes are closed or we're at
communal prayer using verbal words, the focus is being in the presence of the Lord.
As St Teresa said, "when we pray to Our King," He brings his court with him. The Queen Our Blessed Mother, Angels and Saints."
She said that interior prayer is the deepest form of prayer we can have, and it's where God speaks to us best.
I have heard others warn that if the mind is "empty" the devil can come in. St John of the Cross says just the opposite, that if we empty ourselves the devil has nothing to work with. Of course the mind cannot be "empty" unless we are unconscious. But we can have a quiet, still attentiveness.
Thanks for the input!
it takes patience. Buy have you ever though you heard a strange sound at home alone?
It seems to me that any digression into our imaginations is a detour to emptiness. We need the fullness that only God knows, because it is a participation in Him, the Holy Trinity. We do better to listen, and listen again, and listen again until we hear. Faith comes through hearing, and hearing of the Word of God. All that we seek, He has. Life and salvation are in HIM, not (yet) in us.
Like most things the word "emptiness" can have many aspects. We do not seek the emptiness of unconsciousness or mental stupor. We do seek a state of undistracted attentiveness. Attentiveness to what? It seems like nothing. But on the contrary, God is always present. Even in what seems to us as empty silence, God is present and perhaps speaking to us. If we could only relinquish our own thoughts and desires.
So we do not have to fear inner silence or what might seem like emptiness. It is not Zen or pagan or whatever. St. John of the Cross is a Doctor of the Church, at least for Catholics. And he was a champion of this inner journey through silent darkness.
I read The Way of the Pilgrim years ago, and through it I learned the "Jesus Prayer," which I often use as a sacred word
