Father Ernest Larken, O.Carm.

Father Ernie Larkin, O.Carm., finished this, his last book in the summer of 2006. He anticipated presiding over a January 2007 release of the book in a formal program in Phoenix, Arizona, with co-workers of the Carmelite Institute. God had other plans for Father Ernie and called him home on October 26, 2006. The release of the book was postponed until mid-April during a weekend conference sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) founded by Father John Main, OSB, in Montreal, Canada.

From the very first words of the preface, Father Ernie Larkin explains his discovery in John Main for a prayer form culminating his life as a teacher, or as some say: a Master of Prayer. “From 1969 to 1974, Dom John Main, an Irish Benedictine from Ealing Abbey in London, was headmaster of Saint Anselm’s preparatory school in Washington, DC….an exceptionally talented man with broad experience in diplomatic, legal and teaching fields….A fortuitous visit from someone seeking spiritual direction led him to the discovery of the mantra as an early Christian prayer form in the teaching of John Cassian (360s-430s).

“The mantra,” continues Larkin, “is the repetition of a word or phrase as a way of prayer, and John Cassian regarded it as a highly effective method among the Desert Fathers and Mothers at the origins of Christian monasticism.”

Since most Carmelites, as this reviewer, had Father Ernie as a teacher it is most helpful that he dedicates the very first chapter of Christian Meditation to his own “personal journey over the last 25 or 30 years trying to practice meditation and contemplation,” while he stayed abreast of the literature on prayer through those years. This prayer form in its simplicity appeals to layfolk who are running with the WCCM, evidenced at the April Phoenix conference.

Chapter two takes up the task of definition, which the readers of this review will surely be asking. And what is the relation of this Christian Meditation (with caps) to contemplation? Are the two forms of prayer so definitively separate as some teachers posit? In a helpful glossary at the end Father Ernie says that in his use of the terms the two are synomous. To further illucidate Father Ernie in subsequent chapters cites experience, his own and others, and then the relation to Carmelite tradition.

Father Ernie Larkin traces “desert” as metaphor from the time of “the Desert Mothers and Fathers,” through John Cassian, then to Carmelite sources, and finally to modern teachers. He expounds on the question, “What can the desert do for me?” and then on, “What can I do for the desert?” This latter question is prophetic, he says, as he takes up today’s ecological challenge of preserving the earth, God’s creation, helped by the “new cosmology” requiring a broader, more relevant spirituality.

Here is where this reviewer would want to see the prophetic witness of a Blessed Titus Brandsma, O.Carm., brought to challenge the United States of America. Father Ernie makes no mention of such, but he does hold up Teilard de Chardin, Mathew Fox, Thomas Berry and theologians Elizabeth Johnson and Dorotee Soelle. He affirms Dorotee’s call for resistance which “belongs to the work for justice in all areas of life, such as the economic and the ecological orders.” Father Ernie’s justice focus stayed simply on the ecology.

In a later chapter Father Ernie argues “Christian Meditation as the Soul of the Apostolate.” But I think the judgment is still out on this claim till we see more widespread Christian action to meet the challenges of the day. Father Ernie, nevertheless, measures the resources for change in Christian Mediation along with the allied lectio divina and centering prayer, all methods bolstered by Carmelite tradition to give promise.

Father Ernie Larkin, following John Main, culls riches from Eastern spirituality wherein lie Carmelite roots. The coup de grace is Father Ernie’s chapter on a Carmelite “aspirative prayer” that he obviously feels will not just be an ally in the spiritual journey, but an enrichment to the practice of Christian Meditation. Carmelite Father Ernie Larkin has packed a lot into 155 pages to cover the history of prayer, but he did it in a most lucid and readable form. Take and read, yes, but also pray it. Thanks be to God and to Father Ernie for this precious heritage.