Meditation on the Master
according to
Clara Codd
If we think of the Master, as Master of Wisdom or the great Master of all, the world’s Teacher, the Lord Christ, we are with Him in thought, “absent from the body and present with the Lord.” (II Cor. V, 8)
As we think of Him and draw near to Him in imagination, something of His immortal loveliness evokes an emotional response. We cannot understand or realize the tiniest glimpse of that heavenly beauty without responding with growing love and adoration for “we needs must love the Highest when we see it.” Therefore let us try to see, to realize, and when our hearts stir in response, rush freely out at the feet of our Ideal; for love, adoration, worship, lift a man on mighty wings to union with the object of his love. It is a world where no insincerity is possible. If love does not yet dawn, if realization delays its coming, wait patiently and continue the effort for realization and understanding.
Some will ask, “How shall we picture the Master, since we do not know what He looks like?” It does not matter, since the mental image we create is not the Master, but a window frame through which we look into de Infinite, and through which the Infinite looks back to us. Make the window what shape you will, but always the same and look through it, striving to sense, to respond to, the lovely life which is the Master’s. If we have strong powers of visualization this will be easy. We may mentally build the Master’s form so vividly and clearly that we seem to stand before Him. We may follow the method of Saint Ignatius Loyola, picturing to ourselves in imagination in the crowd which followed Him, finally leaving all except the Central Figure, before Whom we kneel in deepest love.
If we cannot easily visualize, perhaps it will be more congenial to place ourselves in a Presence, keeping still therein, trying to sense and respond. Through this picture of Himself, this focal point created by us, the Master Himself will send His voice, bringing us to ever deeper realization of what He truly is.
It is well to picture our beloved Master always in the same way. If we have a picture of Him, or a statue of Him, gaze at it intently; then, with eyes closed, reproduce the face and form with reverent devotion, placing ourselves in thought at His feet. Picture him always in the same surroundings either in His garden or on a hill-side, or by a stream, or in an inner shrine where every light ia symbolic of a shining virtue of the soul we would acquire for His service and which shines gloriously in Him.
Entering that Presence morning after morning, contemplating that Loveliness, we begin to reflect a little of its beauty, and thus by contemplation “are changed into the same image from glory to glory”.
Into that Presence too we may bring, in thought, those we love and those we desire to help, and He Whose power is so much mightier than ours, will, through the channel thus provided by our devotion and thought, send them blessing and aid.
Meditation, Its Practice and Results, Chap. III, “The Realización of the Supreme”, pp. 39-42
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