Conference-goers study Christian meditation in light of local Carmelite

By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
March 15, 2007

SCOTTSDALE — Friends and students of the late Carmelite Father Ernie Larkin remembered his prayerful influence and looked forward to reading his newly published book on Christian meditation Feb. 23-25 at the Franciscan Renewal Center.

They gathered for a conference hosted by the World Community for Christian Meditation called “An Infinite Expansion of Love.”

Keith Egan, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and friend of Fr. Larkin, described the conference as “bittersweet.”

“We thought for a long time that he would be here to speak,” he said. Fr. Larkin was scheduled to give the keynote address at the conference before he passed away last October.

“Now we have Ernie’s legacy, his teachings contained in this book,” Egan added, referencing Fr. Larkin’s recently-published “A Prayer for Today: Meditation in the Christian Tradition.”

He described Fr. Larkin — founder of the diocese’s Kino Institute — as a “theologian to his fingertips who had the mind of a scholar and the heart of a loving pastor of souls.”

Throughout the weekend, conference-goers listened to talks on the meditation technique taught by Benedictine Father John Main. He promoted the use of a mantra to still the mind and bring about greater attentiveness to God.

His writings were very practical, said attendee Kay Gunter, and described the actual mechanics of meditation.

“You can read Theresa of Avila or John of the Cross or any of these really heavy mystics and so few of them tell you actually how to do it,” she said. “They just tell you what it was like for them. That was Fr. Main’s great gift.”

Paul T. Harris, director of the John Main Centre in Ottawa, Canada, said that he was “delighted” by Fr. Larkin’s new book, because it integrated the wisdom of mystics like St. John of the Cross with Fr. Main’s techniques.

It’s an integration that the speakers said is worth studying.

“Ernie was a man of prayer and it was his combination of theological insight and practice that makes his heritage and legacy worth our pondering over,” Egan said.

“I think that his book would be particularly helpful to read a chapter at a time and gather with other people to discuss it in terms of their own practice of prayer,” he added.

For Gunter, practicing prayer using Fr. Main’s technique and Fr. Larkin’s insight brings great spiritual benefit, though not in the way some people might think.

“You’re not looking so much for a direct experience of God as you are looking for the fruits of the work God does in you during that meditation time,” she said. “Look in your life for the fruits of it."