Talk:Christian meditation

Loyola

No mention of Ignatius Loyola? DJ Clayworth 13:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

Meditation is currently a nominee on WP:IDRIVE. If you would like to see this article improved vote for it on WP:IDRIVE.--Fenice 15:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Does the pope oppose contemplative prayer?

Does the pope oppose contemplative prayer? I don't think so; if you disagree, please quote something the pope said, instead of falsely giving the impression that some fundamentalist tracts were written by the pope. Thank you. Samboy (talk) 19:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

In the first instance there is no support that any Christian group opposes contemplative prayer. And the present pope has made a statement condemning New Age practice among Catholics, which probably includes contemplative prayer. To clear this up perhaps you might care to offer some support that the Pope advocates contemplative prayer?

Mombas (talk) 08:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

"Criticism" section

Further to above question on Popes views. The section is very vague based upon "some" Christians. It gives claims that Pope John Paul dissaproved meditation without any direct quotation. Conversly, it gives some direct quotations without explaining the relevance of the commenter or anything at all for that matter. One of the quotations is about neither Christianity or criticism but rather is about saying "Meditation is important to New Age". The weblink citation about John Paul certainly does talk about his New Age warnings but nothing about meditation. The section is truly a fine example of the good reasons for WP:Original Research. There may be scope for a section on Christian critcism of meditation, which I doubt, but this section today is improper, has been for some time, and I plan to delete it in the next few days because it spreads funny ideas rather than information. I assume good faith and apologise to the work put in to it. Try again with a little less sermonage and a bit more causality. (?) ~ R.T.G 05:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Done ~ R.T.G 23:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Article clean up

This article seems to need cleanup and better references. Example problems:

• There are only 5 references, 2 of which are from the first paragraph and the St Theresa discussion that I touched up a few days ago. So there are just 3 references for the rest of the text - this needs help.

• The section meditation: many strands does not produce any coherent ideas, but lists the names of people and links to Church names! I think it needs to be trimmed back or deleted and replaced with referenced text.

• Theology of Christian meditation starts with a discussion of Hindu ideas! And it has very little to say.

• Scriptural basis has NO reference and the rest of the article has "citation needed" tags.

I am going to clean these up in the next few days. In the meantime suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, it ended up being a 90% rewrite, but it has 30 references now. History2007 (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Christian meditation/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Redtigerxyz ^Talk 13:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

• File:JohnCross.jpg does not have a source/author to validate its 17th century date and resultant PD license.
• Format reference Parry, Ken; David Melling (33) in format used in other references for consistency.
• Add author, publisher, date for web references - 22, 29, 34
• Add publisher info for all books.
• Can an infobox be added?
• Add a summary of History, Approaches to meditation and Denominational issues to summarize whole article per WP:LEAD
• Context and structure: Though Teresa's notability of views can be grasped by her St. prefix, explain why should the views of others be considered notable. e.g Hans Urs von Balthasar is notable because he is a theologian and priest. So reword "Hans von Balthasar explained the context of Christian meditatio" something like "Swiss theologian Hans von Balthasar explained ... "
• Are so many quotes necessary in Context and structure? It tends to be a WP:QUOTEFARM.
• For consistency, I have replaced haga with hāgâ. Please check.
• Jargon: For someone like me, who does not know the details of the Bible; Psalms, Joshua, Romans etc. are jargon. Explicitly say how they relate to the Bible. Also, Book of Joshua is a better usage than Joshua. Same applies to Romans. Romans 10:8 confused me. I related Romans to the Roman people.
• "According to Jean Leclercq, OSB, the founders of the medieval tradition of Lectio Divina were Saint Benedict and Pope Gregory I in the sixth century." What is Lectio Divina? Why is Jean Leclercq, OSB notable? What is OSB? Jargon alert. Move "a quiet prayerful reading of the Bible" description up or reorganize sections. Explain every jargon term at first instance --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 14:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
• "Saint Benedict in his Rule (chapter #48)" What Rule, chapter?
• tags added
• "Guigo II, a Carthusian monk and prior of Grande Chartreuse in the 12th century." I liked you giving a short description of Guigo, but what is Grande Chartreuse?
• How is St. Ignatius of Loyola related to Jesuits
• "at times asking questions from Christ on the cross, during crucifixion." Did you mean "asking questions to Christ". change into active voice for clarity
• "by Francisco de Osuna" who is he? Also dates like "St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)" for all authors in all sections will add context to them.
• What is # 2705 etc. Catholic church par.

ON HOLD --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 14:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Though I still think that publishers are needed for book references, following international convention, all other issues are resolved and this minor issue does not stop me from passing this article. Congrats. Good work GA PASS. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 13:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Problems in Eastern Christianity section

I made some of my own editions. Being Eastern Orthodox myself, I noticed that there was some false or misleading information provided in the section dedicated to Eastern Christian meditation (Section 4.2).

For one, the Christian hesychastic tradition does not use a mantra, and that is even pointed out in Wikipedia's own article on Hesychasm. I edited that part out myself and replaced it with something more accurate and cited some references produced by practitioners of the Orthodox Faith.

Another problem I noticed was that the Jesus Prayer, I think, has been misquoted as being "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of Living God, have mercy on me". I have never heard the word 'Living' used in that prayer in any of the parishes or monasteries I've ever visited. I didn't edit this text, though, since I do not know if this is a direct quote from the author's cited reference.

I also feel that this section is largely lacking sufficient information. I think it should be expanded to investigate possible differences of practice between the Assyrian, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern Rite Catholics, if there are any. A suggestion to visit the Wikipedia article on Hesychasm would also be appropriate here.

Finally, I do believe a promotion of this article up from mid-importance should be considered, since Christian meditation is actually a very important aspect of Eastern Christianity. While the Western Christians may approach the Christian faith from a scholastic angle, the Eastern Christians take a primarily experiential and meditative approach to gaining spiritual enlightenment. One cannot understand Eastern Christianity properly without engaging in the meditative practices it prescribes to some degree.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nahuatl6 (talk • contribs) 18:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)