Customer Reviews

Moment of Christ: The Path of Meditation

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The simplicity of his style will charm you. The depth of his experience will impress you. The sheer beauty of his message will convince you. John Main is without doubt one of the greatest modern masters of prayer.
His teaching is about Christian Meditation. That is the term he used for the deep interior prayer form, based upon use of a "Christian mantra" which he taught until his untimely death in 1982 He had learned to meditate while living in Asia, from a Buddhist monk. When he returned to England, he found that such meditation was frowned upon by Western Christian religious, although it is not much different from the Jesus Prayer used for centuries in the Eastern Church.
Over a long period, his superiors became convinced of his orthodoxy, and they even made it his task to spread the practice of this truly Christian prayer form. He had by then read and studied many early Christian writers, and in his writing often refers to John Cassian and others, indicating that this is, indeed, a prayer like that used by Christians from the earliest times. It had unfortunately become submerged for a few centuries, but Main was among the leaders in re-introducing a way of prayer accessible to everyone.
His writing is clear and will inspire you, be you a rank beginner or one far along on the path.

review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God

John Main's simple style and the authority of his talks is captivating. I'm not even a Christian and I was blown away by how great this book was. Christians who are not averse to contemplative spirituality and meditation shouldn't miss out on this book. It's a wonder that only one person has reviewed it thus far besides me. I would say that if you are the type of Christian that I mentioned above you would be doing yourself a favor by buying this book.

John Main's Moment of Christ is a lucid and mighty work. With a deep knowledge of prayer and Scripture in his own Christian tradition, coupled with a transcendent wisdom and vision of human potential, John Main guides his readers along the path of meditation. He presents the simple yet challenging and utterly transformative truth that when we meditate, our prayer is united to the prayer of Christ himself.
This book is filled with subtle wisdom and profound insight, as well as practical encouragement that will help energize and sustain anyone who begins this journey. As John Main says, we need "the humility to tread the way very faithfully over a period of years so that the prayer of Christ may indeed be the grounding experience of our life." The book is very useful for anyone beginning to meditate as well as those wanting to deepen their understanding - or for anyone who just wants to know what meditation in the Christian tradition means.
Moment of Christ is powerful and precious, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the spiritual life.