Visualize Jesus: Ten Ways to Christian Meditation

VISUALIZE JESUS

TEN WAYS TO CHRISTIAN

MEDITATION

By

Deacon Farid A. Chouery

P.E., S.E., CL, CHT, NTS, SD (Note 1)

Note 1 – P.E. = Professional Engineer (Electrical, Civil) – S.E. = Structural Engineer – CL = Certified Counselor – CHT = Clinical Hypnotherapist – NTS = NEURO-THERAPY Specialist – SD = Spiritual Director

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from NIV

Thank you to Steve Herman, Marilynn Aron, Robin Pichahchy, Marilyn Michael, Cathy Tinker, Pastor Malcom Unseth, Pastor Wayne Sneva, Pastor Erik Wilson Weiberg, Pastor Laurie Jones, R. Barry Fritts, Lars Sandven, Pastor Gary Shavey, Souhad Khoury, Fr. Charles Kattan, Matt Robkin, Ray D. Willms, Deacon Philippe Marquis, Fr. Damon Geiger, osst, Fr. Robert Arida, Fr. Samir Abu Lail, Most Rev. John Elya Archbishop Eparch Emeritus for Melkite Church USA and Most Rev. Archbishop Cyril Bustros for Melkite Church USA, Sister Laura Swan, OSB, Sister Mary Giles Mailhot, OSB, Sister Lucy Wynkoop, OSB St Placid Priory and Sister Clare Josef-Maier, MA, LMHCA Lutheran Counseling Network.

Additional thanks to the medical profession:

Warren Fein, M.D.

Martin M. Johnson, M.D.

Ralph Malott, M.D.

Vernon Neppe, M.D.

Carol A. Friedel, DDS, PS

Adel E. Chouchani, M.D. and his wife Yasmine.

Arpenik Avakian, M.D., Ph.D.

Also, thanks to the editor and laying out the book

Gayle Solberg Dreher, the editor Debbie S. Mazur, the editor William Filiceti, Michael Khoury, Rev Fred Saato and the editor Shirley Doolittle Egerdahl

A special thanks to my wife Bernice and my daughter Alexis.

Thanks to the Greek Catholic (Melkite) web site for the front cover icon

Copyrighted 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2015 by Farid Chouery

Content can only be used with permission from the author.

Christ is the Key

Copyrighted 2003 by Farid Chouery

Content can only be used with permission from the author.

10th Edition – For release

ISBN: 1-59971-329-2

Chouery’s Publishing Co.

Seattle, WA for 3rd Edition

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INDEX

--Introduction

--Chapter 1: Christian Meditation is a prayer of Faith

--Chapter 2: Meditation Techniques

--Chapter 3: First Meditation: Numbers

--Chapter 4: Second Meditation: Gathering

--Chapter 5: Third Meditation: Law

--Chapter 6: Fourth Meditation: The Day of Rest

--Chapter 7: Fifth Meditation: Feelings

--Chapter 8: Sixth Meditation: Humanity

--Chapter 9: Seventh Meditation: Body and Mind

--Chapter 10: Eighth Meditation: A New Beginning

--Chapter 11: Ninth Meditation: New Birth

--Chapter 12: Tenth Meditation: Growth

--Chapter 13: Christ’s position on human needs related to meditation

--Chapter 14: Closure

--Appendix A

--Appendix B

--Appendix C

--Appendix D

--References

Introduction

Meditation is praying with all your inner being using your five senses. Meditation is not a practice that is only for Eastern religions. It can be applied to our Christian faith. It does not have to take a lot of energy to do; you can focus on a light source. As I have learned, the essence is to visualize Jesus.

One should not be afraid to visualize it is similar to day dreaming. Architects and engineers visualize their building projects frequently and they build their structures successfully. Note: the visualized building always differ from the real construction. In the same manner, we visualize God to the best we can in a prayer of faith. Visualization of the Lord works and it is a great mystery why it does, however we do not need to try to understand it. Visualizing Jesus can cleanse the mind.

Is biblical meditation the same as Eastern meditation? No, because in the latter, you empty your mind. In the former, you fill your mind with the things of God. Biblical meditation means to quietly ruminate — turning in your mind over and over, phrase by phrase — the truths of God. However, it should not matter what religion is used because Jesus is love and can always be visualized with any religion. The question is: can you allocate a corner in your brain for Jesus?

I started my meditation when I was around 10 years old in Cairo, Egypt. I always heard my dad (who learned from his parents and his church) doing the Jesus Prayer (Note 2). I learned to do it by praying

Note 2: The Jesus Prayer us an ancient prayer that comes out of the Orthodox tradition. It is a simple meditative prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Have mercy on me, oh Lord. I use the prayer as the basis for my meditation and to visualize Jesus. I visualize the sacred heart, the transfiguration, the face on the Shroud of Turin as an icon, Jesus as the light of the Holy Spirit, and the Jesus the most High Priest.

One of the best visual pictures of Jesus is what is hinted after the ascension: Revelation 19:11-16, on the throne Revelation 4:2-11 and before His birth Isaiah 6:1-3. Also the Epiphany (Theophany), it is the beginning of Jesus ministry (His inauguration) and the Resurrection is the end of His ministry. It is always a reminder that that he is both the alpha and the omega and both feasts Easter and the Epiphany are equally important, also to visualize the Baby Jesus for it was the first Epiphany. The way it has been working with me is I visualize the Lord and He speaks into my heart.

Make your visualization holy

Mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word. Psalms 119:148, KJV.

When you delight in the Word, and meditate on it day and night, THEN... you will be like a tree firmly planted... (Psalm 1:2-3)

And Christ is the Word (John 1:1) so make your visualization holy.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will………….Romans 12:1-2

When he who beholds that Divine and limitless Beauty, [and] sees the things discovered at every step to be so altogether new and unexpectedly marvelous in comparison to what he saw previously, he is overcome with awe by what unfolds before his eyes at every step. His desire to see [God] never subsides, because what he anticipates is far more magnificent and divine that anything he has yet seen………………………….Saint Gregory of Nyssa (d.385/386)

(Song of Songs, Hom. IX)

Saint Maximus The Confessor: Ambiguum 10

St. Maximus begins with a quote from St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Sermon 21.2, in praise of St. Athanasius the Great:

"If therefore it happens to anyone that, passing by means of reason and contemplation through matter and the fleshly, whether called cloud or veil, to become assimilated to God and united to the most pure light, so far as is permitted to human nature, this person is blessed by his ascent from here and deification there, which is granted to those who genuinely live the philosophical life and transcend the material dyad through the unity the mind perceives in the Trinity."

St. Maximus explains the terms cloud and veil:

"Why does the teacher say that the flesh is cloud and a veil? He knows that every human mind has gone astray and lost its natural motion, so that its motion is determined by passion and sense and things perceived by the senses, and it cannot be moved anywhere else as its natural motion towards God has completely atrophied. He therefore divides the flesh into passion and sense, designating these two parts of the ensouled flesh cloud and veil. For the cloud is the fleshly passion darkening the pilot of the soul, and the veil is the deceit of the senses, causing the soul to be overcome by the appearance of thongs perceived by the senses, and blocking the passage to intelligible reality, through which it is overcome by forgetfulness of natural goodness and turns all its energy to sensible things and also discovers in this way angry passions, desires and unseemly pleasures."…………(trans. Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, University of Durham, 1996, pp. 96-97, 99)

When did it start?

I was sixteen when the Six Day War broke out in the Middle East. The city of Cairo was paralyzed. I was caught at school without transportation home. I had no alternative but to walk 20 miles home. As I walked; I prayed. We were Christians in a Muslim city and my parents were concerned about our safety. My parents made the decision to immigrate to the USA. First my brother moved to Beirut. Eventually, he moved to Seattle as a Christian refugee through the Catholic mission. A year later, the whole family followed.

Prayers and meditations were the underlying factor in all of the family decisions. My dad grew up in a Greek Catholic seminary from the age of 12 (St. Ann) in the old city of Jerusalem and planned to become a priest. At the age of 24, he changed his mind and went back to Cairo to help his mother after his father died.

We arrived in Seattle in October, 1969, and I started to play guitar in a Roman Catholic Church and learned new religious songs. I attended the Cursillos movement (Note 3). It was there where I made a commitment to be an apostle for life for Christ and to help

Note 3: The Cursillos movement is a renewal ministry of the Roman Catholic Church. It focuses on three day retreats designed to train leaders within the church. It has become a nearly universal (and officially approved) renewal ministry of the Roman Catholic Church, It has spread to Anglicans/Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterian and Methodists.

others. I realized God could use me even though I was an engineering student and not following a religious vocation. Engineering is about giving safety and comfort - allowing people to live safely. In reality, an engineer should be close to the ultimate comforter and protector: The Holy Spirit.

I graduated in electrical engineering in 1974, I was 24 years old, but God had a different plan for me. I came down with an illness and had to be hospitalized. With God’s help the illness came under control but left me needing medicine to control it. I didn’t want to be left this way. I went to work in 1975 and I was fine for a year. Then the illness came back when I stopped my medicine and I went to the hospital again. My parents and I prayed about this. Our prayers were answered in two ways, first by sending a good helping doctor with the right medicine that I used for 18 years. Presently, I am taking better medicines as new researches was discovered and have a new doctor since my first doctor retired. Currently the illness has been under control since 1983 with no episodes but I still suffer the illness. However, medicine and meditation helps tremendously. Second when a doctor friend told me about relaxation tapes she was using to help her with her medical exams. I first used the tapes to study for my final for my Masters in Electrical Engineering in 1977. I got a perfect score. This was my first introduction to deep meditation that involved using deep concentration as a core and other techniques such as hypnosis, NEURO-THERAPY, biofeedback and kinesthetic.

In 1979 I obtained my master degree in electrical engineering and I took a seminar (PSI World) and learned about a deep meditation technique similar to NEURO-THERAPY. The technique was for positive thinking and organizing your mind. It also helps to focus on what you want out of life. After using the meditation technique several times, I realized Jesus was a missing factor and I need to incorporate my faith into the practice. He said my yoke is easy; faith in him alone will produce better results and find meaning to life. I discovered one can pray in the conscious mind or the sub-conscious mind as in meditation or deep meditation. As I started imaging God in my meditations I discovered that the image is a personal choice. The key is to concentrate on one perfect and holy God.

I started to put together a notebook to improve my technique. The notebook helped me tremendously. Years later I took NEURO- THERAPY (Note 4) to stop smoking. The sessions put me on the

Note 4: Throughout the book NEURO-THERAPHY techniques are suggested for deep meditations, since the author has used it and know it works. There may be other techniques that can do as good a job and maybe in the future better techniques can be discovered. We do not want to limit the reader to one technique for deep meditation and the reader is free to find a suitable technique for deep meditation.

right track and I finally stopped smoking three years later. I talked to a NEURO-THERAPY specialist who works with cancer patients and asked if they use Christ in sessions to heal people. She said they don’t because they can’t know if their patients believe in God. This surprised me since I had benefited from incorporating Jesus in my meditations. I felt the call to help others do the same. This call faithfully started in 1979.

This is what I want to share with you in this book. The call for me to write this book on deep meditation has not been easy. I discussed writing a book on meditation with clergy members and they encouraged me to write a book on Christian meditation from the layman’s point of view. I am dyslexic and I