Discover Your Strengths. Live More in the Present.

Can mindfulness fit into authentic Catholicism?

If you're unsure about mindfulness, let's address the question that often comes up:  Can a faithful Catholic practice mindfulness?  What is mindfulness really? While there is no magisterial published teaching on this topic specifically within the faith, there is some guidance that we can draw from in the contemplative tradition and a document by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.  Ultimately we see that mindfulness, understood rightly, can have an authentic place in Catholic life, though it would look different than its Eastern or secular counterpart.  This course will expose the learner to the parallel practice of recollection in Catholic contemplative traditions, comparing and contrasting it with secular mindfulness, noting that tuning the attention to the present moment is a natural human capacity not owned by any single tradition.  Recollection is the practice of gathering your faculties to be more receptive to the presence of God, a practice that was recommended by St. Teresa of Avila to the nuns in her community.  Scientific definitions of secular mindfulness describe the cultivation of present-moment awareness with an attitude of curiosity and openness.  Given that God is the eternal now, by cultivating your present moment awareness, you can learn to be present in the here and now more often in your life, open and aware of God in all things.   What guidance can we find in Catholic teaching?  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), writing on behalf of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,* acknowledged that practices of stillness and bodily recollection, including those drawn from outside the Christian tradition, can help the modern person, often divided and distracted by life's pace, to come before God with greater interior peace. At the same time, he was careful to insist that no method or technique can master or produce union with God; that union is always a gift of grace, received rather than achieved.  This course holds both truths together: stillness and bodily recollection can help a person be more present, while it is God that infuses our experience with His presence (not our efforts). The mindfulness or recollection skills taught in this course are not a technique for generating spiritual experience, but a way of quieting distraction and cultivating attentiveness, the same posture of recollection that has prepared the Catholic heart for contemplative prayer among saints for centuries.  If you find yourself distracted in relationships, in prayer, at Mass, or among family, a mindful practice of paying attention to the present moment may be impactful in your personal and spiritual life.  (*1989, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation)