A well-informed web page has published on the Internet a list (rather incomplete) of the Retreat Houses and Spiritual Centers in Spain in which the Zen method of meditation is being taught and practiced. They are so many and so sprawled throughout the entire country that this news would have caused consternation in former times; those times when Catholics were not yet used to contemplating how their religious beliefs and devotions have become a constant laughing-stock and the object of daily profanation.

            As for Christian prayer –with a tradition behind it of more than twenty centuries filled with saints, mystics and spiritual masters—being substituted by pagan Buddhist and other Oriental methods, this issue is of no little import.

            First of all, we must take into account that grace is the main element of all Christian prayer –not to mention the higher levels of prayer. It is true that human effort and generosity have a role to play here (any presumption to the contrary would be absurd); nevertheless, they do not preclude the total dependence on grace in Christian prayer. A grace which nowadays does not seem to be so necessary, although it would rather be more accurate to say that grace is not needed at all.

            This substitution for Christian prayer is but a coherent consequence of having replaced a supernatural religion with purely naturalistic doctrines – which is not surprising, considering the decaffeinated, fat-free and light Catholicism that is being taught and lived within the Church.

            And yet, what calls for greater concern in this case is not so much the proliferation of pagan and naturalistic methods of prayer in replacement of the traditional Christian methods, but the absolute silence of the Shepherds about this phenomenon. A silence which, in turn, causes the present confusion and deeply felt perplexity that is affecting a great number of Catholics.

            Ruling out the possibility of ignorance on the part of the Shepherds, this silence corresponds to either of the following possibilities:

a)     The Shepherds know the situation; but, moved by a more or less justified or justifiable prudence, they dismiss the expediency of teaching the right doctrine to the faithful.

b)    The Shepherds acknowledge such naturalistic methods and they consider them to be a legitimate alternative to the traditional Christian methods of prayer, whose foundations are, as we all know, supernatural.

            Either attitude is equally disturbing for the faithful because they need to hear the voice of their Shepherds to know where to go and how to behave accordingly. The problem becomes more acute when one considers, as Jesus Christ Himself said, that the sheep follow the Shepherd when they know his voice, and that the good Shepherd goes before them; and the sheep follow him because they know his voice (Jn 10:4). The sheep will act differently with a stranger: they will not follow him because they do not know his voice (Jn 10:5).

            Regarding this, it is interesting to note that one could ponder this problem: Do the sheep not know the voice of the Shepherd and no longer follow him because he is a stranger; or do they rather recognize him as a stranger and do not follow him because they do not know his voice?

            Undoubtedly, both are legitimate interpretations. And yet, the flagrant oblivion to, if not loathing of, the supernatural is present in today’s Church in many and varied ways – among which the proliferation of pagan methods of meditation is far from being the most serious one.