If a life parcelled out in 280-character quips, floating emojis and gifs, 15-second video “hot takes,” screaming headlines, disaster reportage and AI-generated thought clouds seems unsatisfying, Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB has a suggestion — find a friend, settle into silence and discover the sacred language of Christianity.

Freeman, an Olivetan monk of the Benedictine tradition, leads the World Community of Christian Meditation — an ecumenical network of over 110,000 people spread through more than 100 countries. He is heir to the Christian Meditation tradition which had its beginnings under Dom John Main and the Benedictine priory he established in Montreal between 1977 and 1982.

At the 12th Biennial National Conference of the WCCM in Canada at Victoria University at the University of Toronto July 24 to 26, more than 100 Canadian meditators gathered live and online to hear Freeman and a series of featured speakers, including former Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit Stacey Laforme, British film maker and conservation scientist Tom Mustill, nurse and health policy expert Louise Hébert-Saindon and researcher and business leader Sandra VanderVaart.

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The essential mission of Christian meditators in the age of artificial intelligence, social media and the kind of generalized loneliness people have experienced since COVID is to recapture and rededicate themselves to the WCCM’s foundational practice of gathering in small groups to meditate silently together, Freeman told his Canadian audience.

“There is no substitute for coming together… We are embodied beings,” he said. “We ideally need to be (meeting) in person. So, I think, if we could revive the custom, maybe in new ways… to actually get together in a room on a regular basis and meditate with other people — if we can, that is a very powerful way of communicating what we are.”

Meditation in the Christian tradition is the key to rediscovering our humanity, Freeman said.

“So we've lost the common ground, the rootedness in the Christ experience itself, and we find ourselves living in a flat, blinding world, in a secular wasteland, without the sacred, without transcendence, fearful even of losing our own humanity,” he said. “This is what reawakening our true humanity essentially means, and it's why the Pope (Leo XIV’s) first encyclical was called Magnificent Humanity. How many people speak about humanity as magnificent these days? So it's not about conversion by algorithms. It's about metanoia — the work of contemplation through the means of silence and stillness and listening. And it can be learned by anyone.” 

The contemplative language of embodied silence is the opposite of the marketing language of influencers on Instagram or TikTok. What the WCCM offers is the “powerful unifying presence” of the meditation group itself, according to Laurence.

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Like many Christian communities, the WCCM learned to use digital tools, from Zoom to phone apps, to survive the social effects of COVID. But it’s time to turn the page, said the global Christian meditation leader. 

“So my question is not what's going to happen in the future, because I don't know any more than you do, but how should we respond as contemplative Christians now? I don't think we respond by adopting the values of the prince of this world — by reducing the Church, or even contemplative communities like ours, to marketing,” Freeman said. “Meditation is a powerful spiritual practice found in the heart of every religion. It transforms the person who meditates — not through ideology, not by giving false comfort or by creating a shallow community. It transforms the practitioner, but through the simple work of re-plugging us into the spiritual mainframe, into our own spiritual nature. Which for us, you could say, is the mind of Christ, the Spirit praying in us — the spring of living water already within us, the light within.”

Laforme urged the Canadian meditators to take up the challenge of reconciliation by modelling and offering an authentic sense of belonging. 

“We need each other,” Laforme said. “Some people look at the Indigenous people and say, ‘How are you going to help us save this world?’ It’s not our job to save the planet. Our job is to help you reconnect with something you carry inside yourself, no matter who you are, and that is a connection to Mother Earth.”

So long as Christians claim to be seeking the truth they will carry a responsibility to seek reconciliation, said Laforme. 

“There is no greater sin than to be cast in shadow by those sworn to behold the light,” he said.

In the silence of meditation, Christians are challenged to rediscover the sacred language of Christianity, said Freeman.

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“The sacred language of Christianity is the body,” he said. “Because the Word of God was made flesh. That means, God was translated perfectly into another language — which is the human language, the human being. And that’s the meaning of the incarnation.”

The Canadian weekend conference was brought together under the title “Transforming Together in Peace.” In September the international organization of the WCCM will hold its annual John Main Seminar in Washington, DC, under the title “Healing the Breach: Finding Faith, Meaning and Dignity in a Season of Contempt.” The WCCM’s continuing online series on “The Future of Religion” continues on Sept. 1 with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rev. Dr. Rowan Williams.