Fr. Jerry Pierse, cssr

Since I started working, said Rose one night at our prayer meeting, I used to spend more than half of my earnings on cosmetics, manicures, pedicures, and the like. Recently, I notice I have stopped doing that. I never made a decision to stop. The change came from somewhere inside me.

At this stage Rose had been in our meditation group for about a year. What happened? I think that what happened is this: Rose had a very poor self-image and thought that she had to beautify herself to be attractive to people. When she sat in silent meditation she came to realize deep in her core, in her loob, that she was loved and beautiful before God. So her impulsive need to beautify herself ceased. When change happened in her loob her behavior followed.

In English we call the place where the Spirit dwells, where our interior truth comes from, the heart. However, the most accurate word to describe that mysterious place, that I know of in any language, is the Tagalog loob. I have been asking for a Visayan translation for the word or the word but no word “boot”, “kina-uyokan”, “kaugalingon” seems to have quite the same nuance as kalooban. If there is a debt or a hurt or a joy in the loob there is a particular force about it that is not captured fully by English word heart.

Loob, according to the lay Doctor of Theology, Jose de Mesa, is the inner self, the core of one’s personhood and where the true worth of a person lies. It is what makes a person what he or she is. It is the ultimate organizing center of human reality. It is the substratum within is from which ideas, feeling and behavior emerge.

Loob is also the place from which a personal relationship with others emerges. A person’s way of relating is described according to their loob. A person who relates well with others is said to have “magandang loob” or “mabuting loob.” Such a person is not only well intentioned but promotes the well-being of others by actual deeds. On the other hand, to say that someone is “masamang loob” means that this is a person of bad character as shown in their way of relating to others.

But a person’s relationships with self and others are of one piece with their relationship with God. If I am clinging or demanding in my relationship with others, it is 100% certain that I will also be clinging and demanding within myself and in my relationship with God. Loob, then, is also the place from which relationship with God emerges. It is the place of prayer. It we are all temples of the Holy Spirits, as St. Paul tells us, then the loob is the place within us where the Spirit dwells. To be present in a healthy way to the loob is to be presenting a healthy way to oneself, others and God. Prayer is being at home within our loob. It is cleansing the loob and being set free from within the loob.

Christian prayer is to be present to the presence of God. This God has been revealed to us as a Trinity. We try to be present to the Father/Creator God especially in our worship and in our devotions. We try to be present to the Son of God, who came one of us, in the people and the world around us especial in the Basic Christian Community. We are present to the Spirit when we are present to our loob.

Christian Meditation is a way of being present to one’s loob. It is a way of being present to be the giftedness and sinfulness within one’s self with compassion and joy. When we are silently and lovingly present there our natural instinct to move towards wholeness is set free. We become better within ourselves and the fruit of this is seen in our relationships with others. It is not the only way of prayer but it is a way of prayer but it is a way of prayer that begins at our core and moves out from there to transform all other relationships.

According to the Benedictine teacher Fr. John Main this is how to Meditate: sit still and upright, relaxed but alert. Close your eyes lightly. Silently, interiorly begin to say a single word. John Main recommends the prayer-phrase “Ma-ra-na-tha.” Listen to it as you say it, gently, but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything – spiritual or otherwise. Thoughts and images will likely come, but let them pass. Just keep returning your attention – with humility and simplicity – to saying your word, from the beginning to the end of your meditation. Try to do this daily 20 to 30 minutes a.m. and p.m.