We frequently experience in meditation courses how much easier it is to meditate on a  symbol from nature than on a biblical text.  Perhaps it is the years of familiarity or the abundance of material on the text that hinder entering its depths.  What can we say to this?

- When a text is so familiar that we can say it almost by heart, we can overcome this "impediment" by reminding ourselves that it is precisely in knowing something by heart that is of great help in taking the message into ourselves.  Here we must be aware again of the different levels.  When someone explains the law of gravity to us we know it and don't have to have it explained to us again.  On the other hand if someone tells us that he or she loves us, we are not likely to respond, "I know that already!"  God's Word is the encouragement we need to hear repeatedly, even though we "know" it intellectually.

- We can only meditate on that which is simple and essential.  That means it must be "typical", "symbolic", as well as able to be remembered and communicated.  For this reason it is an important prerequisite for meditating on a biblical story that you reduce the large amounts of material to basic, symbolic elements.  That is why Andrei Rublev in his icon, The Trinity , is such a great work of art and at the same time an unique painting for meditation.  He was able to reduce the "wide angle" epic of the Old Testament story to small, important, basic elements.

The task of today's exercise is built on the practice of repetitive prayer.  After three days of meditation on the different aspects of the story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus, it would be well today to formulate a short, but rudimentary sentence from this story which can become a useful "guide" for repetitive prayer.  In doing this please pay attention to the following:

- Formulate short, simple sentences that help you to meditate on Biblical texts.
- The formulation of the sentence is not yet meditation though it is the fruit of meditation and the preparatory work for further meditation.
- The sentences should be as short and simple as possible without remaining so general that they could be applied to any Bible text.
- In every sentence alongside the word "You" (your, yourself, etc.) there should appear the word "I" (me, myself, mine, etc.) so that it is clear that this is a personal prayer.
- From these experiences sentences will change and simplify as you pray repetitive prayers.

- Mark 10:46-52 (Healing of the Blind Man)

Each day you might so formulate your prayer,

"Praise be the Lord, the Son of the living God,

You who. . . . . .
You who. . . . . .
You who. . . . . .
You who. . . . . .
You who. . . . . .

You might close with "Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the world, Savior and Brother, have mercy on me."

Remarks: In this form every Gospel story can be reformulated to become prayer. It was repeatedly confirmed by participants of this course how important the exercises were for daily Biblical meditation.  From my own experience the written formulation of sentences is a great help.  But there is also something more.  If we prepare the text in this way in the morning then throughout the day we can pray the repetitive prayer in different situations.  In this way we allow whatever comes to us in prayer to infuse the entire day more and more and all the tasks  we face that day.  We all know how quickly one forgets in the course of the day what was important for us in prayer.  All too quickly the delicate sprouts of the seedling are overtaken by the thorns of the everyday.