[lukaa]

Yes, in Catholicism there are Jesuit spiritual exercises tailored both for priests and shorter for ordinary people, similar in orthodoxy. I think protestants lack that element and that's why meditation is so catchy in America.

[adaisadais]

Meditation is big in both Catholicism and Protestantism within the U.S. Meditation is catchy now due to some of the research behind it as well as society always looking for the next panacea.

Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment.

Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Holy Spirit and denying our own selfish desires.

When God gives his law for humanity in the book of Joshua he commands the people to “meditate on it day and night” because that is the way he intends them to know Him better.

[thevardanian]

The denial of the self or "selfish desires" is the common thread here.