The purpose of our Lenten disciplines is to deepen our conscious awareness of and responsiveness to Divine Presence. One of these disciplines is, of course, prayer. In her reflection on the Jesuit mystic ...
Lent is, in many ways, a purposeful embrace of loss, of letting go. With this in mind, though spring draws near, we harken back to autumn with this excerpt from...
A restructuring of consciousness takes place [as a result of contemplative practice]… In its definition of contemplative prayer, Contemplative Outreach—St. Louis names perhaps the scariest, most wonderful, and most critical fruit of contemplation: a restructuring of our very consciousness. Rather than simply altering our vision of God and reality....
While contemplative practice may be a recent discovery for many of us in Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, it has deep roots in scripture and the Catholic Tradition. God exhorts us through the psalmist to...
Our way of seeing reality changes in this [contemplative prayer] process. The statement above is an excerpt from the definition of contemplative prayer given by Contemplative Outreach – St. Louis. It points to one of the ...
To “pray contemplatively” is more about the disposition we bring to prayer than it is about the particular method, style, or process we use in our prayer. The key is that...
Contemplative Corner #195 On this day, we celebrate the revelation and realization of Jesus’ full identity: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:11). After a lifetime of praying, learning, and gradually opening to the Divine Presence that he is and always has been, Jesus emerges from his baptism fully conscious of his place in the Trinity, of his union with Father and Spirit. It is this full awareness of his True Self that empowers Jesus to move forward in his ministry of “reconciling all things to himself” (Col 1:20). The true purpose of our contemplative practice is to lead us to an awareness like what Jesus experienced at his baptism. In fully opening our hearts, minds, and bodies in contemplative practice, we open to our own participation in the Trinitarian Flow of love given and love received. We too experience what St. John of the Cross called our “substantial union” with God – the indwelling Spirit that is our life, given to us moment by moment. From this place of consciousness of ourselves and all creation as expressions of the Love of God, we receive the grace to play our part in the reconciliation of the world. Our doing flows from our being!
As we celebrate the Mystery of the Incarnation of God is Jesus Christ, we must not forget that, as fellow children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus, we are intended to live out and carry forward the same Mystery in ourselves. Rest and rejoice this season in the fact that each of us also carries the light of Divine Love, a fact which our contemplative practice helps us embody! Consider the following insight from Fr. John O’Donohue: (click title to view full article)
To proclaim Mary as “Mother of God” is at once to proclaim her as a master contemplative. To understand why, consider the well-known and established theological reasoning behind the title “mother of God”: that in birthing Jesus, Mary becomes mother not only to his human body and human nature, but to his divine nature as well. Mary’s “let it be done unto me” (Lk 1:30) is far more than just an agreement to provide a fleshy container for the Divine Son. Rather, she is consenting to receive perfect Love into herself, and to willingly undertake all the joy, pain, revelation and strife that will surely come with welcoming this Love and sharing it with the world. And wouldn’t you know, the woman who births Love into the world most perfectly is a woman of few words? Mary speaks only seven times in the New Testament, and is the most venerated figure in Christianity aside from Jesus himself. Don’t dismiss these two facts as coincidental! Mary would had to have maintained an interior posture of receptivity and trust – a contemplative posture – to live out her own identity of mothering Divine Presence in her life, and to prepare her son to freely accept his identity as one with the Divine. So must our contemplative practice assure us of our Divine union, and ready us to be a gateway for Presence in the world!
Contemplative Corner #192 Merry Christmas from the Contemplative Core Team! May our practices lead us to the same presence to Presence that our animal friends possess. The Wild Natvity. We have our prophecies too you know, we tell our own tales, and so we knew to gather there that night, ambassadors of our varied kinds all. Before old Joseph came back with supplies from the inn...(click title for full article)
Andy Dapron reflects: As a contemplative practitioner for several years now, I can admit freely that, upon turning my gaze interiorly, I still find a good deal of clutter. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me: the false, illusory selves that we think we are, with all their habits, processes, expectations, and reactions are built over our lifetimes. How audacious would I have to be to imagine it would take any less time than that to deconstruct my own false self? Where, then, is the joy to be found in this seemingly endless process of peeling back one more layer of illusion? The lighting of candles at this time of year helps me to have perspective. In the midst of a jam-packed run up to Christmas, simple candles remind us of the presence of Christ in the midst of it all, lighting the way. Likewise, in my prayer, in the midst of slowly divesting of the accumulated clutter of a lifetime, I catch the flicker, and grow in awareness of, that light of Christ, burning somehow both subtly and brightly in me, in you, in all of us from the first moment of our existence. That is cause for true joy.
Contemplative Corner #191 Andy Dapron reflects: As a contemplative practitioner for several years now, I can admit freely that, upon turning my gaze interiorly, I still find a good deal of clutter. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me: the false, illusory selves that we think we are, with all their habits, processes, expectations, and reactions are built over our lifetimes. How audacious would I have to be to imagine it would take any less time than that to deconstruct my own false self? Where, then, is the joy to be found in this seemingly endless process of peeling back one more layer of illusion? The lighting of candles at this time of year helps me to have perspective. In the midst of a jam-packed run up to Christmas, simple candles remind us of the presence of Christ in the midst of it all, lighting the way. Likewise, in my prayer, in the midst of slowly divesting of the accumulated clutter of a lifetime, I catch the flicker, and grow in awareness of, that light of Christ, burning somehow both subtly and brightly in me, in you, in all of us from the first moment of our existence. That is cause for true joy.
Contemplative Corner #189 When, during Advent, we ask for God to “show [God’s] face” (Ps 80), or proclaim vision clear enough to recognize that “Here is your God” (Is 40:9), we are clearly pointing to a way of seeing beyond usual, dualistic perception. Richard Rohr explains the eyes we need to “see” God, and their importance: Hugh of St. Victor (1078-1141) and Richard of St. Victor (1123-1173) wrote that humanity was given three different sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first eye was the eye of the flesh (thought or sight), the second was the eye of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third was the intuitive eye of true understanding (contemplation). I describe this third eye [contemplation] as knowing something simply by being calmly present to it (no processing needed!) . . . One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of contemplative seeing and action. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that “us-and-them” seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all discontent and violence in the world . . . We need all three sets of eyes in both a healthy culture and a healthy religion. As we prepare for a “rebirth” of faith this Advent, let us pray for such clear vision!