Today's Lent Reflection by Fr. Laurence

Thursday after Ash Wednesday


Counting the days. Children do it when they look forward to something. Prisoners do it as they endure their incarceration. Spiritual pilgrims do it too – in a childlike way and because they are in love with freedom.

 

Community News

Ten Day Christian Meditation Retreat 2012 - Bere Island

Seeking, Losing, Finding

Ten Day Christian Meditation Retreat

1st to 11th March 2012

Bere Island, Ireland

Led by Laurence Freeman OSB

 

Read more »

Bere Island Easter Retreat 2012

Holy Week and Easter Retreat

1st to 8th April 2012

Led by Laurence Freeman

The Bere Island Easter Retreat will be an interior pilgrimage of the Easter mysteries as they unfold in Holy Week. The retreat programme includes regular meditation periods, talks by Fr
Laurence, the Easter liturgies with the island people with time for reading, walks and solitude. With its deep history and great natural beauty, Bere Island is an ideal space to open to the spiritual meaning of the season.

Read more »

Letting go - A Weekend Retreat

Facilitated by May Nicol, Linda Kaye and Terry Doyle
 

Friday 4 May – Sunday 6 May 2012

The Kairos Centre, Mount Angelus Road, Roehampton, London SW15 4JA

During this retreat, we will explore how Step 11
and the practice of meditation can assist us in the
process of letting go so that we can ‘Let Go and
Let God’.

In the silence and the stillness, we learn how to let
go of thoughts, desires and expectations and to
open our hearts to God's ‘grace, wisdom and love’.

Download HERE the Leaflet

Read more »

2012 INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL RETREAT

Led by Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB

with Gene Bebeau, USA National Coordinator

Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center
West Hartford Connecticut, USA

Saturday May 26 – Saturday June 2, 2012

Download HERE the Flier

Read more »

SALVATION OR ENLIGHTENMENT?

A Day of Dialogue

with Tibetan Buddhist, Dr Alan Wallace and
Bendictine monk, Fr Laurence Freeman

Thursday 21 June 2012—10.00 am to 4.00 pm
Westminster Cathedral hall, Ambrosden Avenue, London

Are Salvation and Enlightenment the same? If so, at what level do - or can - different traditions achieve sameness? From their common ground of friendship formed over many years, Alan and Laurence will lead an exploration of these important issues. Vital as these questions are to good dialogue and mutual understanding, both agree it is in the practice of meditation that the real answers are experienced. The day will therefore include both their talks and discussions, questions from the participants and times of meditation.

Read more »

John Main Talks

Over several years John Main gave regular weekly talks to meditation groups meeting at his monastery.(They are presently being re-edited and will be issued in a new enhanced edition later this year, to mark the 20th anniversary of the formation of the World Community he inspired.) Each talk is a direct preparation for meditation as well as a strikingly insightful reflection on an aspect of the inner pilgrimage. They communicate not only ideas but the authentic silence itself. So, the listener is led by words into silence.

Click HERE to see the full page with the talk player.

Read more »

The John Main Seminar 2012 - Spirituality and Environment

The John Main Seminar is an annual event designed to broaden & deepen the teaching of Christian Meditation. It brings together meditators from around the world & those wishing to discover the practice.
 

Pre-Seminar Retreat

Be Who You are

Led by Fr Laurence Freeman OSB / 13th-16th august


The Christian understanding of Jesus as the Word made flesh transforms the way we see our own humanity and also the natural world we are part of. "Nothing that is not against nature is against Christ" (Clement of Alexandria) - this liberating insight has to be more courageously embraced in our own time so that the mystery of Christ can become fully transformative. But this is not only a theological project. It begins - and finds its culmination - at the deeply personal level of experience. And this is why meditation in our own tradition is such a blessing and necessity - it opens us to the mystery of the inner Christ and to the cosmic Christ simultaneously. Our daily meditation leads us to self-knowledge and also gives us new words with which to understand and communicat the Word itself.

Official Website

For further info and registrations download the PDF Flyer HERE

Read more »

Meditators' Blog 2/2/2012

DESERT HERMITS IN HIGH RISE APARTMENTS by Paul Harris

In the New and Old Testaments the desert has always had a special meaning and role for those on the spiritual path. It has always been a place where spiritual seekers retreated to find solitude, silence, stillness and closeness to God. The angels ministered to Jesus in the desert, St Paul spent time in...

New Book: Journey to the Heart

JOURNEY TO THE HEART

Christian Contemplation Throughout the Centuries - an illustrated guide

Edited by Kim Nataraja

Published by Canterbury Press in the UK, Orbis in the US and Novalis in Canada November 2011.

At a time when there is often a bewildered superficiality in the spiritual marketplace, this book will be a help and longterm friend for many seekers of all traditions as well as those without a named path.

Read more »

Bede Griffiths - Meditation and Community: The New Creation in Christ

In 1991 Bede Griffiths OSB led the John Main Seminar in New Harmony, Indiana. He chose to speak about John Main's thought on meditation and community and developed it in his mystical understanding of Christ. It was during this Seminar that The World Community for Christian Meditation was formed. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of this event the film of Fr Bede's talks are re-issued. They form the substance of his book The New Creation in Christ

Read more »

Read the Latest Weekly Teachings

Self-Consciousness Versus Self-Knowledge

The importance awarded to insight, resulting in true self-knowledge, is brought out by the essential advice given by spiritual teachers and philosophers throughout history: Man know thyself. We are encouraged not only to get to know the ‘ego’ and the way it is motivated, which will lead to the possibility of change, but also true ‘self’-knowledge, i.e. knowledge of the ‘Self’, awareness of our total being and of the Divine within.

Read the Latest Weekly Readings

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Ash Wednesday, Lent 2008,” pp. 2-3, www.wccm.org.

Lent is a time when we refine and purify the spiritual senses and identify the habits or patterns that pollute them. The means of doing this are the exercises we undertake in this season. It is not a time for self-punishment or repression. 

WCCM Worldwide

Javascript is required to view this map.

Recent comments

more