Weekly Readings Newsletter

Readings for 5/8/2012

An Excerpt from John Main, “Being Present Now,” DOOR TO SILENCE: An Anthology for Christian Meditation (London: Canterbury Press, 2008), pp. 82-83.

If we are truly attentive to the mantra we cannot image God. We cannot construct any idea or icon of God.  In the context of this pure attention, pure faith, we learn that all images, ideas, memories and words fall short of the reality we are paying attention to.

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Readings for 29/7/2012

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman, OSB, “Frequent Flyer,” The Tablet, August 10, 2004.

In the dry heavy heat of a Tuscan afternoon the bus drops off retreatants, from several continents. They now have to walk carefully down a steep path toward the guest house and monastery. The path is a parable, made of narrow, ancient terracotta bricks, many crumbling, missing or replaced with new ones. . . 

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READINGS FOR 22/7/2012

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Dearest Friends,” The World Community for Christian Meditation International Newsletter, Winter 2000.

As many Christians today find their leaders regressing into a rigid sectarianism, they are learning to find in their ancient contemplative wisdom a truer expression of the teachings of Jesus.; It is not those who mouth “Lord, Lord: who “please the Father,” but those who “do the Father’s will.

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READINGS FOR 15/7/2012

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Letter Nine,” COMMON GROUND: Letters to a World Community of Meditators (New York: Continuum, 1999), pp. 103-104.

Meditation allows no self-deception. We see ourselves as we are. It is impossible to avoid seeing the ways in which we are phony or hypocritical; our illusions, self-deceptions, fearful insecurities, and compulsions stand out clearly

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READINGS FOR 8/7/2012

From John Main OSB, “Growing Point,” THE HEART OF CREATION, (New York (Continuum, 1998), pp. 105-107.

God is the breath of life. God is presence and he is present deep within our being, in our hearts. If only we persevere we discover that in the power of his Spirit each one of us is regenerated, renewed, recreated so that we become a new creation.

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READINGS FOR 1/7/2012

From Fr John Main, “The Life Source,” MOMENT OF CHRIST  (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 76-78.

Every great spiritual tradition has known that in profound stillness the human spirit begins to be aware of its own Source. In the Hindu tradition, for example, the Upanishads speak of the spirit of the One who created the universe as dwelling in our hearts.

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READINGS FOR 24/6/2012

An excerpt from John Main OSB, “From Isolation to Love,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 44-46.

We meditate because we know with absolute certainty that we must pass through and beyond our own sterility. We must transcend the sterility of the closed system, of a purely introspective mind. We know, with an ever greater clarity, that we have to pass beyond isolation into love.

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READINGS FOR 17/6/2012

From Laurence Freeman OSB, “Forgiveness and Compassion,” ASPECTS OF LOVE (London: Arthur James, 1997), pp. 72-74.

. . . .Forgiveness [is] a process that takes us deep into our own wounded humanity, where we find our true self.  Forgiveness can only be complete when it is as complete as the love of Jesus for his enemies; and that can only come about when we know ourselves as fully as he knew himself, and loved himself.

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READINGS FOR 10/6/2012

An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Integrity,” WORD MADE FLESH (London: DLT, 1993), pp. 55-56.

It often seems as if we rush through life at such high speed while in our heart there is the essential interior flame of being. Our rushing often brings it to the point of extinction. But when we sit down to meditate, in stillness and simplicity, the flame begins to burn brightly and steadily.

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READINGS FOR 3/6/2012

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Letter Three,” WEB OF SILENCE (London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 1996), pp. 28-29,31.

Meditation is the power of prayer that holds our attention at the still point of conversion, where we are shocked into reality by acceptance. By being rooted in this place of transformation which is not geographical but spiritual, our own inmost centre, we are changed from being an approximation, a mere imitation of ourselves, into the exact original of who we are.

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