On October 10th Archbishop Rowan Williams drew the attention of the Pope and other participants at the Synod to The World Community for Christian Meditation as an example of contemporary outreach and ecumenically shared contemplative practice. He highlighted especially the Community's work with children and young people. This was the first address by an Archbishop of Canterbury to a Roman Catholic Synod. Dr. Williams spoke about the profound connection between contemplation and the task of evangelisation.
Photo: Williams during visit to
Mediatio House, in London, in 2010
" In practice, this might suggest that wherever initiatives are being taken to reach out in new ways to a lapsed Christian or post-Christian public, there should be serious work done on how such outreach can be grounded in some ecumenically shared contemplative practice. In addition to the striking way in which Taizé has developed an international liturgical 'culture' accessible to a great variety of people, a network like The World Community for Christian Meditation, with its strong Benedictine roots and affiliations, has opened up fresh possibilities here. What is more, this community has worked hard at making contemplative practice accessible to children and young people, and this needs the strongest possible encouragement."
" Having seen at first hand-in Anglican schools in Britain-how warmly young children can respond to the invitation offered by meditation in this tradition, I believe its potential for introducing young people to the depths of our faith to be very great indeed. And for those who have drifted away from the regular practice of sacramental faith, the rhythms and practices of Taizé or the WCCM are often a way back to this sacramental heart and hearth. What people of all ages recognise in these practices is the possibility, quite simply, of living more humanly - living with less frantic acquisitiveness, living with space for stillness, living in the expectation of learning, and most of all, living with an awareness that there is a solid and durable joy to be discovered in the disciplines of self-forgetfulness that is quite different from the gratification of this or that impulse of the moment.''
>>> Read the full speech HERE