For Group Leaders from Pauline Peters

Dear Friends,

I’d like to share with you some news from group leaders around the world.

This has been a busy but rich few weeks for parts of the community with some of the coldest weeks on record in Europe. Despite the weather Fr Laurence managed a flight to Geneva where he spoke at an Interfaith conference organized by the Swiss Coordinator John Moderle. Fr Laurence was joined by Muslim and Jewish teachers Dr Skali and Rav Guedj to speak on the theme Sacredness and Silence.

Meditatio is the outreach of The World Community for Christian Meditation to bring the fruits of meditation to problems and crises of our time. You can read about Meditatio from the Meditatio link in the menu above. The first Meditatio seminars were held in the UK, Ireland and Nth Ireland over the past two weeks and were enthusiastically received. A large number of schools are interested in pilot projects and follow up programmes. The Seminars led by Fr Laurence, Cathy Day and Ernie Christie from Australia and Jonathan Campion UK had participants from 10 countries as well as teachers, leaders in education and parents. The seminars were filmed and will be available for the wider community. The next Meditatio Seminar Meditation and Mental Health will be held in the UK in May 2011.

New resources: ‘Born Contemplative: Introducing Children to Christian Meditation’ by Madeleine Simon is a reissue of a much loved book. It has been edited and updated by Penny Sturrock from Australia and was recently launched at the UK Seminars.

‘Pilgrimage: The Way of Christian Meditation’ DVD is an excellent new resource and replaces the older ‘Coming Home’ video. It has 4 sections with teaching by Fr Laurence and interviews with Peter Ng and other community members showing the work and vision of the community. It has subtitles in French, German, Indonesian, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish and will be available soon. It’s a must have for every group leader! You can view the new resources on the WCCM website menu New Publications.

Fr Laurence will lead an International ecumenical meditation retreat for Priests, Ministers and Pastors and those in training for ordained ministry at the Ammerdown retreat centre in the UK Sept 26-30 2011. The theme of the retreat is Ministry in the Priesthood of Christ. The beautiful brochure and registration details are on the www.wccm.org website menu.

The power of the web! News from our Ukraine coordinators Maria and Albert Zakharova that two priests from the Siberian Evangelic Lutheran Church saw their website and have meditated in our tradition for two years. They are pastors of parishes in Morshansk and Moscow and now have two small meditation groups.

Fr Laurence was invited to lead the final Christmas meditation session for ONEARTH on a webcast on Dec 19. If you missed it you can see it on the website http://www.onearthpractice.com/

Fr Laurence’s final Tablet column below on grace, acceptance and redemption resonates with us at this time. May the peace of Christ fill you at Christmas and throughout the coming year.

Blessings of peace,

Pauline

True community happens in the process of drawing each other into the light of true being. In this process we share a deepening experience of the joy of life, the joy of Being, as we discover more and more of its fullness in a loving faith shared with others. The essence of community then is a recognition of and deep reverence for the other. Our meditation partakes of this essence because it leads us to turn wholly towards the Other, who is the Spirit in our heart.
John Main