Weekly Readings Newsletter

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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READINGS FOR 27/5/2012

From John Main, OSB, “Beyond All Images,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 41-43.

Meditation is a way of coming to an immeasurable reality beyond all images. The problem we face on this journey is that we have to sidestep our own ego which is the supreme manufacturer of images, mostly images of ourselves and, to a lesser extent, images of others, even images of God.

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READINGS FOR 20/5/2012

From John Main OSB, "Growing in God," THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 79-81.

The longer you meditate, the longer you persevere through the difficulties and the false starts, then the clearer it becomes to you that you have to continue if you are going to lead your life in a meaningful and profound way.

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READINGS FOR 13/5/2012

An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Self-Will and Divine-Will,” MONASTERY WITHOUT WALLS: The Spiritual Letters of John Main (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2006) pp. 195-96.

St Paul tells us that there is a light shining in our hearts. St John tells us that this light is the point of divine consciousness, of infinitely pure love, to be fond and worshipped in every person—the light that enlightens everyone who comes into this world.

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READINGS FOR 6/5/2012

An excerpt from “Dearest Friends: A Letter from Laurence Freeman OSB,” Christian Meditation Newsletter, Vol. 33, No. 1, April 2009.

“The distinction between the office and person,” said Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus.” In the end, the truth is personal and it can only enter the world when it has conquered the human heart.

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Readings for 29/4/2012

From John Main OSB, “The Christian Crisis,” THE PRESENT CHRIST (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 74-76.

. . . .[T]o become spiritual we have to learn to leave behind our official religious selves—that is, to leave behind the Pharisee that lurks inside all of us—because, as Jesus has told us, we have to leave behind our whole self.

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Readings for 22/4/2012

From Laurence Freeman OSB, “The Power of Attention,” THE SELFLESS SELF (London: DLT, 1989), pp. 31-35.

There has always been a great danger, but one that exists especially for us today in our self-conscious and narcissistic society, of mistaking introversion, self-fixation, self-analysis, for true interiority.  The great prevalence of psychological woundedness and social alienation exacerbates this danger while calling for gentle tact and compassion in dealing with it. . . .

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Readings for 15/4/2012

From “The Silence of the Soul,” by Laurence Freeman OSB in THE TABLET 10 May 1997.

[One] reason why silence is so disturbing to us [is this]: As soon as we begin to become silent, we experience the relativity of our ordinary everyday mind. With this mind we measure our space and time coordinates, we calculate probabilities and count up our mistakes and successes.

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Readings for 8/4/2012

An excerpt from Fr. Laurence Freeman’s 2008 Holy Week Reflections, posted at www.wccm.org.

As Holy Week unfolds I am writing from our retreat for young meditators on Bere Island. At this moment there is not a cloud in the sky and the clear light is calling out every hidden colour, shade and texture of the sea, trees and mountains. Nature makes it easy to believe that we are on the human journey into the light of Christ, the Sun of the Resurrection that never sets.

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Readings for 1/4/2012

Palm Sunday

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman, FIRST SIGHT: The Experience of Faith (London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 61-62.  Meditation reunites the pure beam of light which is fragmented in our perception by the prism of the ego. It leads to a new way of seeing, a way of perception that merges the daily practice of meditation with daily life and work as an integrated way of faith. When we see something, as a child, for the first time we are amazed. The world is teeming with undiscovered wonders and we cannot understand why our elders seem so unimpressed by them.

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