Celebration means hope. We celebrate because, whatever may be negative or scary in our lives, we ever acknowledge connection to a fundamentally constant direction and purpose. It unfolds through good and bad times. The more we feel we are in a collective decline the more deeply we need to draw from the inner well of wisdom and hope.
Today our community is beginning a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of John Main’s birth. His spirit of wisdom and faith has brought a remarkable phenomenon – the WCCM – into a living entity. For fifty years it is a becoming, a community witnessing to the primal personal and cosmic power of love. Inclusive, forgiving, bravely de-polarising in its way of working.
It is hard for me to imagine John Main, whom I first met 60 years ago, as being 100! He died at the age of 56 embracing the incompleteness of his mission and handing it into the hands of Christ and of those who would follow. That means us. He was wholly at peace in the hope that the dying seed would give birth, which it continues to do.
So, today I would like to share with you that I recommit myself to this unfolding work for the rest of my life. I do this in gratitude for the faith, the deep generosity and dedication that exists at all levels of our community. More than this, I invite you to join in a re-dedicating of yourselves personally and in your weekly groups and national communities to this mission.
What is our mission and purpose? To share a most simple path of hope and universal kindness through the dark times we are traversing. We cannot afford to despair. By discovering the hope and metanoia that daily meditation brings we are giving hope and meaning to all we do while helping to relieve the suffering of others.
This is how we suggest we can celebrate this gift of Fr John through our community this year:
Expansion
We have developed a new four-part introduction to meditation using videos and discussion. I suggest that in the course of this year every existing group – whether in person or online – uses this simple tool and turns itself into an introductory group for four weeks, reaching out to new people. Many, like us, seek a path of companionship and purposefulness through our common difficulties. Our National Coordinators can help organise this.
Deepening
Ultimately change comes through personal transformation, not through numbers and busyness. So, we also suggest that every meditator considers making the deep silent retreat that we have developed and which is finding a good response. It will take you into a new level of silence and clarity within the friendship of a community and the guidance of experienced fellow meditators. The greater the confusion, the deeper we must go. National Coordinators will help to make this experience as available as possible.
Reaching Out
The WCCM is not alone in wanting to renew hope and to restore the primacy of love to all human interactions. With others we can work to rehumanise humanity. I suggest we reach out to collaborate with other communities, networks and organisations – and of course other faith traditions. Reflect on it with others and I think you will see ways to do this.
We can bring meditation to restore faith, hope and humanity – in the ecological movement, education, health, confronting corporate greed and political tyranny, and touching the marginalised with simple kindness.
All this forms into a practical agenda as soon as we meditate with others. Then sit and share with them what you fear, hope and feel committed to. Again, group leaders and national coordinators will find ways of developing this outreach.
Rooting
As part of this year’s personal and community renewal let’s re-acquaint ourselves with John Main’s essential teaching. Make it a part of your day and you will feel the grace of a true teacher sharing with you the grace of his – and our – teacher.
Our theme this centenary year is The Future of Religion. As I read what I have just written I wonder if this is its future: Expansion, Deepening and Connection. Religion needs to serve and open the mystery, not to control or define it. The contemplative revolution is the way, and it is already unfolding.
Our John Main Seminar this year (September 17–20), led by a fellow meditator, Tim Shriver, will be a focal point for our year of renewal of hope and our faith in the primal power of love.
Thank you for sharing this path of renewal together.
With much love
Laurence Freeman OSB
