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Christian Meditation
CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
NE WSLET TER OF THE WORLD COMMUNIT Y FOR CHRISTIAN MEDITATION
www.wccm.org
Registered Charity No. 327173
INTERNATIONAL EDITION, VOL. 34, N O 3; OCTOBER 2010
Meditation with Children Experience and Promise Date:
A Day Seminar
7 December 2010
9.00 am to 5.30 pm £95 (includes lunch and refreshments) A Resource Pack will be given to each participant. Venue: Regents College, Inner Circle, Regents Park London NW1 4NS Children have a natural capacity for meditation. They enjoy it and show the benefits. How can we make this spiritual practice and universal life-skill more available promoting growth of the whole child? Cost:
Meditatio – the outreach of The World Community for Christian Meditation – presents a seminar to teachers, parents and all those involved in the faith dimension of education for children. The presenters will address the spiritual, psychological and practical aspects of introducing Christian Meditation to children and teachers.
PRESENTERS Dr Cathy Day is the Director of Townsville Catholic Education Office and under her leadership has created and implemented a world-first Christian Meditation program for all Catholic Schools in the Diocese. Ernie Christie Deputy Director in Townsville is the author of Coming Home: A Guide to Teaching Christian Meditation to Children. Jonathan Campion a consultant psychiatrist is helping to develop national mental health policy and evaluate the school meditation program. Fr Laurence Freeman is a Benedictine monk and Director of The World Community for Christian Meditation involved in inter-religious dialogue and the contemplative aspect of education.
REGIONAL SEMINARS
For details about venue and costs Cathy Day, Ernie Christie, and Laurence Freeman will be leading workshops presenting of these workshops please contact us: the themes of the Meditatio Seminar addressing local audiences and concerns www.wccm.org 8 December Killarney www.wccmmeditatio.org 10 December Belfast Further Information from 13 December Milton Keynes Briji Waterfield T: 07980 581351 E: meditatio@wccm.org 14 December Brentwood For booking queries please contact 15 December Birmingham Pat Nash T: 01794 512006 E: patnash@talktalk.net
SOME KEY EVENTS IN 2011 April 17-24 Holy Week Retreat, Bere Island, Ireland May 5-6 Meditatio Seminar on Meditation and Mental Health, London June 18-25 Monte Oliveto Retreat, Italy
August 11-14 John Main Seminar, Ireland September 3-9 School Retreat, Italy September 14-24 Ten Day Silent Retreat, Bere Island, Ireland
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CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
A letter from Laurence Freeman OSB DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD COMMUNITY FOR CHRISTIAN MEDITATION
Some moments stay with us for ever and can be repeatedly recalled by grace to help us grow in wisdom. So they are themselves moments of grace – memories that become more present the better we understand them. As this happens over time we see how little we have understood and how much has yet to be learned. It’s only the very young, the insecure or the prejudiced who think they know it all for certain. This is why we are always learning to meditate and how we come to see that meditation is a way of unlearning. An example. During the 2000 John Main Seminar in N. Ireland I went with the Dalai Lama to a meeting with victims of violence from both sides of the religious divide. As we entered the room it was like walking into a freezer. Each group sat on either side of the room with what seemed like an iceberg dividing them. Intuitively assessing the mood and problem, the Dalai Lama did not wait for a formal opening but dived straight into his own sharing. He spoke about his pain and grief at what had happened to Tibet and asked ‘if I chose to hate the enemy, who would be hurt more, them or myself?’ We can be lifted up and out of the narrow, circular corridors of memory and the feelings that we compulsively pace around, when someone speaks like this with authenticity, from their heart. They are sacrificing something, offering a part of their self, risking themselves. Truth-telling like this acts as a stimulus, awakens us to a larger perspective and, at least for a while, seems to empower us to give of ourselves as well. After he had spoken, we invited the people present to share their memories and feelings of how violence had touched and changed their lives. Slowly, as people began to risk communicating their memories and actual pain, the iceberg in the room started melting. The temperature rose with the human warmth of people trusting each other. Without such human warmth and trust there is no common bond, no community and no forgiveness. From early on I had noticed a woman in the front row who was following everything very intensely and who often seemed about to speak but stopped herself. As we drew the session to a close she suddenly raised her hand and
asked to speak. She said in a clear, quiet voice how she had just discovered something new about forgiveness that would change her life. Ten years before, she and husband had been watching television together at home when the doorbell rang. He went to answer it and was shot in the chest at pointblank range by a hooded figure in the doorway and died instantly. As time passed and the physical grief – the kind that can even block your breathing – subsided she was able to reflect on the horror and tragedy that had blighted her life. As a Christian she knew she ‘should’ forgive. But she felt blocked from doing so for two reasons. Firstly, that the murderers had not asked for forgiveness and secondly, that the idea of forgiveness seemed to be a betrayal of her husband. She was stuck and for ten years had not had a good night’s sleep. * The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in S Africa after apartheid has generally been acclaimed as a social success. This means that it has significantly helped the citizens move on without lying to themselves or each other. We lie to ourselves from a desperation to survive what we are enduring and think could destroy us. We can indeed be destroyed by many things including our memories, as victims of abuse discover as they grow older. Yet the S African Commission - which offered amnesty to those who fully confessed their crimes and gave an opportunity for the victims to describe what they endured and even to confront their torturers – could not be a forum for every memory of abuse over the previous 46 years of state apartheid. In the end only 849 people were given amnesty. But the sacramental, symbolically representative, encounters had brought healing to many thousands, including those who had only witnessed the proceedings from a distance. It was restorative justice that worked. It was not ‘victor’s justice’ that allows no forgiveness to flow, but a personal, and therefore statistically incomplete, process of forgiveness in action. To forgive we have to discover what forgiveness really means, as the woman in the victims’ group in N Ireland unexpectedly came to do. We have also to be truthful with ourselves, to confront the pain, anger and dark feelings generated by the hurt we have undergone. Eventually we have to risk touching the cause of our pain, the violent other, from whom we have probably distanced ourselves by flight or fight. The woman I mentioned said that she had just then understood that forgiveness was not pronouncing a verdict of acquittal but, first of all, facing and healing her own
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inner battle-scarred landscape of soul. When we are hurt honest answer may be, ‘no we do not deeply want to by someone – or by some impersonal thing that happens change’. But, when we do want to change, perhaps after to us – it is as if we are poisoned by betrayal and infidelity the poison has become unendurable, we learn what loving if our trust in another, or life as a whole, has been trounced; our enemies means. Of course, it doesn’t mean exonerating or, if it is an accident that we can blame on no one, or just pardoning them to avoid conflict. Justice always (although we often try to, to make things feel easier for needs to be seen to be done for the right reason. It means ourselves), it is as if we have been run over in a hit and run simply paying attention to the source, human or natural, by a passing truck. We lie on the ground prostrate and from which the hurt came and then asking ourselves ‘why shattered trying to see how much damage has been done. did they do it?’ At the end of this hard questioning we Suffering, from whatever source, has a frightening may conclude that really ‘they did not know what they otherness to it. Our innate expectation that we will be were doing’, as Jesus understood from the Cross. His fairly treated by others and by life – our sense of justice - insight and detachment enabled him to forgive them – or suddenly appears very naïve. Even if we cannot blame a rather not to say “I forgive them”, but to draw on the particular enemy or a false friend we may try to blame impartial, ever non-condemnatory love of the ‘Father’. To God. At first we instinctively try to refuse admission to say ‘I’ would have been an assertion of the ego and so, even what has happened and press the rewind button. Denial in his case, a dramatization of the other. By asking the is a state of mind that we enter after a shock and can Father to forgive them he allowed them to be wholly other remain in for many years. After denial we may feel merely and also to withdraw all projections from them. To love numbed and exhausted. Only the process of forgiveness our neighbour must include the ‘enemy’ as one who has can liberate us from this defeat. From denial we move to often been the cause of our hurt. It is such a primary acceptance because we have to learn to face and embrace commandment that we cannot be learning from Jesus the worst. Facing the worst with truthfulness brings out without struggling with and at times, against it. the best in us. The desert wisdom illustrates this in the many short Punishment does not fit in the stories and sayings concerned with “ IN EVERY CONFLICT ASK YOURSELF equation of the stages of forgiveness. anger and relationship. In the There is no punishment in God – desert solitude they understood ‘WHO AM I?’ only in the ego. We can only heal how the law of interdependence AND JUDGE NO ONE.” what we see belongs to the whole prevails at every level from the and ourselves existing in the whole. Healing is therefore material to the psychological but becomes fully expressed both integration and expansion. The grace of forgiveness, in the spiritual realm where our being itself ‘depends’ on once released, is unpredictably that we are better than we God. One younger struggling monk asked his abba what were before, better and bigger. ‘must I do to be saved?’ He was told, ‘In every conflict ask * yourself ‘who am I?’ and judge no one’. This illustrates Forgiveness is not just about saying “I forgive you” which how even – or especially – in the solitude of the desert can often sound like an imperial decree that makes the ‘life and death lie with our neighbour’. We need the relationship much harder to resolve. Taking the moral high otherness of others in order to stay alive and grow. We are ground and looking down in a condescending way on the better off without relationship (were that possible) than other who has betrayed us – or our hopes for them – is with a false, superficial relationship with people we reshape always tempting. But it delays forgiveness and the later, in our imaginations by our desires and fears and layered different project of reconciliation that requires forgiveness over by our preconceptions and prejudices. if a damaged relationship is to be restored to health and The truly other is essential to the mystical and loving justice re-balanced. Saying “I forgive you” can be as self- mind. Otherness stimulates the mind to let go of its fixed deceptive and superficial as merely saying “I am sorry, now points and expand beyond itself, enlarging the view we let’s move on”. The Church is learning this in many parts have of the world and of ourselves within it. In the face of of the world as it faces its shame about sexual abuse of the other we have to give up the game of dramatising them. children and the failures of leadership in dealing with these This is a little of what I understand by the term ‘a catholic crimes. Only the truth set free at every level of time and mind’ because it has faced the other that we cannot describe emotion – this is what is meant by the ‘whole truth and or control. The catholic mind intuitively seeks to include nothing but the truth’ - can set us free. rather than reject, even when it meets an abyss of difference The process begins, as the woman in N Ireland in the other that it recoils from and finds wrong and discovered after ten years’ insomnia, with oneself. We have threatening. The first recorded reference to the ‘catholic’ to recognize and accept everything we are feeling and in Christianity was in the second century and it was even fantasizing, however shameful or unthinkable. Secondly, then invoked as a way of preventing the religion from we have to admit that this mental state is poisoning and becoming a closed, bigoted sect. By the fifth century St darkening us as a whole. A question has then to be faced, Vincent of Lerins defined it as that which has been believed ‘do I really want to change?’ Sometimes a negative everywhere, always and by all. It’s a tall order to be catholic, momentum has been set moving that makes us feel more we might think. It comprehends all universally, as only comfortable and secure in a victim’s role and then the God – and the Mind of Christ – can.
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We become catholic in this full and embracing sense as a kind of lever in the inner life. Without a lever to ease only by means of growth which is a passing through the us in the direction of a higher value, she said, we change stages of healing and integration. So, none of us is catholic but only at the same level. yet, not even the pope. There is a way to go. But the Change is inevitable because everything is hastening to alternative to the process of forgiveness is the sectarian mind its end. But if change is restricted to the level we now that objectifies the other and, through fear and the pleasure occupy we soon smell stagnation –a form of the decay of of power, denies it its pure subjectivity, its otherness and human potential. When we feel that forgiveness is is-ness. Socially and historically we have done this to impossible – even years after the hurt has been suffered – immigrants, to Jews, to gays and other easily targeted it is because we have not been levered into another level. minorities but also even to half the human race through We feel and indeed we are stuck where we were. Unless we the violent patriarchal exclusion of women. By doing such re-integrate the negative other we cannot know God, the things we exclude ourselves from the whole and therefore ultimate other, and we make up a fake god composed of from the holy One. God is always subject, the ‘great I AM’, our own egos and its fears, guilts and desires. There can be impervious to our attempts to objectify and manipulate. such a discrepancy between belief and action in religious We meet this pure emanation of being in our own deep people because we don’t give time just to be, because the silence not in ideology or abstraction but in diverse ways, God who is trying to burst through the locked doors of basically in each other and in the beauty and wonder of the mind has been blocked by the god we have created creation, the ocean of being, of suffering and bliss, that we and made our idol and gaoler. and even the creator have swum in. The monk, according to the desert wisdom sees the other * in himself and himself in others. The other, however, refers Because forgiveness requires depth and depth needs not only to the people we relate to within family or work. silence, forgiveness, reconciliation, It is also found in an impersonal “TRYING TOO HARD TO FORGIVE way in accidents, joys and the catholic mind in whatever stage of faith, peace and justice tragedies, in our discoveries and USUALLY LEADS TO FAILURE.” themselves require contemplation. losses, even our times of boredom To think of contemplation as a kind of luxury, relaxation and failure. Accepting all these aspects and phases of our or spare time occupation entirely misses the meaning of total experience means accepting ourselves as we are in every human development as the only essential way we have to possible aspect, shadow and brilliance, generosity and glorify God. How can we “glorify God” by what we say or selfishness. Self-acceptance of this kind is love. And, if we do? We can only reflect back to God the divine glory cannot love ourselves we cannot love others; the love of potentially stored in our own being. St John of the Cross God without love of others is a sham. says the soul is like an unopened parcel. Unwrapping it is * the way we glorify God by – ultimately through Trying too hard to forgive usually leads to failure. We participating completely in God’s life and vision. We learn from failure a more hands off approach, in which meditate, John Main said, to become the person God knows forgiveness is released in us rather than bestowed by us (it us to be. Become one with the giver of the gift by returning is simply another aspect of love). It must be allowed to the gift to the giver and then finding the gift it contains. unfold naturally. Deep stillness and silence facilitate this Faith, self-knowledge, love itself requires a self-giving in the most direct and effective way. It is only surprising and self-transcendence that is only possible when the ego that the wisdom of the mystical tradition has not more has been left behind. Only when we are neither desiring fully and pragmatically penetrated the religious and nor trying to do it, can it be accomplished. Meditation political institutions that become so much more friendly allows this to happen by gradually shifting the centre of and efficient when they are open to this universal level of gravity from the ego to the spirit. It is such a major transfer human consciousness. of power that the ego needs to be gently introduced to its In meditation we permit this to happen because, as it fate and to be healed in the process. Simone Weil saw this were, we put ourselves in brackets, not seeking to dominate. We do so out of love, with respect for the otherness of View from the others, whether friends or enemies, and ultimately of God, hermitage Abbey of in whom all otherness finds the re-integration and unity it Montserrat seeks. Identity is not an adequate word for this new state of being healed and transformed by love. Perhaps it is better expressed by authenticity, becoming real in every way and direction. When we do the work of silence the film is peeled away that obscures our vision and we experience a growing sense of being welcomed and recognized in this new place of reality. If we stop the work of meditation for a while but return to it, after a week or even years it is the same: we sense and describe it as a homecoming to ourselves and to
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those depths of the self in which we lose ourselves and are and naturally allows this to happen we have started found. Even if we felt we had failed by giving up the inner Meditatio, our new, coordinated outreach program. Over work of meditation and the ego troubles us with guilt or the next three years we will put on a series of seminars that the need for punishment we see it in reverse – the acceptance will bring us into dialogue with meditators of our own and renewal of life the disciples underwent in the presence community who have been working in these fields and with of the risen Jesus is ours. ‘No blame’, as the I Ching puts experts and practitioners in these fields who may not it. Forgiveness without resentment and restitution of meditate but are interested to see what a spiritual connection, as the parable of the prodigal son describes it. perspective has to offer. Followed as a way of faith meditation introduces us to We begin in London on December 7th this year with the true nature of forgiveness in all its astounding the first Meditatio Seminar on children and meditation obviousness and with an unforgettable sense of relief. We followed by a series of local seminar-workshops in England learn, for ourselves, why the Cloud of Unknowing says that and Ireland. In May next year we are planning a seminar on this ‘work dries up the root of sin within us’. All forgiveness meditation and mental health. We will then gather the fruits – of self or others, released in either direction between the of the seminars and bring them to our national communities wounder or the wounded - immerses us in the divine to see how we can put them at the service of others in different present. In the welcome we experience as we penetrate the ways and cultures. Following the Meditatio link on the silence in which the presence is present, the past is homepage (www.wccm.org) will give you more information integrated. Those painful aspects which keep the past locked on what is happening. away from the present are led into acceptance and brought In addition to the Meditatio Seminars we will be into the light of the self. Then the ego is healed. developing our website and other means of sharing this What we colloquially call the ‘present’ is really the message through technology. From the house in Kensington endless stream of immediacy we all we will be coordinating Meditatio “ THE FUTURE ENTERS US experience as distractions in and also giving formation to younger meditation. This succession of meditators who spend time in BEFORE IT HAPPENS.” chronological moments is purified. community, deepening their We sense a new beginning, of order and peace amid the meditation and raising their sense of the community through heavy traffic flow of the mind, and the traffic jams that which they can serve the kingdom of God. need to be cleared start flowing again. Finding ourselves I downloaded a new app recently that allows you to see better able to function in the ordinary world with its intense which constellations are in the sky at any time. Before it levels of stress and anxiety we feel empowered to go into it. can reveal the heavens to you it has to know where you are The future, on which we also expend so much time and and asks if it can ‘use your present location’. It calculates worry, is integrated, too, by the work of silence and stillness. this and once your location is registered you can see As Rilke put it, the future that matters – what actually everything, or almost everything. Meditation is not an easy happens rather than what might happen – enters us before cure for all problems. If it were no doubt it would be much it happens. What this means is not that we can predict the more widely embraced as the global-local wisdom it is. National Lottery but that, accepting that we don’t know But it does help us to identify our current location, to be for sure what will happen and yet still trust that we are reachable and teachable. Perhaps this is why in its total held in love whatever happens, opens us to deeper levels of simplicity it can reveal – and change – so much and so the spirit in which all time is present. This gives us peace. many today are seeking it. It allows us to face the future with hope and to move towards it in faith. With much love, * Forgiveness is the lever of the moral order that restores peace and renews life. We should learn its nature and how to release its power in childhood and learn to practice it in the institutions of the adult world, politics, business and medicine. Because we believe that meditation most simply
Laurence Freeman OSB
The Teaching of John Main The glory of God fills his consecrated temple, our human heart. Opening our eyes to that glory is our prayer. (Monastery Without Walls)
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NEWS FROM THE WORLD COMMUNITY The following is a small representation of the life of the Community. For weekly news and more information visit the Community web page: www.wccm.org
THE SHAPE OF GOD’S AFFECTION: THE JOHN MAIN SEMINAR 2010 LED BY JAMES ALISON In August two hundred participants from seventeen countries came to the University of Kent in Canterbury for the 2010 John Main Seminar led by the Catholic theologian, priest, author and former member of the James Alison at the John Main Dominican order James Seminar, Canterbury Alison. On a green hill above the city with the beautiful medieval cathedral as a backdrop, the campus was a perfect setting. The preseminar silent retreat led by Fr Laurence gave the opportunity for deep reflection and in the silence, we experienced very quickly the sense of community of a group of pilgrims gathered to listen, pray and live together. The Seminar talks were interspersed with break-out groups for interesting discussions and networking and each day, morning, mid-day and evening we paused for meditation. On Thursday James gave the first of five talks. I had come open but skeptical: was this the best way to use my annual leave, would I be able to understand him? My doubts were soon dispelled. James is an excellent orator and we were soon captivated by his energy and knowledge in a lively account of the formation of the understanding of the Jewish God, from many gods to one God, the God with no rivals. The God amongst us but not of us. He left us with some interesting metaphors to think about such as the people of God as crumbs of bread in a brown paper bag, and then inverted! James described the sacrificial element of the Jewish observance of the Day of Atonement and the notion of the scapegoat and how this linked to Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. He then turned our attention to the New Testament, death, resurrection and the giving of the Spirit. Through careful elucidation of key texts he showed us how Jesus at once faced back through history and culture to occupy the space of each of the sacrificial victims going back to Adam, while at the same time opening up for the future the new creation which has overcome death. His explanation of this story did not leave us with a dry theology steeped in learning but allowed us to hear the scripture read as it must have been originally inspired and with the same excitement that the apostles must have felt as they recorded the events they experienced. One session James departed from his theme to talk specifically about the “gay thing” and the impact this is
having on the Catholic Church. He gave us a convincing description that science and society now accepts that homosexuality is a “regularly occurring non-pathological minority variant in the human condition”. In other words, it’s hard-wired, a configuration, not a condition or aberration but a fact of life for 3 to 4 per cent of the population, much the same way as being left-handed. Western society is now moving towards this acceptance and same sex marriages are now commonplace. But the church still has some catching up to do! Pope Benedict, James said, has relaxed some of the earlier attitudes but although there is a softening of language in places they genuinely don’t know how to handle it because to accept the veracity of same-sex love throws the teaching of Humanae Vitae in question. The two ideas are in deep conflict. The good and exciting thing about this, according to James, is that it forms a fulcrum about which change can and will happen. The acceptance of the reality of homosexuality will force a paradigm change, much in the same way as the map of the world had to be re-drawn when the Americas were discovered in the 15th century. On Saturday afternoon we took a break from theology to visit Canterbury cathedral. The English summer weather was kind and we mostly walked down from the university into the busy medieval market streets of Canterbury. Thronged with people it was a little shocking after the quiet days of the retreat and seminar. We passed through the gate of the cathedral and stood in awe before its gigantic structure before taking part in sung evensong. Later after refreshments Fr Laurence led meditation in the crypt of the cathedral and then from the heart of this historic place of faith we prayed about the many issues, not least their divisions, facing our churches. I think most left the Seminar stimulated. It opened many doors into new thought about our church and its mission and also our own attitudes towards homosexuality. We had a listened to a brave and inspired speaker who had brought fresh understanding to familiar texts that had truly opened not only our minds but also our hearts. Jon Kille
JOHN MAIN ROOM, SYDNEY From our new Sydney WCCM office, the John Main Room at the parish centre in Lavender Bay, we now run our meditation groups seven times a week in the parish with a special group for school age children. We have a lending library and bookshop focusing on meditation and a reading corner. Groups introducing Christian meditation will be held on Monday and Wednesday at 11.30am before Mass and on Saturday at 10am after Mass. (Enquiries to the John Main Room on 8918 4134 or Judi and Paul Taylor on 9954 1037 (Judi and Paul Taylor palmy@ozemail.com.au)
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BARCELONA, CATALONIA, SPAIN After Easter 2009 we decided to start a small meditation group in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. We didn't know of any other groups of the WCCM in Catalonia or in Spain, so we set up a website at www.MeditacioCristiana.cat and contacted the International Centre in London for help and support. It was a surprise for us that, although being initially only a group of three, Fr Laurence came to visit us last May. He gave talks on Christian Meditation at our university and at the Casa d'Espiritualitat in the city. A very good attendance spurred interest in creating new meditation groups. Fr Laurence was also interviewed by the main TV broadcasting channel of Catalonia. The result is our university group has grown and two new groups are starting in Barcelona. Evidently many people seek a new way to approach their own tradition, and it is very enriching for us to share how such a renewal is found in a simple practice of prayer that goes back to the origins of Christianity and to Jesus's teachings. Marco Schorlemmer, WCCM National Contact, Spain (marco.schorlemmer@gmail.com) Marco Schorlemmer, Spain
WCCM IN CHINA After three visits by Fr. Laurence and annual visits by me since 2004, China’s door is slowly opening. At first Fr. Laurence could only give talks in seminaries but retreats to priests and sisters and the public are now possible. Eight years after his first visit he will be welcomed to address openly the laity in churches and cathedrals when he visits Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang in September 2012. I am the national coordinator of China but live in the USA. Annually, when my husband Albert visits China to lecture, I accompany him but fly to different cities to nurture the seedlings of the community of meditation. My efforts at finding local coordinators were unsuccessful until this year when, for example, Christine Chen with whom I exchanged emails for more than a year came on board as our Shanghai contact. She is soon expecting her third child - and starting a meditation group. Tony Hu who spent a year in the Oblate community London has returned home to Yuncheng, Shansi where he is now introducing meditation. Hong Kong (www.wccm.hk) was easier. For years, the late Fr. Sean Burke, MM, led a small group in Stanley. During Fr. Laurence’s first visit to Hong Kong in 2003, he drew a huge crowd at the Cathedral because Bishop John Tong, Bishop of Hong Kong and a WCCM patron, invited each Liz King teaching in China
pastor in the diocese. A big strength in Hong Kong is Lina Lee. Afire with good zeal, she, with Anthony Ng, Mavis Lo, Mary Low, Maria Pereira, Paul So, Rosalina Chow and others, formed nine new groups (4 English and 6 Chinese) and still growing. They did not confine themselves to Hong Kong but have connected with meditators in Taipei (where a first group has started at Don Bosco Church), Singapore and Malaysia. We are indeed a global family who love and support each other. Translations, such as Word into Silence, Moment of Christ, Light Within and Prayer of the Priest have been published with special thanks due to Fr. Matthew Zhen. CDs in Mandarin and Cantonese are urgently needed and when available I am sure will reach a wider audience. Please pray that more laborers can be sent to the Lord’s vineyard in China. Elizabeth King (eking2133@gmail.com)
MEDITATION AND THE POOR Yesterday I got to see something amazing that reminded me of a story about Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker and a big hero of mine. She shared a house with her homeless neighbors on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. One morning, a wealthy woman dropped by and donated a huge diamond ring to the organization. Dorothy Day thanked her and slipped it in her pocket. When later a homeless Rev Cristina Rathbone, USA woman came in, depressed and exhausted, Day gave her the ring transforming her sorrow to joy. The Catholic Workers were furious. They could have caught up with their rent and back bills for a year with the money from the sale of the ring! What if the woman went off and sold it, they asked. Would that be fair or proper? Day replied that she had given the woman the ring as a gift. She was free to sell it or she could simply enjoy wearing it on her finger, the way the woman who’d donated it had done for years. “Do you suppose,” she asked, “that God created diamonds only for the rich?” Something yesterday reminded me of this story. It concerns a jewel of another kind, not a diamond ring but what Jesus calls a ‘pearl of great price’. It happened during Christian Meditation - offered weekly here at the Cathedral and attended mostly by homeless men and women from the neighborhood. The woman in this story is also poor but by the end of our meditation she was wealthier than the rest of us put together. She smiled hugely, her face lit by a light so soft and deep that it shone. She said with that smile that lit up the room that her meditation had been, ‘Wonderful!
8 Absolutely wonderful! Nothing interrupted the silence; not one thing; not for the whole entire time! It was like a book’. Then she added, completely serene, ‘a book that was closed.’ In all my own time of meditation I’m not sure I’ve ever had an experience quite like this. But then, did I suppose that God created contemplative prayer only for the rich? Rev Cristina Rathbone, The Cathedral of St. Paul, Boston, USA
CANADIAN WCCM NATIONAL YOUTH COORDINATOR The Canadian Christian Meditation Community was looking for ways to encourage young meditators, so we decided to offer 6 scholarships to our National Conference in 2009. One of the attendees, Krister Partel, has now been appointed our first National Youth Coordinator. Krister’s objectives are to promote and share the practice and discipline of Christian Meditation, as passed on through the teachings of John Main, to youth and young-adults at both the national and local level, to develop and maintain a national spiritual network of youth and young-adults interested in, or already practicing, Christian Meditation and to expand the youth and young-adult membership of the Canadian community He has already established a Facebook page and made an entry in Wikipedia. An event is planned for October 17 in Ottawa and when Fr Laurence comes to the National Conference next June he will lead an afternoon retreat for youth and young adults organised by Krister.
CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
to Malaysia in August led by Lina Lee, the HK Coordinator. The pilgrims made the Temple of the Universal Spirit at the Pure Life Society in Kuala Lumpur their main destination. This was where in 1955 John Main, then a young diplomat made his first encounter with the practice of meditation which he later recovered from his own Christain monastic tradition. The pilgrims spent a full morning at the temple. Mother Mangalam, the energetic 84-year-old successor to Swami Satyanada, welcomed them, shared her memory of seeing the young Main when he came there to meditate and then joined the Hong Kong group for a session of meditation. The pilgrimage also went to several sites of significant historical importance to the spread of Christianity in Asia.
WCCM 2011 CALENDAR The WCCM 2011 monthly Calendar is now available. It may be ordered online at www.wccmcalendar.com or from Medio Media and national centres. The photographs are by Laurence Freeman taken during his travels in the community and the words from the teaching of John Main.
RAMON PANIKKAR
HONG KONG PILGRIMAGE
Hong Kong meditators in the Temple of the Universal Spirit, Kuala Lumpur.
Twenty three members of the Hong Kong World Community of Christian Meditation joined a pilgrimage
Laurence Freeman visiting with Ramon Panikkar in Barcelona in May 2010. Fr Pankikkar - who led the John Main Seminar in England in 1996 and was one of the most brilliant and prophetic pioneers of inter-religious thought in his time - died on 26 August.
CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
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GREENBELT FESTIVAL At the end of August a team of keen meditators went to Cheltenham for a week of camping, praying, and soaking up all that the Greenbelt Festival has to offer. With 21,000 participants, and events of every kind – from comedy to music, talks to drama, meditative Mass to Goth Eucharist – this was a chance for part of the WCCM community to share in and contribute to the diversity that makes up our Church, as well as to spread the word about meditation and the prayer of the heart. Second in attractiveness only to the meditation itself was the impressive yurt which housed our times of prayer. Twenty-one feet in diameter, two and half hours in constructing, and lent for the week by generous friends of WCCM, we were quite the cream of the campsite crop. We gathered three times each day to still ourselves within its beautiful structure of wooden poles and canvas, and by the end of the week it had become a space of spirit and silence. Even at a Christian Festival like Greenbelt it is easy to be swept away by the noise and the haste that make up so much of our existence. The presence of meditative prayer amongst those happy to identify themselves as Christian (or at least to affiliate themselves with a Christian Festival) is no less important than to be among those who have no religious affiliation. Religious and 'nonreligious' are equally liable to slip into cycles of mental overactivity. As we gathered for morning, midday, and evening meditation, it was a pleasure to be joined by fellow seekers from around the Festival – both those for whom meditation is a regular practice and those first learning what it means to seek Christ's presence within. With music from the main stage often booming in the background (and testing our mantra to the limits!), our temporary Festival community was filled by the radicalness of John Main's original vision.
Each day there were opportunities for experienced and novice meditators to teach the basics of the practice. Audiences ranged from two people to twelve hundred but there was a sense of subtle authority in what our team had to say. As a young meditator I have often been struck by how traditional wisdom comes alive in the words of people of simple prayer. Those who commit themselves to a regular practice of meditation witness to the sacrifice of self-giving at the heart of our faith. Reflecting after the Festival, I felt sure that each one of our Greenbelt team had a sense - not only of gaining from the vibrancy and freshness of the Festival events - but of having given something to it, whether in the smallest of groups, or, in the case of Fr Laurence, from the stage in front of the grandstand. Philip Seal is a student of English Literature at Bristol University and recently edited a collection of short pieces by fellow students called ‘Young and Contemplative’ (p.j.m.seal@gmail.com)
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CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
WILLIAM JOHNSTON SJ William Johnston SJ who led the John Main Seminar in Toronto in 1993 died in Tokyo on 10th October. For many decades, as a scholar and spiritual teacher, he was a leading exponent of the contemplative dimension of the Gospel and modern approaches to inter-religious dialogue. He was a patron of the World Community and an enthusiastic advocate of its work and vision.
John Main Seminar 2011 The Irish Christian Meditation Community is delighted to be hosting the John Main Seminar 2011 at University College Cork (‘one of the top ten cities in the world to visit’- according to The Lonely Planet-Best in Travel 2010). We are looking forward to giving a Céad Míle Fáilte, a ‘hundred thousand welcomes’, to fellow meditators from Ireland and around the world to the beautiful City of Cork.
ALIVE IN CHRIST Led by Timothy Radcliffe OP 11-14 August 2011 What does it mean to be alive in Christ? This is a tough question in a society often secular and hostile. Timothy Radcliffe, former Master of the Dominican Order will explore the roots of our identity and life as baptised people today. Additional options: Pre Seminar Retreat 8-11 August Led by Laurence Freeman OSB A Pilgrimage is being planned to Ballinskeligs, Skellig Michael & Bere Island. Visit: www.jms11.com Telephone: 00-353 66 7137484 Email: sylviajms11@gmail.com
MEDITATIO Judi and Paul Taylor from Sydney visiting Meditatio House, London
Meditatio is the sharing and extension of the fruits of meditation in our community with the wider world. The life of an inclusive Christian contemplative community thus brings the fruits of the spirit into touch with the problems and crises of our time. Our three year Meditatio program includes a series of seminars and workshops on focused themes ranging from Education, Business and Finance, Mental Health, the Environment, Inter-Religious Dialogue, Care for the Dying, the 11th Step and Citizenship. The new London home, in Kensington, will coordinate the seminars as well as a new development of our internet presence and ability to communicate through all contemporary media. Training programs will be created to share the insights of these seminars within the World Community. London will also help train young meditators for future leadership in the community. They will come from different parts of the world as interns or as part of the WCCM Benedictine Oblate community. Visit the Meditatio page: www.wccmmeditatio.org
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CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
IN FOCUS
In God’s Time... My journey into the contemplative dimension of prayer began in 1995 when I was working in Singapore. Work related stress lead me to seek a way to control my blood pressure without increasing my drug dosages. I knew that meditation would be calming and looked for a method. I was considering Buddhist meditation but was not so comfortable with that idea and the next ‘course’ was some months away. I was at my wit’s end when I saw an ad in the Catholic Ne ws for ‘An Introduction to Christian Meditation’ conducted by Peter Ng and his team. It was the answer to my prayers and I promptly registered my husband, Joe, and myself for the weekend workshop. I did not immediately join a group after the weekend but I meditated faithfully twice daily, and became convinced that the practice helped me through crisis after crisis at work the following year. Joe and I returned to Malaysia and I met two other Malaysian meditators at a retreat led by the late Fr. Gerry Pierse CSsR in Singapore. We three decided to form the first meditation group in Kuala Lumpur on my return but kept procrastinating. Meditation was first introduced by Fr. Laurence in Penang in 1992 where the group was led by Serena Woon SFO but there was no group in KL. When we heard that Fr. Laurence would transiting through Kuala Lumpur but was trying to rearrange his flights to avoid a10 hour stopover we asked him to stop and help us. After the session he led we all realized he was meant to be in KL for those hours as the Spirit had sent him to help us ‘jump start’ the group! My first exposure to the international meditation community was at the John Main Seminar in San Francisco in 1998 where I suggested to Fr. Laurence that the JMS should come back to Asia. With the help of Joe and the support of our national community, the 2006 Seminar led by Margaret Rizza ‘came home’ to Malaysia. The post seminar trip gave participants the opportunity to walk physically and spiritually in the footsteps of Fr. John at the Pure Life Society Orphanage, where he first learnt meditation from Swami Satyananda – a heritage we feel extremely proud of. Knowing the fruits of meditation firsthand, I was
eager to share this pearl of great price. With evangelical zeal, I forged ahead to organize Introductory workshops but realized that we also needed affordable resource material and ground level support. We knew too that not all clergy were familiar with this form of prayer and our progress was slowed by the lack of a dedicated priest contact. I knew that everything would fall into place if I stayed faithful to the practice. The Lord helped us to share this gift by sending us Fr. Paul Cheong, OFM Cap as our priest contact. Fr. Paul ‘caught’ meditation after a school retreat with Fr. Laurence in Italy. Long ago Fr. Laurence was asked by the bishops of the three dioceses in West Malaysia to conduct their priests’ annual retreat. This happened this year and all the clergy are currently in the midst of their retreat and introduction to Christian meditation. Fr Laurence led the first and Fr de Ridder from Taiwan and Fr Sing from Indonesia, committed meditators and teachers in the community, led the next two. We now have a total of 16 meditation groups in 5 states in West Malaysia and the Spirit is leading us into East Malaysia with the transfer of Fr Paul to Sibu in Sarawak. We share a dream to have a meditation group in every parish in Malaysia. My work as a Pathologist in a Catholic mission Hospital has allowed me to introduce meditation in my workplace where we have a lunchtime meditation group. Although Joe, my husband is an “on-off ” meditator he is most supportive of my efforts to share this gift. We have three (plus one) adult children and are looking forward to our first grandchild next month. When I reflect on my own spiritual path and the story of the growth of our community here, it brings to life the lyrics... He makes all things beautiful in his time. (Patricia Por, National Co-ordinator, Malaysia wccm.malaysia@gmail.com)
MEDITATION PODCASTS @ iTUNES Search for “Christian Meditation” in the podcast section of iTunes to find more than a dozen series of podcasts by John Main, Laurence Freeman, Bede Griffiths, Peter Ng, Gerry Pierse, David Wood and others. Though the podcasts are offered without cost, we suggest users send a donation to the Community at http://www.friendsinmeditation.com/friendsprogramme.html
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CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010
MEDIO MEDIA - NEW TITLES Daily Readings with John Main
Silence & Stillness in Every Season New Edition with Updates
Paul T. Harris, ed. Many people across the world have found their spiritual lives enriched by the daily practice of Christian Meditation, a contemplative way of silent prayer taught by Benedictine monk John Main (1926-1982). It is a tradition grounded in Biblical wisdom, the early Christian desert monks, and the spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing. This collection of John Main’s teaching from his talks and books draws the essence of his teachings into one volume. Paul Harris has devotedly selected the essential extracts from each of John Main’s works and arranged them into an attractive and practical daily readings format. Softcover book 384pp #6103 £11.50 $16.95US
Taste and See The Goodness of the Lord Frans De Ridder CICM What people today need most, Fr Frans says, is “not more theories about God, but rather the experience of God – to become deeply aware of God’s real presence”. St John tells us: “Anyone who believes has eternal life.” (Jn 6: 47) It is therefore our call and our destiny to own this mystery and to live in God who is love. And the way to this, Fr Frans says, is meditation. Setting aside our preoccupations to simply repeat the mantra, we enter God’s space and dwell in him. This experience of God’s love liberates us from our ego and allows God to transform us in his image. Fr Frans’ simple, sincere approach will encourage newcomers to begin the journey of meditation. Meditators will find a deeper understanding of their practice. Fr Frans De Ridder CICM is a missionary of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Since 1981 he has been involved with the Marriage Encounter, Engaged Encounter and Choice (young adults) programmes. 2-CD set #8063 £9.50 $14.95US
TO ORDER: MEDIO MEDIA INTERNATIONAL
Please contact your resource center or supplier for the price in your local currency UK: email: welcome@wccm.org Tel: +44-20-7278-2070 CANADA: www.meditatio.ca email: christianmeditation@bellnet.ca Tel: +1-514-485-7928 ASIA: email: daulet@pacific.net.sg Tel: +65-6469-7671
USA: www.mediomedia.org Tel:+1-520-882-0290 AUSTRALIA: jpanetta@energy.com.au Tel: +61 2 9482 3468 (also) Rainbow Book Agencies rba@rainbowbooks.com.au Tel: +61-3-9470-6611
Visit the new Medio Media site www.mediomedia.com and the online bookstore: www.contemplative-life.org
PLEASE MAKE A CONTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO YOUR MEANS TO THE COST OF THIS NEWSLETTER AND IF YOU CAN TO THE WORK OF THE COMMUNITY WORLDWIDE.
www.friendsinmeditation.com
The Christian Meditation Newsletter is published four times a year by the International Centre of The World Community for Christian Meditation, St Mark’s, Myddelton Square, London EC1R 1XX, UK (tel +44 20 7278 2070 / fax +44 20 7713 6346) Email: welcome@wccm.org (Copyright The World Community for Christian Meditation) It is distributed by national communities with national updates.
General Editor: Gregory Ryan (gjryan@wccm.org) Graphic Design: Carlos Siqueira (carlos@wccm.com.br) International Coordinator: Pauline Peters (paulinepeters2@gmail.com) Coordinator, International Office, London: Susan Spence (susan@wccm.org) The World Community Web page: www.wccm.org Medio Media Web page: www.mediomedia.org