Common Ground - April 09

Common Ground - April 09: "Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is."

Listening to our Hearts

When Ignatius Loyola was recovering after breaking his leg in battle, he used to enjoy the romances they gave him to read; but he found that their after-taste was empty and unsatisfying. When he read the Gospels, the after-taste was of solid food, something he could live on. He learned to discern the after-taste of experiences. That is the way the Holy Spirit can shape our lives. It means listening to our hearts to discover the path of God and of the Holy Spirit through us, and to recognise what blocks we place, consciously or unconsciously, to God's work in us.

Sacred Space - the prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits

Sacred Space - the prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits: "The Holy Spirit gives us the confidence to be where we find ourselves, possibly depressed, old, sickly. Ancient trees may have rotten branches but they have a beauty that comes from all the years they have lived. If we live in the Holy Spirit, nothing is lost to us, not even our failures, immaturities or sins. When you are fifteen, you do not want to know about when you were ten. You are looking ahead, hoping to be something else. But true growth comes from knowing: I am fifteen, which means that each of those 15 years has added something to me. My successes come from what I did with my failures. I have survived some sufferings, and have learned from them. The Holy Spirit would have helped Saint Peter to think about the denial of Christ and crowing of the cock. He would rather have forgotten about it, undone it. Instead he learned to make it part of the Lord's dealing with him, as much a part as Jesus' tender words to him after the Resurrection: Feed my sheep."

Lent

We are that time of the year when the church invites us to test our freedom, and to question the notion: I can take it or leave it alone. I’ll try that with my pleasures. What habits make me hard to live with? Lent is about regaining control of my own life, especially in those areas that damage other people. We don’t admire those whose appetites or habits lead them by the nose.

Everything Belongs: the Gift of Contemplative Prayer

Everything Belongs: the Gift of Contemplative Prayer

Sacred Space - Friday 13th January

Sacred Space - Friday 13th January: "The friends of the paralytic take endless trouble in looking for a cure. Instead Jesus seeks the cause of the paralysis, in some old hurt that binds up the man's strength. It is often our past that cripples us: guilt, unforgiven wrongs, rankling resentments."

What is Faith?

explore faith : Book Review of Soul Making by Alan Jones: "Their belief was that faith is not a product of indoctrination from the outside; it comes from the Spirit of God bursting out from inside us."

"...there is a divinely initiated banquet going on at the heart of ordinary life."
Ronald Rolheiser - The Shattered Lantern"

Restfulness

"True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace, and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough."
Ronald Rolheiser in The Shattered Lantern

Freedom

Sacred Space - Monday 10th October: "God is not foreign to my freedom.
Instead the Spirit breathes life into my most intimate desires,
gently nudging me towards all that is good.
I ask for the grace to let myself be enfolded by the Spirit."

We are never stationary...........

Sacred Space - the prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits: "We are never stationary on the path to God. Our prayer changes. Many many good people move from using well-rehearsed vocal prayers and pious reflections, to a more silent, wordless sort of presence: Be still and know that I am God. I will not have thy thoughts instead of thee. The old peasant, whom the Cure of Ars found spending hours in the church, explained it: I look at the good God and the good God looks at me. With our oldest friends we do not need to talk."

Awareness of the Presence of God

Awareness of the Presence of God

If someone asked you to give them another word for 'God', you could use the word 'Presence', for that is what God is. When Moses asked Yahweh his name, Yahweh replied, 'I am who am' and this means 'I am present'. God is really saying, 'I shall be there for you.' God is intimately present to everything, and especially to us. Jesus's name is Emmanuel, which means 'God is with us'. Matthew's Gospel ends with the marvellous statement: Know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.(from Finding God in All Things by Brian Grogan SJ)

A pertinent prayer

God is not foreign to my freedom.
Instead the Spirit breathes life into my most intimate desires,
gently nudging me towards all that is good.
I ask for the grace to let myself be enfolded by the Spirit.

Matthew 13:12 inspiration

If you open yourself in faith and hope to God's revelation of his plan of salvation, you can make rapid progress in understanding it. If you close yourself to it, you can lose the offer.

Taken from Sacred Space (7/21/05)

What does is mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

"Christianity is more than a philosophy of life or a collection of doctrines. It is more than a moral code or a series of rites for worship. Christianity is, first of all, a personal journey. It is a way of living. It is not as concerned about explaining life as it is committed to living it fully and deeply. Christianity is the choice to follow Jesus in his life of service and of healing, his passover journey of love."


Quote taken from John Heagle's Our Journey Toward God - emphasis is mine.

Jesuit Philosophy

Finding God in all things,
Listening with a discerning heart,
Choosing to live for the greater glory of God

Death & Resurrection - a daily experience.

"Neither death nor resurrection are experiences that happen only at the end of our lives. They are the pattern of each day's pilgrimage. Each time we let go of the past to embrace the future we relive Christ's paschal journey in our own flesh. Each time we allow our fears or our selfishness to die, we break through to new life."

John Heagle in "On the Way".

Listening

By being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen which cannot be learned any more than breathing), we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained; the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations.

Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton: Essential Writings

On Being Alert

The Holy Spirit moves us like the wind. When a sailor is helming a small boat, working with tiller and mainsail to take advantage of an unseen breeze, he has to be alert every moment to the slightest gust. That is the habitual state of those born of the spirit: it is a poise, a readiness to respond, that is the opposite of inertia.

Secret

The secret of health for both mind and body
is not to mourn for the past,
worry about the future,
or anticipate troubles
but to live in the present moment
wisely and earnestly.

~ Buddha

Holy Curiosity

"One cannot but be in awe when [one] contemplates
the mysteries of eternity, of life,
of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries to merely comprehend
a little of this mystery each day.
Never lose a holy curiosity."

Albert Einstein

Happiness

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.



Dennis Waitley

Freedom

Everything has the potential to draw forth from me a fuller love and life.
Yet my desires are often fixed, caught, on illusions of fulfillment.
I ask that God, through my freedom, may orchestrate
my desires in a vibrant loving melody rich in harmony.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.

Robert Bresson

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prayer

From Sacred Spaces

"I know, Lord, that we cannot live for ever on a charismatic high. I am lucky if from time to time you lift me out of myself. But for most of the time I have to be content with the routine of survival, living on faith, which is a mixture of light and darkness."

Expressing Feelings

From "Words Made Flesh" by Fran Ferder

"Men have been encouraged to be in tight control of their feelings and reminded not to cry. To the degree that they have internalized these messages, they have been stripped of some of their humanness. They have lost some of their richest resources for intimacy."

St. Ignatius Quotes

A thick and shapeless tree-trunk would never believe
that it could become a statue, admired as a miracle of sculpture,
and would never submit itself to the chisel of the sculptor,
who sees by her genius what she can make of it. (St Ignatius)
I ask for the grace to let myself be shaped by my loving Creator.

There are very few people
who realise what God would make of them
if they abandoned themselves into his hands,
and let themselves be formed by his grace. (St Ignatius)
I ask for the grace to trust myself totally to God's love.

Lenten Goal

I need to close out the noise, to rise above the noise;
The noise that interrupts, that separates,
The noise that isolates.
I need to listen to God again.

The Power of Mindfulness - The Art of Conscious Living

The Power of Mindfulness
- The Art of Conscious Living

by Yvonne Chiarelli
Professional Coach, Creative Possibilities
The Power of Mindfulness - The Art of Conscious Living: "Mindfulness is an ancient Buddhist practice that has profound relevance for today. It is relevant because mindfulness is a practice of being consciously awake, experiencing the fullness of the present moment, and living in harmony with yourself and the world. The practice of mindfulness allows you to cultivate an appreciation for experiencing your life as you are living it. One of its effects is an increased ability to see the extraordinary in the mundane. Mindfulness has to do with being in touch and seeing what is so.

Practicing mindfulness is simple but not easy. Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. It requires a mental discipline to wake up in each moment, and to keep waking up for each oncoming moment. This kind of extraordinary quality of attention requires effort. It requires such effort because you are almost programmed to forget, or you succumb to unawareness, or wish to become deliberately unaware. The use of medicants of all kinds is prevalent in our culture ranging from drugs, over busi-ness, TV watching, and other activities that tend to narrow our attention. "

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it -- that alone can be like waking up from a dream.



David Steindl-Rast

The Power of Mindfulness - The Art of Conscious Living

The Power of Mindfulness - The Art of Conscious Living

Change

From "Soul Mates" by Thomas Moore

The difficult truth to learn is that true change takes place in the imagination, and knowing this has everything to do with developing a good, intimate relationship to our own soul and the souls of others.

Miracles

May there be a miracle in YOUR life today and may you have the EYES to see it.

Everyday Spirituality by Barbara De Angelis

Everyday Spirituality by Barbara De Angelis: "In our search for self-knowledge and spiritual truth, many of us are, I believe, looking in the wrong direction. We have separated the spiritual from everyday living, and thus separated ourselves from experiencing everyday spirituality. The spiritual has become associated with Sunday church services, or the Sabbath, or yoga and meditation, or a trip to India, or a tour of a famous European cathedral.

We think praying is more spiritual than riding a bicycle, reading religious literature more holy than making love. We are living secularized lives and yet wondering why life often feels so meaningless and devoid of purpose. The search for real moments and everyday spirituality must begin with a return to and embracing of the human.

Everyday spirituality is not an escape from your usual life in search of some special, exalted experience, but a surrender into the fullness of every experience.

It is not a path that leads you away from the human to the spiritual, from the Earth to Heaven, but rather one that leads you back into the ordinary and everyday, and invites you to find the spiritual within it. It begins and ends where you already are, right here, right now. There's nothing else to look for, nothing else to acquire. You already have everything you need.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.' Ram Dass"

Sacred Space -

The Presence of God

To be present is to arrive as one is and open up to the other.
At this instant, as I arrive here, God is present waiting for me.
God always arrives before me, desiring to connect with me
even more than my most intimate friend.
I take a moment and greet my loving God.

Consciousness

I exist in a web of relationships - links to nature, people, God.
I trace out these links, giving thanks for the life that flows through them.
Some links are twisted or broken: I may feel regret, anger, disappointment.
I pray for the gift of acceptance and forgiveness.

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Psalm 110 (111):1-6

Praise the LORD!
I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.
Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds; the LORD is gracious and merciful.
He provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant.
He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.


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Some thoughts on today's scripture:

Who is this remarkable God who has evoked such wonder and love in the people throughout the ages?
Majestic and glorious.
Tender and compassionate.
Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. When I was a child I could be lost in wonder at a leaf, a worm, the smell of earth. Then I could truly delight in the study of God's work. My eyes, my nose, my senses are blunter now; but Lord, let me not lose the capacity to marvel in gratitude at the world you gave us.

Martha & Mary

from Sacred Space -



Luke 10:38-42
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Some thoughts on today's scripture:

Jesus repeats Martha's name with deep affection as he chides her. She will have remembered the message: Stop fussing. Because she learned the lesson, it is Martha, not Mary, who has a place in the calendar of saints (on 29th July). It is sometimes the things we are told in public reproof that touch us deepest and bring us close to God. Lord, save me from being a hyperactive fusspot, from imagining you brought me into the world to help you out of a jam. Teach me the pleasures of contemplation.

Spirituality

Spirituality is a summons that involves a willingness to listen and follow, and leave behind the claims of land, yokes and ties and to risk sitting with God for a stretch of time and letting him love us into what really matters, into what we really are.

On Loving

Loving is not a behavior at all; it is a quality of the heart and mind.