Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
Monday, August 12th with Heather
Chant: all we need is here, God is here, love is here
Reading: "Everything we need is here in us. Everything for fuller being. There is a kind of sacred descent of attention that can bring this about.
Seeing the obstacles, thoughts, feelings, yes, perhaps a pressure that keeps me from it. But if I can relax inside, just allow the pure attention to flow in, be in that. Very natural. It is what we are.
Attention: a sacred energy coming into me. Be sensitive to it.
Recognize again and again that it is there. Be touched by it, link with it, something real in you.
Not thoughts, techniques, not the head, but that touch. Can I liberate myself from all my concerns and enter the mystery?" — From the Recollected Talks of Michel de Salzmann (Chandolin, Switzerland, 1993-2000)
Wednesday, August 14th with Heather
Reading: “Silence is the most beautiful, of the most beautiful, of the most beautiful — when it is complete. When like Elijah on Mount Horeb, God passes by, unloading God's beauty upon us in the form of the sound of sheer silence. So nothing is more beautiful than to be still. And as the psalmist says, "To be still is to know that I am God."
This is not just to receive beauty but to become beauty. And to be beauty not by one's own effort, but by allowing God to radiate God's beauty on any one of those levels, or all of them together, by bringing into everyday life the silence that is stronger than noise, that is more refreshing than anything else that we can receive. And it's this balance of beauty and action and facing the contradictions or opposition or persecution or noise of daily life, or the insensitivity of other people to beauty. This is to be grounded in silence, which is to be grounded in God, which is to be grounded in the unquenchable, irresistible, fascinating attraction of God's presence, which is beauty and beyond beauty, greater than beauty.
Please make up your mind to be faithful to cultivating silence, and to use those means that are particularly powerful for you to experience the receptivity, or to be encouraged in the receptivity of what strikes you as beautiful in life. Take time, for instance, just to watch the sunset or a cloud or a tree. But even more powerful would be to be faithful to your period of Centering Prayer, so that you sit down and really receive the sound of sheer silence. No thinking. No reflecting. No expectations. No thought of yourself as praying or meditating. Just do it. Just let the silence or the presence of God - which is almost synonymous with silence — rise up in you, or sink into it, or rest in it." — Thomas Keating, Homily on Beauty, Contemplative Outreach July 2024 Newsletter
Chant: surrender to the Beauty, become a Mighty Kindness (by Elizabeth Combs)
Thursday, August 15th with Heather
Reading: “The power of the third guideline of Centering Prayer is "Whenever I become aware of any thoughts," which means commentaries, sensations, imaginings, spiritual experience and everything else —"I let them come and I let them go."
This letting go has a ripple effect in our life, helping us to let go of other things during the routines of daily life. This is how Centering Prayer is both a method and a way of life.
Letting go can be mixed with uncertainty and insecurity. Julian of Norwich, the 14th-century mystic, understood that the thing that really undermines our security, our sense of being settled, is fear. Julian was an anchorite, someone who lived in the back of the church in a little room, and people came to her for advice about the challenges of their lives and their relationship with God.
Julian calls one aspect of fear "fright." Some people live in a disposition of constant fear. No matter what happens on their journey, they're always afraid. When we ever-so-gently return to the sacred symbol, it is an exercise in letting go. Let things come. Let things go. Resist no thoughts. Retain no thoughts. Let them come. Let them go." — Carl J. Arico, Contemplative Outreach July 2024 Newsletter
Friday, August 16 with Tom
Reading: "Somehow we need to find that which is most conducive to our need for beauty and to emphasize that someplace, with some frequency in our lives. Spiritual beauty is even greater. And perhaps the most prominent expression of that is the moral beauty of the sacrifice of Abraham, for instance. The beauty is in the devotion to God that was willing to let go of what Abraham loved most in this world, in order to experience or to manifest a still greater love. Perhaps this is the greatest beauty of all beauties— to see someone letting go of what they most love for a greater good, the good of all humanity, or the healing of the world.
But what about us, who are struggling with the daily ups and downs of life, or with difficult service or ministries, or family affairs, or professional difficulties, or worrying about the future of the country or the world, or of our church, etc.?
We need to stop thinking at times, … and realize that we must take some time to sink into that beauty that most appeals to us, or which we’re most capable of perceiving, and just to be bathed in beauty.
This is to be receptive of the mystery of God that is impossible to put into one word. Spaciousness is beauty. Freedom is beauty. Music, of course, is beauty, and nudges the spiritual level of our being perhaps closer than almost anything else. But there is one thing more beautiful or the most beautiful kind, and that is silence. Silence is the most beautiful, of the most beautiful, of the most beautiful — when it is complete. When like Elijah on Mount Horeb, God passes by, unloading God’s beauty upon us in the form of the sound of sheer silence.
So nothing is more beautiful than to be still. And as the psalmist says, “To be still is to know that I am God.” This is not just to receive beauty but to become beauty. And to be beauty not by one’s own effort, but by allowing God to radiate God’s beauty on any one
of those levels, or all of them together, by bringing into everyday life the silence that is stronger than noise, that is more refreshing than anything else that we can receive. And it’s this balance of beauty and action and facing the contradictions or opposition or persecution or noise of daily life, or the insensitivity of other people to beauty. This is to be grounded in
silence, which is to be grounded in God, which is to be grounded in the unquenchable, irresistible, fascinating attraction of God’s presence, which is beauty and beyond beauty, greater than beauty."— Thomas Keating, Homily on Beauty, Contemplative Outreach July 2024 Newsletter
Chant: surrender to the Beauty, become a Mighty Kindness (by Elizabeth Combs)
Saturday, August 17 with Tom
Body Movement: The Six Gestures of the Prayer: Be Still and Know that I am God Adapted with gestures taught by Bill Redfield and Lois Barton
(Gathering and Beginning) Prayer Position of Hands Folded: I am here—in openness, sincerity, authenticity, and purity of heart.
Bow: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
Opening with hands extended toward the sky: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM
Bringing hands together over the heart: BE STILL AND KNOW
Turning from one side to another arms outstretched BE (turn one way) STILL (turn the other way)
Grounding…placing our hands facedown at our sides, toward the earth: BE
Chant: Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
Sunday, August 18 with Catherine
Reading: "Hospitality, rather than being something you achieve, is something you enter. It is an adventure that takes you where you never dreamed of going. It is not something you do, as much as it is someone you become. You try and you fail. You try again. You make room for one person [or place or situation] at a time, you give one chance at a time, and each of these choices of the heart stretches your ability to receive others. This is how we grow more hospitable --- by welcoming one person when the opportunity is given to you." — Father Daniel Homan, OSB and Lonni Collins Pratt, Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love
Chant: O Mercy, I entrust myself to you, that I may be transformed (by Suzanne Toolan RSM & Catherine Regan)
Comments