Eastern philosophy: The Buddha 5:43
Zen: An Introduction 10:15
How Buddha helps to be a better Christian, Richard Rohr 5:47
Author: Resa Pearson
It’s all I have to bring today
It’s all I have to bring today-
This, and my heart beside-
This, and my heart, and all the fields-
And all the meadows wide-
Be sure you count—should I forget
Someone the sum could tell-
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
–Emily Dickenson
The Trinity
“The Word is, by definition, immanent in the divinity and active in the world, and as such the Father’s revelation. A revelation of the Father without the Logos and his incarnation would be like speaking without words.”
― Karl Rahner, The Trinity
“The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the most fundamental of our faith. On it everything else depends and from it everything else derives. Hence the Church’s constant concern to safeguard the revealed truth that God is One in nature and Three in Persons.”
—FATHER JOHN A. HARDON, S.J
“The Father is from no one; the Son is from the Father only; and the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Son equally. God has no beginning; He always is, and always will be. The Father is the progenitor, the Son is the begotten, the Holy Spirit is proceeding. They are all one substance, equally great, equally all-powerful, equally eternal.”
–Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
“The Father is entirely in the Son and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Son is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Son. None of the persons precedes any of the others in eternity, nor does any have greater immensity or greater power. From eternity, without beginning, the Son is from the Father; and from eternity and without beginning, the Holy Spirit has proceeded from the Father and the Son.”
–The Council of Florence, 1439
The Father, Who is Justice, is not without the Son or the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit, Who kindles the heart of the faithful, is not without the Father and the Son; and the Son, Who is the plenitude of fruition, is not without the Father or the Holy Spirit; they are inseparable in Divine Majesty.
-Hildegard of Bingen
Taizé Prayer
The quieting, mystical experience of Taizé Prayer.
“Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone. Gradually the conviction took shape in me that it was essential to create a community with men determined to give their whole life and who would always try to understand one another and be reconciled, a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the center of everything.” Brother Roger
“God is love alone” “When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. But in the depths of our being Christ is praying for more than we imagine. Compared to the immensity of that hidden prayer of Christ in us, our explicit praying dwindles to almost nothing. That is why silence is so essential in discovering the heart of prayer.
Although God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never wants to impose anything on us. Often God’s voice comes in a whisper, in a breath of silence. Remaining in silence in God’s presence, open to the Spirit, is already prayer. It is not a matter of trying to obtain inner silence at all costs by following some method that creates a kind of emptiness within. The important thing is a childlike attitude of trust by which we allow Christ to pray within us silently, and then one day, we will discover that the depths of our being are inhabited by a Presence.”
― Taizé, Songs and Prayers from Taize: Accompaniment Edition for Cantor & Instruments
Thomas Keating
This is one video in a series of 31 hour-long talks by Thomas Keating that make up his foundational video teachings, “The Spiritual Journey with Fr. Thomas Keating.” All of these talks are now available on YouTube. Fr. Thomas was an internationally renowned theologian, speaker and author of dozens of books including “Open Mind, Open Heart.” Fr. Thomas co-founded Contemplative Outreach, which offers this series and supports Centering Prayer. Along with Fr. William Meninger and Fr. Basil Pennington, Fr. Thomas began the Centering Prayer movement in the 1970’s to renew the Christian tradition of contemplation.
Go to http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org for more information on Centering Prayer, including retreats and local chapters that offer support to practitioners at all levels in the U.S. and around the world.
Henri Nouwen
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.
God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.
Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God’s suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.
People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.
The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained – through prayer, study, and careful analysis – to manifest the divine event of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.
James Finley
“If we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love.”
“How strange God’s ways are! He calls us to a union we do not understand. He calls us to a place of encounter which we cannot find. We search and search. Our silence reveals to us not a garden of delights but an awful nothingness. God leaves us in an awful emptiness. All our initial enthusiastic notions of prayer deteriorate into an acknowledgement of our utter superficiality and lack of authenticity before God. We can only throw ourselves completely on his mercy. We can only wait in the darkness and cry out for our salvation. We can but trust that God’s love is such that our sinfulness does not even matter. We can only have faith.”
“The solution Merton suggests is that we should quit keeping score altogether and surrender ourselves with all our sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed by Christ.”
“All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his presence.”
Jim Finley God Sees as the Deer Moves 9:01
Jim Finley Practice Your Practice 5:19
1:16:33
Jim Finley Lectio/Meditatio/Union 9:35
Jim Finley on Intrusions on Meditation 13:06
Moving Into God in the Early Evening Jim Finley 5:52
Centering Prayer
Fr. Carl Arico Recordings – Contemplative Outreach and Centering Prayer
Centering Prayer is a receptive method of Christian silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God’s presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself.
The Guidlines
- Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.
- Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.
- When engaged with your thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
- At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.
John O’Donohue
“When you learn to love and let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered. You are completely at one in the house of your own longing and belonging.”
“I would love to live
like a river flows,
carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding.”
“We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.”
“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”
“All the possibilities of your human destiny are asleep in your soul. You are here to realize and honor these possibilities. When love comes in to your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow. Possibility is the secret heart of time.”
St. Therese of Lisieux
“Our Lord does not so much look at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.”
“Let us love, since that is what our hearts were made for.”
“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”
“Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude.”
“If a little flower could speak, it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent, that the sun had withered its petals, or the storm bruised its stem if it knew that such were not the case.”
“Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.”
“Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love.”
“When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.”
“Time is your boat not your home.”
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4:25/19:14
19:46
