O CHRISTIAN MEDITATIONChristian NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, N 3; OCTOBER 2010 Meditation1 NEWSLETTER OF THE WORLD COMMUNITY FOR www.wccm.org Registered Charity No. 327173 INTERNATIONAL EDITION, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 Meditation with Children Experience and Promise A Day Seminar Date: 7 December 2010 9.00 am to 5.30 pm Cost: £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? 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: [email protected] 14 December Brentwood For booking queries please contact 15 December Birmingham Pat Nash T: 01794 512006 E: [email protected]

SOME KEY EVENTS IN 2011 April 17-24 Holy Week Retreat, Bere Island, Ireland August 11-14 John Main Seminar, Ireland May 5-6 Meditatio Seminar on Meditation and Mental September 3-9 School Retreat, Italy Health, London September 14-24 Ten Day Silent Retreat, Bere Island, June 18-25 Monte Oliveto Retreat, Italy Ireland 2 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 A letter from Laurence Freeman OSB DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD COMMUNITY FOR CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

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 Some moments stay with us for ever and can be repeatedly your breathing – subsided she was able to reflect on the horror recalled by grace to help us grow in wisdom. So they are and tragedy that had blighted her life. As a Christian she knew themselves moments of grace – memories that become more she ‘should’ forgive. But she felt blocked from doing so for present the better we understand them. As this happens over two reasons. Firstly, that the murderers had not asked for time we see how little we have understood and how much has forgiveness and secondly, that the idea of forgiveness seemed yet to be learned. It’s only the very young, the insecure or the to be a betrayal of her husband. She was stuck and for ten prejudiced who think they know it all for certain. This is why years had not had a good night’s sleep. we are always learning to meditate and how we come to see * that meditation is a way of unlearning. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in S Africa after An example. During the 2000 John Main Seminar in N. apartheid has generally been acclaimed as a social success. This Ireland I went with the Dalai Lama to a meeting with victims means that it has significantly helped the citizens move on of violence from both sides of the religious divide. As we without lying to themselves or each other. We lie to ourselves entered the room it was like walking into a freezer. Each group from a desperation to survive what we are enduring and think sat on either side of the room with what seemed like an iceberg could destroy us. We can indeed be destroyed by many things dividing them. Intuitively assessing the mood and problem, including our memories, as victims of abuse discover as they the Dalai Lama did not wait for a formal opening but dived grow older. Yet the S African Commission - which offered straight into his own sharing. He spoke about his pain and amnesty to those who fully confessed their crimes and gave an grief at what had happened to Tibet and asked ‘if I chose to opportunity for the victims to describe what they endured hate the enemy, who would be hurt more, them or myself?’ and even to confront their torturers – could not be a forum We can be lifted up and out of the narrow, circular corridors for every memory of abuse over the previous 46 years of state of memory and the feelings that we compulsively pace around, apartheid. In the end only 849 people were given amnesty. when someone speaks like this with authenticity, from their But the sacramental, symbolically representative, encounters heart. They are sacrificing something, offering a part of their had brought healing to many thousands, including those who self, risking themselves. Truth-telling like this acts as a stimulus, had only witnessed the proceedings from a distance. It was awakens us to a larger perspective and, at least for a while, restorative justice that worked. seems to empower us to give of ourselves as well. After he had It was not ‘victor’s justice’ that allows no forgiveness to spoken, we invited the people present to share their memories flow, but a personal, and therefore statistically incomplete, and feelings of how violence had touched and changed their process of forgiveness in action. To forgive we have to discover lives. Slowly, as people began to risk communicating their what forgiveness really means, as the woman in the victims’ memories and actual pain, the iceberg in the room started group in N Ireland unexpectedly came to do. We have also to melting. The temperature rose with the human warmth of be truthful with ourselves, to confront the pain, anger and people trusting each other. Without such human warmth and dark feelings generated by the hurt we have undergone. trust there is no common bond, no community and no Eventually we have to risk touching the cause of our pain, the forgiveness. violent other, from whom we have probably distanced ourselves From early on I had noticed a woman in the front row who by flight or fight. was following everything very intensely and who often seemed The woman I mentioned said that she had just then about to speak but stopped herself. As we drew the session to understood that forgiveness was not pronouncing a verdict of a close she suddenly raised her hand and asked to speak. She acquittal but, first of all, facing and healing her own inner CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 3 battle-scarred landscape of soul. When we are hurt by someone and then the honest answer may be, ‘no we do not deeply – or by some impersonal thing that happens to us – it is as if want to change’. But, when we do want to change, perhaps we are poisoned by betrayal and infidelity if our trust in after the poison has become unendurable, we learn what loving another, or life as a whole, has been trounced; or, if it is an our enemies means. Of course, it doesn’t mean exonerating or accident that we can blame on no one, (although we often try just pardoning them to avoid conflict. Justice always needs to to, to make things feel easier for ourselves), it is as if we have be seen to be done for the right reason. It means simply paying been run over in a hit and run by a passing truck. We lie on attention to the source, human or natural, from which the the ground prostrate and shattered trying to see how much hurt came and then asking ourselves ‘why did they do it?’ At damage has been done. the end of this hard questioning we may conclude that really Suffering, from whatever source, has a frightening otherness ‘they did not know what they were doing’, as Jesus understood to it. Our innate expectation that we will be fairly treated by from the Cross. His insight and detachment enabled him to others and by life – our sense of justice - suddenly appears forgive them – or rather not to say “I forgive them”, but to very naïve. Even if we cannot blame a particular enemy or a draw on the impartial, ever non-condemnatory love of the false friend we may try to blame God. At first we instinctively ‘Father’. To say ‘I’ would have been an assertion of the ego try to refuse admission to what has happened and press the and so, even in his case, a dramatization of the other. By asking rewind button. Denial is a state of mind that we enter after a the Father to forgive them he allowed them to be wholly other shock and can remain in for many years. After denial we may and also to withdraw all projections from them. To love our feel merely numbed and exhausted. Only the process of neighbour must include the ‘enemy’ as one who has often forgiveness can liberate us from this defeat. From denial we been the cause of our hurt. It is such a primary commandment move to acceptance because we have to learn to face and that we cannot be learning from Jesus without struggling with embrace the worst. Facing the worst with truthfulness brings and at times, against it. out the best in us. The desert wisdom illustrates this in the many short stories Punishment does not fit in the and sayings concerned with anger and equation of the stages of forgiveness. “IN EVERY CONFLICT ASK YOURSELF relationship. In the desert solitude There is no punishment in God – only ‘WHO AM I?’ they understood how the law of in the ego. We can only heal what we AND JUDGE NO ONE.” interdependence prevails at every level see belongs to the whole and ourselves from the material to the psychological existing in the whole. Healing is therefore both integration but becomes fully expressed in the spiritual realm where our and expansion. The grace of forgiveness, once released, is being itself ‘depends’ on God. One younger struggling monk unpredictably that we are better than we were before, better asked his abba what ‘must I do to be saved?’ He was told, ‘In and bigger. every conflict ask yourself ‘who am I?’ and judge no one’. This * illustrates how even – or especially – in the solitude of the Forgiveness is not just about saying “I forgive you” which desert ‘life and death lie with our neighbour’. We need the can often sound like an imperial decree that makes the otherness of others in order to stay alive and grow. We are relationship much harder to resolve. Taking the moral high better off without relationship (were that possible) than with ground and looking down in a condescending way on the other a false, superficial relationship with people we reshape in our who has betrayed us – or our hopes for them – is always imaginations by our desires and fears and layered over by our tempting. But it delays forgiveness and the later, different preconceptions and prejudices. project of reconciliation that requires forgiveness if a damaged The truly other is essential to the mystical and loving mind. relationship is to be restored to health and justice re-balanced. Otherness stimulates the mind to let go of its fixed points and Saying “I forgive you” can be as self-deceptive and superficial expand beyond itself, enlarging the view we have of the world as merely saying “I am sorry, now let’s move on”. The Church and of ourselves within it. In the face of the other we have to is learning this in many parts of the world as it faces its shame give up the game of dramatising them. This is a little of what about sexual abuse of children and the failures of leadership I understand by the term ‘a catholic mind’ because it has in dealing with these crimes. Only the truth set free at every faced the other that we cannot describe or control. The catholic level of time and emotion – this is what is meant by the ‘whole mind intuitively seeks to include rather than reject, even when truth and nothing but the truth’ - can set us free. it meets an abyss of difference in the other that it recoils from The process begins, as the woman in N Ireland discovered and finds wrong and threatening. The first recorded reference after ten years’ insomnia, with oneself. We have to recognize to the ‘catholic’ in Christianity was in the second century and and accept everything we are feeling and fantasizing, however it was even then invoked as a way of preventing the religion shameful or unthinkable. Secondly, we have to admit that this from becoming a closed, bigoted sect. By the fifth century St mental state is poisoning and darkening us as a whole. A Vincent of Lerins defined it as that which has been believed question has then to be faced, ‘do I really want to change?’ everywhere, always and by all. It’s a tall order to be catholic, Sometimes a negative momentum has been set moving that we might think. It comprehends all universally, as only God makes us feel more comfortable and secure in a victim’s role – and the Mind of Christ – can. 4 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 We become catholic in this full and embracing sense only to be gently introduced to its fate and to be healed in the by means of growth which is a passing through the stages of process. Simone Weil saw this as a kind of lever in the inner healing and integration. So, none of us is catholic yet, not life. Without a lever to ease us in the direction of a higher even the pope. There is a way to go. But the alternative to value, she said, we change but only at the same level. the process of forgiveness is the sectarian mind that objectifies Change is inevitable because everything is hastening to its the other and, through fear and the pleasure of power, denies end. But if change is restricted to the level we now occupy we it its pure subjectivity, its otherness and is-ness. Socially and soon smell stagnation –a form of the decay of human potential. historically we have done this to immigrants, to Jews, to When we feel that forgiveness is impossible – even years after gays and other easily targeted minorities but also even to the hurt has been suffered – it is because we have not been half the human race through the violent patriarchal exclusion levered into another level. We feel and indeed we are stuck of women. By doing such things we exclude ourselves from where we were. Unless we re-integrate the negative other we the whole and therefore from the holy One. God is always cannot know God, the ultimate other, and we make up a fake subject, the ‘great I AM’, impervious to our attempts to god composed of our own egos and its fears, guilts and desires. objectify and manipulate. We meet this pure emanation of There can be such a discrepancy between belief and action in being in our own deep silence not in ideology or abstraction religious people because we don’t give time just to be, because but in diverse ways, basically in each other and in the beauty the God who is trying to burst through the locked doors of and wonder of creation, the ocean of being, of suffering and the mind has been blocked by the god we have created and bliss, that we and even the creator have swum in. made our idol and gaoler. * The monk, according to the desert wisdom sees the other Because forgiveness requires depth in himself and himself in others. The and depth needs silence, forgiveness, “TRYING TOO HARD TO FORGIVE other, however, refers not only to the reconciliation, the catholic mind in USUALLY LEADS TO FAILURE.” people we relate to within family or whatever stage of faith, peace and work. It is also found in an impersonal justice themselves require contemplation. To think of way in accidents, joys and tragedies, in our discoveries and contemplation as a kind of luxury, relaxation or spare time losses, even our times of boredom and failure. Accepting all occupation entirely misses the meaning of human development these aspects and phases of our total experience means as the only essential way we have to glorify God. How can we accepting ourselves as we are in every possible aspect, shadow “glorify God” by what we say or do? We can only reflect back and brilliance, generosity and selfishness. Self-acceptance of to God the divine glory potentially stored in our own being. this kind is love. And, if we cannot love ourselves we cannot St John of the Cross says the soul is like an unopened parcel. love others; the love of God without love of others is a sham. Unwrapping it is the way we glorify God by – ultimately * through participating completely in God’s life and vision. We Trying too hard to forgive usually leads to failure. We learn meditate, John Main said, to become the person God knows from failure a more hands off approach, in which forgiveness us to be. Become one with the giver of the gift by returning is released in us rather than bestowed by us (it is simply another the gift to the giver and then finding the gift it contains. aspect of love). It must be allowed to unfold naturally. Deep Faith, self-knowledge, love itself requires a self-giving and stillness and silence facilitate this in the most direct and self-transcendence that is only possible when the ego has been effective way. It is only surprising that the wisdom of the left behind. Only when we are neither desiring nor trying to mystical tradition has not more fully and pragmatically do it, can it be accomplished. Meditation allows this to happen penetrated the religious and political institutions that become by gradually shifting the centre of gravity from the ego to the so much more friendly and efficient when they are open to spirit. It is such a major transfer of power that the ego needs this universal level of human consciousness. In meditation we permit this to happen because, as it were, View from the we put ourselves in brackets, not seeking to dominate. We do hermitage Abbey of so out of love, with respect for the otherness of others, whether Montserrat friends or enemies, and ultimately of God, in whom all otherness finds the re-integration and unity it 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 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 5 it as a homecoming to ourselves and to those depths of the self Because we believe that meditation most simply and naturally in which we lose ourselves and are found. Even if we felt we allows this to happen we have started Meditatio, our new, had failed by giving up the inner work of meditation and the coordinated outreach program. Over the next three years we ego troubles us with guilt or the need for punishment we see will put on a series of seminars that will bring us into dialogue it in reverse – the acceptance and renewal of life the disciples with meditators of our own community who have been working underwent in the presence of the risen Jesus is ours. ‘No in these fields and with experts and practitioners in these fields blame’, as the I Ching puts it. Forgiveness without resentment who may not meditate but are interested to see what a spiritual and restitution of connection, as the parable of the prodigal perspective has to offer. son describes it. We begin in London on December 7th this year with the Followed as a way of faith meditation introduces us to the first Meditatio Seminar on children and meditation followed true nature of forgiveness in all its astounding obviousness by a series of local seminar-workshops in England and Ireland. and with an unforgettable sense of relief. We learn, for ourselves, In May next year we are planning a seminar on meditation why says that this ‘work dries up and mental health. We will then gather the fruits of the the root of sin within us’. All forgiveness – of self or others, seminars and bring them to our national communities to see released in either direction between the wounder or the how we can put them at the service of others in different ways wounded - immerses us in the divine present. In the welcome and cultures. Following the Meditatio link on the homepage we experience as we penetrate the silence in which the presence (www.wccm.org) will give you more information on what is is present, the past is integrated. Those painful aspects which happening. keep the past locked away from the present are led into In addition to the Meditatio Seminars we will be developing acceptance and brought into the light our website and other means of of the self. Then the ego is healed. “THE FUTURE ENTERS US sharing this message through What we colloquially call the BEFORE IT HAPPENS.” technology. From the house in ‘present’ is really the endless stream Kensington we will be coordinating of immediacy we all experience as distractions in meditation. Meditatio and also giving formation to younger meditators This succession of chronological moments is purified. We sense who spend time in community, deepening their meditation a new beginning, of order and peace amid the heavy traffic and raising their sense of the community through which they flow of the mind, and the traffic jams that need to be cleared can serve the kingdom of God. start flowing again. Finding ourselves better able to function I downloaded a new app recently that allows you to see in the ordinary world with its intense levels of stress and anxiety which constellations are in the sky at any time. Before it can we feel empowered to go into it. The future, on which we also reveal the heavens to you it has to know where you are and expend so much time and worry, is integrated, too, by the asks if it can ‘use your present location’. It calculates this and work of silence and stillness. once your location is registered you can see everything, or As Rilke put it, the future that matters – what actually almost everything. Meditation is not an easy cure for all happens rather than what might happen – enters us before it problems. If it were no doubt it would be much more widely happens. What this means is not that we can predict the embraced as the global-local wisdom it is. But it does help us National Lottery but that, accepting that we don’t know for to identify our current location, to be reachable and teachable. sure what will happen and yet still trust that we are held in Perhaps this is why in its total simplicity it can reveal – and love whatever happens, opens us to deeper levels of the spirit change – so much and so many today are seeking it. in which all time is present. This gives us peace. 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 Laurence Freeman OSB institutions of the adult world, politics, business and medicine.

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) 6 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 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 having on the Catholic Church. He gave us a convincing MAIN SEMINAR 2010 LED BY JAMES ALISON description that science and society now accepts that homosexuality is a “regularly occurring non-pathological In August two hundred minority variant in the human condition”. In other words, participants from seventeen it’s hard-wired, a configuration, not a condition or aberration countries came to the but a fact of life for 3 to 4 per cent of the population, much University of Kent in the same way as being left-handed. Western society is now Canterbury for the 2010 John moving towards this acceptance and same sex marriages are Main Seminar led by the now commonplace. But the church still has some catching Catholic theologian, priest, up to do! Pope Benedict, James said, has relaxed some of the author and former member of earlier attitudes but although there is a softening of language the Dominican order James in places they genuinely don’t know how to handle it because Alison. On a green hill above James Alison at the John Main to accept the veracity of same-sex love throws the teaching of the city with the beautiful Seminar, Canterbury Humanae Vitae in question. The two ideas are in deep medieval cathedral as a conflict. The good and exciting thing about this, according backdrop, the campus was a perfect setting. The pre-seminar to James, is that it forms a fulcrum about which change can silent retreat led by Fr Laurence gave the opportunity for and will happen. The acceptance of the reality of deep reflection and in the silence, we experienced very quickly homosexuality will force a paradigm change, much in the the sense of community of a group of pilgrims gathered to same way as the map of the world had to be re-drawn when listen, pray and live together. the Americas were discovered in the 15th century. The Seminar talks were interspersed with break-out On Saturday afternoon we took a break from theology groups for interesting discussions and networking and each to visit Canterbury cathedral. The English summer weather day, morning, mid-day and evening we paused for was kind and we mostly walked down from the university meditation. On Thursday James gave the first of five talks. into the busy medieval market streets of Canterbury. I had come open but skeptical: was this the best way to use Thronged with people it was a little shocking after the quiet my annual leave, would I be able to understand him? My days of the retreat and seminar. We passed through the doubts were soon dispelled. James is an excellent orator gate of the cathedral and stood in awe before its gigantic and we were soon captivated by his energy and knowledge structure before taking part in sung evensong. Later after in a lively account of the formation of the understanding of refreshments Fr Laurence led meditation in the crypt of the Jewish God, from many gods to one God, the God with the cathedral and then from the heart of this historic place no rivals. The God amongst us but not of us. He left us of faith we prayed about the many issues, not least their with some interesting metaphors to think about such as divisions, facing our churches. the people of God as crumbs of bread in a brown paper I think most left the Seminar stimulated. It opened many bag, and then inverted! doors into new thought about our church and its mission James described the sacrificial element of the Jewish and also our own attitudes towards homosexuality. We had a observance of the Day of Atonement and the notion of the listened to a brave and inspired speaker who had brought scapegoat and how this linked to Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. fresh understanding to familiar texts that had truly opened He then turned our attention to the New Testament, death, not only our minds but also our hearts. Jon Kille 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 JOHN MAIN ROOM, SYDNEY of the sacrificial victims going back to Adam, while at the From our new Sydney WCCM office, the John Main same time opening up for the future the new creation which Room at the parish centre in Lavender Bay, we now run our has overcome death. meditation groups seven times a week in the parish with a His explanation of this story did not leave us with a dry special group for school age children. We have a lending theology steeped in learning but allowed us to hear the library and bookshop focusing on meditation and a reading scripture read as it must have been originally inspired and corner. Groups introducing Christian meditation will be held with the same excitement that the apostles must have felt as on Monday and Wednesday at 11.30am before Mass and on they recorded the events they experienced. Saturday at 10am after Mass. (Enquiries to the John Main One session James departed from his theme to talk Room on 8918 4134 or Judi and Paul Taylor on 9954 1037 specifically about the “gay thing” and the impact this is (Judi and Paul Taylor [email protected]) CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 7 BARCELONA, CATALONIA, SPAIN diocese. A big strength in Hong Kong is Lina Lee. Afire with good zeal, she, with Anthony Ng, Mavis Lo, Mary Low, Maria Marco Schorlemmer, Spain After Easter 2009 we decided to start a small Pereira, Paul So, Rosalina Chow and others, formed nine new meditation group in the groups (4 English and 6 Chinese) and still growing. They did Universitat Autònoma de not confine themselves to Hong Kong but have connected Barcelona. We didn't know of with meditators in Taipei (where a first group has started at any other groups of the WCCM Don Bosco Church), Singapore and Malaysia. We are indeed in Catalonia or in Spain, a global family who love and support each other. so we set up a website at Translations, such as Word into Silence, Moment of Christ, www.MeditacioCristiana.cat Light Within and Prayer of the Priest have been published and contacted the International with special thanks due to Fr. Matthew Zhen. CDs in Centre in London for help and Mandarin and Cantonese are urgently needed and when support. It was a surprise for us that, although being initially available I am sure will reach a wider audience. Please pray only a group of three, Fr Laurence came to visit us last May. that more laborers can be sent to the Lord’s vineyard in China. He gave talks on Christian Meditation at our university and Elizabeth King ([email protected]) at the Casa d'Espiritualitat in the city. A very good attendance spurred interest in creating new meditation groups. Fr Laurence MEDITATION AND THE POOR was also interviewed by the main TV broadcasting channel of Yesterday I got to see Catalonia. The result is our university group has grown and something amazing that two new groups are starting in Barcelona. Evidently many reminded me of a story people seek a new way to approach their own tradition, and it about Dorothy Day, the is very enriching for us to share how such a renewal is found founder of the Catholic in a simple practice of prayer that goes back to the origins of Worker and a big hero of Christianity and to Jesus's teachings. mine. She shared a house Marco Schorlemmer, WCCM National Contact, Spain with her homeless neighbors ([email protected]) on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. One morning, a WCCM IN CHINA wealthy woman dropped by Liz King teaching in China After three visits by Fr. Laurence and donated a huge diamond and annual visits by me since 2004, ring to the organization. China’s door is slowly opening. At Dorothy Day thanked her first Fr. Laurence could only give talks and slipped it in her pocket. in seminaries but retreats to priests When later a homeless and sisters and the public are now woman came in, depressed possible. Eight years after his first Rev Cristina Rathbone,USA and exhausted, Day gave her visit he will be welcomed to address the ring transforming her openly the laity in churches and sorrow to joy. The Catholic Workers were furious. They cathedrals when he visits Beijing, could have caught up with their rent and back bills for a Shanghai and Shenyang in September 2012. I am the national year with the money from the sale of the ring! What if the coordinator of China but live in the USA. Annually, when my woman went off and sold it, they asked. Would that be fair husband Albert visits China to lecture, I accompany him but or proper? Day replied that she had given the woman the fly to different cities to nurture the seedlings of the community ring as a gift. She was free to sell it or she could simply of meditation. My efforts at finding local coordinators were enjoy wearing it on her finger, the way the woman who’d unsuccessful until this year when, for example, Christine Chen donated it had done for years. “Do you suppose,” she asked, with whom I exchanged emails for more than a year came on “that God created diamonds only for the rich?” board as our Shanghai contact. She is soon expecting her third Something yesterday reminded me of this story. It child - and starting a meditation group. Tony Hu who spent concerns a jewel of another kind, not a diamond ring but a year in the Oblate community London has returned home what Jesus calls a ‘pearl of great price’. It happened during to Yuncheng, Shansi where he is now introducing meditation. Christian Meditation - offered weekly here at the Cathedral Hong Kong (www.wccm.hk) was easier. For years, the late and attended mostly by homeless men and women from Fr. Sean Burke, MM, led a small group in Stanley. During Fr. the neighborhood. The woman in this story is also poor Laurence’s first visit to Hong Kong in 2003, he drew a huge but by the end of our meditation she was wealthier than crowd at the Cathedral because Bishop John Tong, Bishop of the rest of us put together. She smiled hugely, her face lit Hong Kong and a WCCM patron, invited each pastor in the by a light so soft and deep that it shone. She said with that 8 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 smile that lit up the room that her meditation had been, The pilgrims made the Temple of the Universal Spirit at the ‘Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! Nothing interrupted the Pure Life Society in Kuala Lumpur their main destination. silence; not one thing; not for the whole entire time! It was This was where in 1955 John Main, then a young diplomat like a book’. Then she added, completely serene, ‘a book made his first encounter with the practice of meditation which that was closed.’ In all my own time of meditation I’m not he later recovered from his own Christain monastic tradition. sure I’ve ever had an experience quite like this. But then, The pilgrims spent a full morning at the temple. Mother did I suppose that God created contemplative prayer only Mangalam, the energetic 84-year-old successor to Swami for the rich? Satyanada, welcomed them, shared her memory of seeing the Rev Cristina Rathbone, The Cathedral of St. Paul, young Main when he came there to meditate and then joined Boston, USA the Hong Kong group for a session of meditation. The pilgrimage also went to several sites of significant historical CANADIAN WCCM NATIONAL importance to the spread of Christianity in Asia. YOUTH COORDINATOR The Canadian Christian WCCM 2011 CALENDAR Meditation Community was The WCCM 2011 looking for ways to encourage monthly Calendar is now young meditators, so we decided available. It may be to offer 6 scholarships to our ordered online at National Conference in 2009. www.wccmcalendar.com One of the attendees, Krister or from Medio Media and Partel, has now been appointed national centres. The our first National Youth photographs are by Coordinator. Krister’s objectives Laurence Freeman taken are to promote and share the practice and discipline of Christian during his travels in the Meditation, as passed on through the teachings of John Main, community and the to youth and young-adults at both the national and local level, words from the teaching to develop and maintain a national spiritual network of youth of John Main. 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 RAMON PANIKKAR 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.

HONG KONG PILGRIMAGE

Laurence Freeman visiting with Ramon Panikkar in Hong Kong meditators in the Temple of the Universal Spirit, Kuala Lumpur. Barcelona in May 2010. Fr Pankikkar - who led the John Twenty three members of the Hong Kong World Main Seminar in England in 1996 and was one of the most Community of Christian Meditation joined a pilgrimage to brilliant and prophetic pioneers of inter-religious thought Malaysia in August led by Lina Lee, the HK Coordinator. in his time - died on 26 August. CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 9

GREENBELT FESTIVAL At the end of August a team of keen meditators went to novice meditators to teach the basics of the practice. Cheltenham for a week of camping, praying, and soaking Audiences ranged from two people to twelve hundred but up all that the Greenbelt Festival has to offer. With 21,000 there was a sense of subtle authority in what our team had participants, and events of every kind – from comedy to to say. As a young meditator I have often been struck by music, talks to drama, meditative Mass to Goth Eucharist how traditional wisdom comes alive in the words of people – this was a chance for part of the WCCM community to of simple prayer. Those who commit themselves to a regular share in and contribute to the diversity that makes up our practice of meditation witness to the sacrifice of self-giving Church, as well as to spread the word about meditation at the heart of our faith. Reflecting after the Festival, I felt and the prayer of the heart. sure that each one of our Greenbelt team had a sense - not Second in attractiveness only to the meditation itself only of gaining from the vibrancy and freshness of the was the impressive yurt which housed our times of prayer. Festival events - but of having given something to it, Twenty-one feet in diameter, two and half hours in whether in the smallest of groups, or, in the case of Fr constructing, and lent for the week by generous friends of Laurence, from the stage in front of the grandstand. WCCM, we were quite the cream of the campsite crop. We gathered three times each day to still ourselves within its Philip Seal is a student of English Literature at Bristol beautiful structure of wooden poles and canvas, and by the University and recently edited a collection of short pieces by end of the week it had become a space of spirit and silence. fellow students called ‘Young and Contemplative’ Even at a Christian Festival like Greenbelt it is easy to ([email protected]) 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 'non-religious' 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 10 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: [email protected]

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 MEDITATIO the fruits of the spirit into touch with the problems and crises Judi and Paul Taylor from Sydney visiting of our time. Our three year Meditatio program includes a Meditatio House, London 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 CHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010 11 IN FOCUS In God’s Time... My journey into the contemplative dimension of prayer extremely proud of. began in 1995 when I was working in Singapore. Work Knowing the fruits of related stress lead me to seek a way to control my blood meditation firsthand, I was eager pressure without increasing my drug dosages. I knew that to share this pearl of great price. meditation would be calming and looked for a method. I With evangelical zeal, I forged was considering Buddhist meditation but was not so ahead to organize Introductory workshops but realized comfortable with that idea and the next ‘course’ was some that we also needed affordable resource material and months away. I was at my wit’s end when I saw an ad in ground level support. We knew too that not all clergy the Catholic News for ‘An Introduction to Christian were familiar with this form of prayer and our progress Meditation’ conducted by Peter Ng and his team. It was was slowed by the lack of a dedicated priest contact. I the answer to my prayers and I promptly registered my knew that everything would fall into place if I stayed husband, Joe, and myself for the weekend workshop. I faithful to the practice. The Lord helped us to share this did not immediately join a group after the weekend but I gift by sending us Fr. Paul Cheong, OFM Cap as our priest meditated faithfully twice daily, and became convinced contact. Fr. Paul ‘caught’ meditation after a school retreat that the practice helped me through crisis after crisis at with Fr. Laurence in Italy. work the following year. Long ago Fr. Laurence was asked by the bishops of the Joe and I returned to Malaysia and I met two other three dioceses in West Malaysia to conduct their priests’ Malaysian meditators at a retreat led by the late Fr. Gerry annual retreat. This happened this year and all the clergy Pierse CSsR in Singapore. We three decided to form the are currently in the midst of their retreat and introduction first meditation group in Kuala Lumpur on my return to Christian meditation. Fr Laurence led the first and Fr but kept procrastinating. Meditation was first introduced de Ridder from Taiwan and Fr Sing from Indonesia, by Fr. Laurence in Penang in 1992 where the group was committed meditators and teachers in the community, led by Serena Woon SFO but there was no group in KL. led the next two. We now have a total of 16 meditation When we heard that Fr. Laurence would transiting through groups in 5 states in West Malaysia and the Spirit is leading Kuala Lumpur but was trying to rearrange his flights to us into East Malaysia with the transfer of Fr Paul to Sibu avoid a10 hour stopover we asked him to stop and help in Sarawak. We share a dream to have a meditation group us. After the session he led we all realized he was meant in every parish in Malaysia. to be in KL for those hours as the Spirit had sent him to My work as a Pathologist in a Catholic mission help us ‘jump start’ the group! Hospital has allowed me to introduce meditation in my My first exposure to the international meditation workplace where we have a lunchtime meditation group. community was at the John Main Seminar in San Francisco Although Joe, my husband is an “on-off” meditator he is in 1998 where I suggested to Fr. Laurence that the JMS most supportive of my efforts to share this gift. We have should come back to Asia. With the help of Joe and the three (plus one) adult children and are looking forward support of our national community, the 2006 Seminar to our first grandchild next month. When I reflect on my led by Margaret Rizza ‘came home’ to Malaysia. The post own spiritual path and the story of the growth of our seminar trip gave participants the opportunity to walk community here, it brings to life the lyrics... He makes all physically and spiritually in the footsteps of Fr. John at things beautiful in his time. the Pure Life Society Orphanage, where he first learnt (Patricia Por, National Co-ordinator, Malaysia meditation from Swami Satyananda – a heritage we feel [email protected])

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, , 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 12 MEDIO MEDIA - NEW TITLESCHRISTIAN MEDITATION NEWSLETTER, VOL. 34, NO 3; OCTOBER 2010

Daily Readings Taste and See with John Main The Goodness Silence & of the Lord Stillness in Frans De Ridder CICM Every Season New Edition with Updates What people today need most, Fr Frans says, is “not more theories Paul T. Harris, ed. about God, but rather the experience of God – to become deeply aware of God’s real Many people across the world have presence”. St John tells us: “Anyone who believes has eternal found their spiritual lives enriched by life.” (Jn 6: 47) It is therefore our call and our destiny to own this the daily practice of Christian Meditation, a contemplative mystery and to live in God who is love. And the way to this, Fr way of silent prayer taught by Benedictine monk John Main Frans says, is meditation. Setting aside our preoccupations to (1926-1982). It is a tradition grounded in Biblical wisdom, the simply repeat the mantra, we enter God’s space and dwell in early Christian desert monks, and the spiritual classic The him. This experience of God’s love liberates us from our ego Cloud of Unknowing. This collection of John Main’s teaching and allows God to transform us in his image. Fr Frans’ simple, from his talks and books draws the essence of his teachings sincere approach will encourage newcomers to begin the journey into one volume. of meditation. Meditators will find a deeper understanding of their practice. Paul Harris has devotedly selected the essential extracts Fr Frans De Ridder CICM is a missionary of the Congregation from each of John Main’s works and arranged them into an of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Since 1981 he has been involved attractive and practical daily readings format. with the Marriage Encounter, Engaged Encounter and Choice (young adults) programmes. Softcover book 384pp #6103 £11.50 $16.95US 2-CD set #8063 £9.50 $14.95US

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The Christian Meditation Newsletter is published four times a year by the General Editor: Gregory Ryan ([email protected]) International Centre of The World Community for Christian Meditation, Graphic Design: Carlos Siqueira ([email protected]) St Mark’s, Myddelton Square, London EC1R 1XX, UK International Coordinator: Pauline Peters ([email protected]) (tel +44 20 7278 2070 / fax +44 20 7713 6346) Coordinator, International Office, London: Susan Spence ([email protected]) Email: [email protected] (Copyright The World Community for Christian Meditation) The World Community Web page: www.wccm.org It is distributed by national communities with national updates. Medio Media Web page: www.mediomedia.org