Christian Meditation Flowers in the Caribbean Laurence Visited Trinidad, St

Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 1

Registered Charity No. 327173 - I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D I T I O N , Vol. 38, No 4; December 2014 Christian Meditation flowers in the Caribbean Laurence visited Trinidad, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Barbados and saw the growth of the teaching thanks to Sr Ruth Montrichard and Bishop Jason Gordon

Laurence 2 Freeman 9 News 10 Film Review Re-telling the story, Ora et Labora, work and silent Jim Green comments on defeating illusion and prayer together in a project in Ida, a movie by Pawel

This issue This embracing reality Portugal Pawlikowski 2 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

A letter from Laurence Freeman, OSB

The end of the year begins a new peaceful, normal years of growing up. But we can’t just blame others for this. story. The Christmas season is about re- But it was an occupied country with ter- What is really frightening is not the real telling an old story. It is renewed by our rorist attacks and outrages that the holy God but the terror we feel about losing listening to it again through the lens of family must have at least heard about. our illusions. experience we’ve lived since the last time But lets assume they enjoyed to some To defend the ways in which we con- we listened. degree what everyone, parents especial- struct the world as a defence against Passed on for twenty generations, the ly, desire: calm, security and safe routines the sharpness of reality, we build sys- story of Jesus is not – and was not meant with affordable treats. tems, over-value institutions and over- to be - a biography and certainly not the Then he loses all that again as his self- confidently strategise. Then, if we can kind of journalistic report we are familiar knowledge and his mission simultane- get away with it, we say this is what God with today. It is not even, primarily, about ously surge up in him. He becomes brief- wants. Well, life is so short and vulner- objective historical events except in so ly a controversial celebrity, once again able, it’s not surprising that we so value far as they relate to an unusual experi- on the dangerous razor edge of social our systems and security. And often ence of presence now, a dimension in re- rejection and exclusion. He challenges they work well. Like the airline industry ality different from any we are aware that (like the present Pope) the very securities that has woven the world into a space- we are aware of. It seems such an easy, that leaders and the privileged construct time continuum and changed our ways straightforward story, enticingly layered to avoid reality - moral hypocrisy, religion of imagining the planet and of relating with all our Christmas memories from in- that blocks spiritual consciousness and to our fellow humans. In the process, of fancy. Yet it is so relentlessly subversive of constructed, well-defended but false im- course, we have become commercial all our false or incomplete ways of seeing ages of God, in effect a blasphemy claim- ‘customers’ rather than heroic ‘travellers’ things. ing to be sacred. So, not surprisingly, the and pilgrims. Planes now replace the Remember how it begins. Mary is be- story ends as it began, in failure, , the sav- long, dangerous, uncomfortable experi- trothed to Joseph, but before they live iour falling off the radar, universally con- ence of travel, which was the privilege of together she becomes pregnant. Fortu- demned, a failed prophet, a healer who a few, that took people through different nately, Joseph is a good man and takes could not save himself. cultures and climates at a human pace, her in anyway. Jesus thus enters the What a story. Maybe many parents giving time to savour the transitions and world on a razor-edge between safe re- who feel bad that they have not created gradations of culture, to assimilate and spectability and dangerous marginality. a ‘perfect family’ and have not been able process diversities of language, food, The Son of God arrives almost as a bas- to give their children all the security and beliefs and forms of worship. Instead we tard, socially outcast with, for his time, love they need should be consoled. It re- obsess about speed. We have created a the worst of all labels, illegitimacy, with minds us that there is meaning, or at least culture of astounding barrenness and which to start life. So, we may think, he a way through our failure to be what we a feeding frenzy of consumerism in the got through that one; now things can would (or how we should) choose to be. global airport system. But it is safe. The proceed normally, as they should. Con- Isn’t it interesting, then, that we so read- regulations of the industry have, at a ventionality, respectability, predictabil- ily avoid the liberating meaning of the price, created the safest form of transport ity, the dream that corporate language Christmas story by turning it into a pas- ever. So, hooray for reductionism and today calls ‘sustainability’, are all forms tiche, a fairy tale? When we do this we standardisation and technological tools of the attempt we make to be safe, se- are reinforcing the very things the story that work. cure, protected. They seem to help us to is designed to expose and dispel and But when they don’t, the illusion of deny mortality and ignore the abyss over free us from. If we don’t get its meaning safety, the denial of reality breaks down. which our thin lives walk. we remain locked into an image of God Through a small tear in the veil, before it But things continue to go wrong in which is not only erroneous but actu- is repaired, we see that the abyss is still the story. First, there’s no room at the ally prevents us from growing into our there. inn, although he does get some nice, if potential by imprisoning us in guilt and As far as I remember I have missed rather symbolic presents. Now, surely, he failure. God is seen then not as coming only two flights in the past twenty-five can go home and enjoy a good extended towards us to ‘ set us free from our sins’ years (many more have been cancelled family environment. But Joseph gets an- but to increase the punishment. Therese or delayed). Yesterday I missed two in the other dream and they become refugees, of Lisieux, in her profound, hard won sim- same day. When the agitation, the shame fleeing for their lives while a massacre of plicity, saw it clearly. She was hurt by see- of having to cancel a commitment, the innocents, like that at Peshawar, takes ing how many Christians were frightened sweaty running from gate to gate to sal- place. Eventually it is safe for them to of God. How could anyone, she said, be vage the situation, when all that was over, return and there are, we imagine, a few frightened of a God who became a baby? I had a couple of hours to unwind and I re- Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 3

ceived a great grace. (All bad things have of time that came into existence with the Yeats found it once as he sat in a London graces in them waiting to appear, like a cosmos. That this source is actually closer teashop. His poem about this moment butterfly from a shrivelled chrysalis or an to us than we are to ourselves is beyond reminds us never to be dogmatically pre- angel rising above the rubble of a day imagination and therefore beyond de- scriptive about where God may be found: of sadness that makes us look upwards sire. But it is the gift of Christmas (and of I sat, a solitary man, above our defeat). Yesterday, the angel meditation). In a crowded London shop, of Heathrow didn’t appear quite like that. Releasing this spring of life sponta- An open book and empty cup But my grace was that, even with my own neously brings gratitude. This gratitude On the marble table-top. agitation and the consumer frenzy of the dismantles the barriers of competition While on the shop and street I gazed duty-free around me, I was able to medi- and suspicion that perennially divide us My body of a sudden blazed; tate in a quiet corner and be re-set. I saw from all true connections. How do we And twenty minutes more or less that, while of course it mattered, it also set it free? If only there were a system, a It seemed, so great my happiness, didn’t matter. That peace is deeper than programme we could buy or inject. But That I was blessed and could bless. agitation. I was taught yet again what a (The Winding Stair and Other poems) treasure is waiting for us, always so faith- What is really frightening As with the story of Christmas we need fully, in the human heart. I hadn’t forgot- is not the real God but the always to re-learn both the experience ten it. I hadn’t ceased to believe in it. But and the meaning of discovering this trea- I needed to verify it; and it was happy to terror we feel about sure. Perhaps what happened over the be found again. This re-finding is what losing our illusions centuries was that we heard the report makes life endurable and meaningful of what had (once) been found buried in and essentially worth living. With every it comes simply by being still. In stillness the field. Jesus invested himself totally in new finding faith grows deeper and our the knowledge arises. We imagine that telling us that the Kingdom is within and hearts are better settled into a place of this knowledge will arrive like a famous among us, buried in a field, growing like gratitude. person with an entourage or an invad- a seed, discovered in the re-finding of We are taught very young that we ing army to occupy us. But it is not found what is so painfully lost, whether a sheep, should be grateful for presents received in the storm or the earthquake. It comes a coin, a son or one’s own life. Then great or for the privileges of our lives. But it with the power of tenderness, with God’s studies of the mystical tradition were takes a long time to be able truly to see infinitely light touch and with a self-re- published, professors argued their theo- and appreciate those things that should vealing sensitivity and respect for what it ries, psychologists explained it, theolo- spontaneously awaken the spirit of grati- created. This is why it so powerfully dis- gians noticed but increasingly avoided tude in us, above all not the things we solves the storms of anger, fear and ad- it. Like Jesus himself, it became margin- have but the fact that we are. We easily diction. alised. It turned into an abstraction, a the- become focused on our discontents and This treasure, the seed always growing ory, even a privilege for celibate religious. unfulfilled desires. We take for granted in us, has to be continually re-discovered. Then, as happens whenever a part of a the truly blessed things in life that con- Finding it – personally and for ourselves whole is segregated, it became an object nect us directly to the gift of being itself. - is the essential aspect of the Kingdom. of suspicion, misunderstanding and even If they are temporarily obscured we may It cannot be electronically transferred. It fear. The contemplative, the sacramental, say in disappointment or despair ‘that is never a commodity, an object of ex- the institutional dimensions of Christian proves they were only illusions’. Yet, to change. It is beyond price. If the rich and life that together form the whole were live without this instinctive feeling of powerful find it so hard to see, it is not divided. The most important meanings gratitude risks descending into the abyss because they are being punished for be- of the discovery of the Kingdom within and falling off the narrow bridge we walk ing well off. It is because their habits of and among us - that it is immediate, a between birth and death. perception and relationship are so often grace not a reward, unconditional and In the end it isn’t about being told conditioned and entrapped by posses- uninterruptible - everything about it that what we ‘should feel’. We soon become siveness and acquisitiveness that they could turn a journey from hell into a day good at pretending, even to ourselves, are merely unable to see it. They are like of grace, almost everything that would what we are ‘supposed’ to look like, to people trying to sprint on a track event help us be confident during the long- be polite and conform to the expecta- in heavy hiking boots. And yet, it always short walk over the human abyss - was tions of others we depend upon. But it is decides its own time and way to reveal it- obscured or concealed. a matter of finding that spring of life that self. We may find it, wherever we are and We forget the giftedness of life and wells up in us from a source beyond the whatever our state of mind at the mo- we lose the grateful heart that makes life visible cosmos and beyond the mystery ment, in God’s timing not our own. W.B thrill. The Incarnation affirms the good- 4 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

ness and joyful nature of creation and it the gift, which is what makes it so chal- sus without linking it to the Resurrection. does so by incorporating the dark side, lenging and easily distorted. It’s easier We are not transformed by reflection but the failures and tragedies of inhuman- to write in small print what isn’t there in by recognition. Not by remembering but ity, not by denying them. As Simone Weil the intent of bequest – for example that by restoration. The recognition, gradual said, and it is not an insight that survives we must be good, obedient, conformist, or sudden, of the risen Christ is the trans- long in Heathrow Duty-Free, both joy religious, orthodox. To receive the gift of formation of the self. and suffering deliver the same message. another self is to be changed simply be- Meditation helps us in accepting the If the story of the birth was just idyllic, cause it so fully empowers us. Not with gift. John Main said it is the way we ‘ac- an advertising image for our illusions, we something we can put in a bank or boast cept the gift of our being’ and all that is couldn’t and shouldn’t trust it. It wouldn’t of, but by expanding us beyond our- included in that. But it can be discour- be a real gift but one of those promotions selves and enabling us to give our selves. aging at times when we see what slow that say ‘buy two get one free’. It may be You may ignore or reject a gift merely learners we are. Only failure can teach a good bargain and serve your immedi- because the wrapping isn’t enticing. For us this and so we shouldn’t undervalue ate needs or desires. But we know it’s many the gift of Christmas is wrapped the gift of failure itself. We hear and re- not free because if we said ‘give me the up in the Church, which soon seems to spond to the gift and see the fruits ap- free one, I won’t buy the other two’ the lay down many small print conditions pearing. Yet so easily we snap back into truth would be revealed. The assistant’s for receiving it. The Church will, howev- the old default system of egocentricity. smile would fade and we would be asked er, always be part of the gift of Jesus to The deep breathing of other-centredness to leave. That’s why living in a consumer the world. As a community it is formed is cut short again. Or we make an offer, society has many advantages over living by the influence of this gift as it expands maybe trying to share ourselves, freely, in a religious society: it gives us so many through history and culture. But there no strings attached; but when it doesn’t obvious, easy opportunities to strip life produce the response we expect, we pull of its illusions. The Garden of Eden temp- The gift is to have the back, setting conditions, hardening our tation is always there, of course, too. It is selves against rejection. to try to possess the gift, to make money bubble burst and the The gift of Christmas and the time (fame or power) even out of the experi- polluted air purified by the we have over these days to reflect on it ence of God, to put God in a bottle or a reminds us not to be unduly surprised programme. freshness of reality when the gifts are refused or the old ego Gratefulness and reality are insepa- system reasserts itself. We remember the rable and are necessary in any balanced, are many kinds of ecclesiastical wrapping real circumstances of the birth and life humane way of life. Experiencing the gift- and Pope Francis is showing us that we of Jesus and how his teaching has dis- edness of life – light and dark – and the should shed some of these without de- tilled into his gift of himself in the in- pure grace of the kingdom is never nega- lay. His Christmas gift to the Curia was to dwelling Spirit. Despite, even because tive. There are gifts, though, that impose list fifteen sicknesses of soul and psyche of unfavourable appearances and hu- a sense of obligation or demand recogni- – the ways in which the gift is obscured man relapses we see that the gift is tion or even make us dependent on the by clericalism, legalism and hypocritical good. ‘Why do you call me good?’, Je- giver. But whenever they have strings at- judgmentalism. Church can do and look sus once asked: ‘only God is good.’ tached they are false gifts. God gives God better. But behind the visible institution Most of our ideas about goodness to us in Jesus. He comes into a broken is also the experience of contemplation are caught up in ideas of badness. We and violent world without force or threat in which the gift is found and re-found judge the good by contrast with the of force. He came unto his own (us) and buried – waiting to be discovered – in the bad. This seems a fairly non-nonsense his own received him not because to ac- field of the heart. contrast but it is part of a way of see- cept such a gift is to be transformed. We Contemplation – the simple enjoy- ing in dualities that the Incarnation would all like to change but transforma- ment of the truth – is essentially a gift or transcends. If God becomes human the tion, like shedding our illusions, is painful grace, whether in a crowded cafe or busy most basic of divisions has been tran- and frightening. airport, an intensive care room, the back scended. When, as the early teachers A real gift is given. What is given is also of a church or a serene cloister. It is radi- went on to say, he ‘became human so let go of and released fully into the life of cally simple, not easy. Meditation trains that we might become God’ the whole the recipient. Such a gift carries the pres- us to appreciate this gift at source. As we game plan changes. Is goodness just ence, the love, the Self of the person giv- learn to accept it we learn also to share the same as ethical behaviour (keep- ing. When, however, it is given but not let it and this produces a new life-style de- ing rules, doing no evil)? The gift of go of, it cannot carry the self of the giver. signed not by ideology but by the influ- Christmas says no. A new way of per- So God gives God in Jesus but lets go of ence of love. No one can receive this gift ception has entered the material world Jesus (even abandons him as Jesus felt at without falling in love with the source. and the human realm, which says that the end). God lays down no conditions for We can’t reflect deeply on the birth of Je- the goodness that ‘is’ God leaves our Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 5

usual distinctions between good and They point us back to the gift of being This past year I have been blessed, as bad behind. It doesn’t say that it is al- itself and so in the end to the gift of usual, to see many parts of our whole right to steal, kill, lie and exploit. But it Christmas. So hooray, Jesus has come. community that meditation is daily cre- says that God will not punish us if we But more importantly he has stayed. ating and renewing. I meet the whole do. The punishment for such behaviour His birth in the small, messy and, in each part, in each meditator. I would is wrapped up in our ways of refusing even then, violent flashpoint of Beth- like to thank all those who received the gift of true goodness. It is because lehem was the beginning of the story me during the past twelve months so God does not punish even Herod or whose end has not yet come. The cir- warmly and inspired me so strongly, the butchers of Peshawar that we are cumstances of his birth make us ask if for the gift you shared with me and able to see the goodness that is God in we are really born good. Innocent, pure that you share with so many in your a way that exposes and undermines all and amazingly able to see things as national and local communities. Many human darkness. And also gives us the courage to confront it. Ethical behaviour is at its best epi- sodic. Before long we fail under pres- sure of circumstances. The real gift of goodness, however, is continuous and uninterruptible. The Word that was made flesh existed from time out of memory. Yet this goodness that is God, and is also the essence of the human, permeates and redeems time with all its failures and faults. Before we can properly see it in ourselves, we en- counter this goodness, not in thought, but in persons. When I went to Burma last year with some of our other teachers to speak about meditation at the invitation of the church there, I visited a home for the handicapped run by a group of nuns. There are no official they are - but really good as only other- generations ago St Augustine wrote of centres or programmes in Burma for centredness is good? We are born with the short ‘dart-like’ prayer of the man- the handicapped and many families are a dominant instinct for survival and tra that the monks of the desert prac- unable to cope. In this home the nuns grow up conditioned by the attraction ticed. Today it has outgrown the desert had built a well-run and warm-hearted to pleasure and an aversion to pain. So and the monastic life itself. It is touch- environment – and more. There was far, so good. But very soon this condi- ing the lives of young children, the el- no depersonalising of the individuals. tioning weaves the miasma of illusion. derly, students, those recovering from In that respect it had a certain disor- ‘Miasma’ is the word that described addiction, hedge-fund managers and ganisation. There was no condescen- the polluted atmosphere in which bad the homeless, parishioners and those sion or cold pity but a striking sense of diseases were born. We live in bubbles seeking a spiritual home. It is a gift by equality and community. I don’t think of miasma, illusion, but surrounded which we learn what gift really means this witness would have been possible by the fresh air of reality. Soon we are and it awakens in me at the end of an- without an experience of the gift of educated into thinking that illusion is other year a very wonderful gratitude. goodness that transcended the ethical. better than the real. All of us at Meditatio House and in It was born not of doing good, in the The gift is to have the bubble burst our international team that serve the first place, but by being good. and the polluted air purified by the community join me in wishing you ev- These nuns and those they cared for freshness of reality. This is why Jesus ery blessing and deepening happiness were deeply inspiring. The successes has popped into the world. Love flows in the year ahead. and heroism that usually attract the from fullness and it is from the full- headlines and inspire us for a while ness of being called the Father that it usually also fade from memory. The has leaped into our human realm. Like true heroes of humanity, unlike the ce- beauty which carries in a part of the lebrities of the media, do not make it whole the full experience of the whole, to the front page or go ‘viral’. But they this gift not only makes life endurable, remain in our lives by their gift of self. it transforms our capacity for life. Laurence Freeman OSB 6 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

News

The Caribbean Flowers: Fr. Laurence visits Trinidad, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Barbados By Sister Ruth Montrichard Laurence Freeman visited the Caribbean from 30th October to 8th November The tour was organized by sister Ruth Montrichard, with the support of Bishop Gordon, Bishop of Bridgetown (Barbados) and Kingstown (and WCCM Patron). Read below part of a report by Sister Ruth introduce meditation into their schools. A Schools Committee will be established and a pilot project with 6 schools will begin in January. This session was requested by the Archbishop of Trini- dad, the Catholic School Board and the Anglican Bishop of Trinidad. From 31st October to 2nd Novem- ber, 30 meditators from Trinidad, St. Vin- cent and Barbados attended a residen- tial retreat at the Regional Seminary for an inspirational weekend with periods of meditation, silence, celebration of Mass, meals and contemplative walk- ing. On the evening of 2nd Nov, Fr. Lau- rence and I travelled to St. Lucia and, on arrival, were warmly welcomed by the Children from St. Patrick’s Primary School in Barbados Cluny Sisters.

How did this all begin? Trinidad St Lucia

After 20 years of meditation prac- Fr. Laurence’s trip saw the flower- On 3rd November the day began tice with one or two groups in Trini- ing of those seeds and left us with with Mass at the convent. We then dad and one group in Barbados, new encouragement, motivation travelled to the Benedictine Monas- Fr. Laurence Freeman’s first visit in and commitment to share this gift tery where an introductory session November 2012 planted new seeds with our people. He began his trip in was held for Priests, Religious, Minis- which led to the message of Christian Trinidad on 30th October with an in- ters and School Principals hosted by Meditation being taken to Schools in terview on Trinity TV and later spoke Abbess Mariana Pinto OSB. This was Trinidad and to the Islands of St.Lucia, to 350 people at a public talk entitled followed by a public talk at the cathe- St. Vincent and Barbados. At this time, ‘Meditation as a way of peace’. dral attended by over 150 people. The I was appointed as the National Coor- On 31st October 175 teachers from session was very well received and dinator for the Caribbean and Bishop Catholic, Anglican and private schools resulted in the start of a new group Jason Gordon, Bishop of Bridgetown attended the Church of the Assump- led by a local Sister and Monseigneur (Barbados) and Kingstown (St. Vin- tion to learn more about Meditation – 48 people attended the first ses- cent and the Grenadines) became a with Children. At the end of the day, sion which was held on the following patron. 70 Principals expressed the desire to Monday.

“That is the great importance of community, that everyone who comes into your community understands fully, explicitly, clearly, their own lovableness. And the first step to full personhood and to full maturity is that we allow ourselves to be loved.” John Main Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 7

News

Future plans - Expanding our National leader- ship team in Trinidad and a regional council in each island – Dec 14 - Setting up a Schools Committee to support the 70 schools wishing to train teachers – Dec 14 - Setting up and supporting parishes on each island who will hold introductory six week courses – Jan 15 - Training sessions for teachers in Trinidad, St. Lucia, Barbados and St. Vincent – Feb to June 15 - Organising an Essential Teaching Workshop for Caribbean Group Lead- ers – late 2015 Fr. Laurence, Bishop Jason Gordon and Sister Ruth - Continuing to organise Evenings St Vincent Barbados of Quiet Prayer twice a year - Developing a new series of TV On the island of St. Vincent we met Our first stop on 6th November was programmes for Trinity TV Bishop Jason Gordon. He introduced at St. Patrick’s Primary School where - Visits to schools and parishes on us during a luncheon for the busi- the children had previously been intro- the islands of Grenada, Dominica ness community held at the Bishop’s duced to Christian Meditation. It was a residence. The lunch was attended by delight to spend time with these 100 and the Bahamas in 2015 50 locals and resulted in a monthly children and see the effect the practice meditation group being established had on their discipline, gentle behav- Final message for business leaders. Each participant iour and their silence as they entered was given a copy of WCCM’s booklet the session was impressive. Later that ‘Business of Spirit’. day Fr Laurence spoke with the Clergy We are so grateful to Fr. Lau- In 5th November Fr. Laurence and Religious and an open session was rence and Bishop Gordon for spent most of the day with children. held at the Living Water centre for Civil their support and to many do- He met with: 200 students from St. Society with 60 participants. nors from our worldwide com- Joseph’s Convent, 500 from St. Mary’s Our final day included an early morn- munity who made this trip pos- Primary, 50 from St. Martin’s Second- ing trip to the Ursuline Convent School. sible. With this help, we have ary for Boys and 180 from Mesopota- Here Fr. Laurence spoke about Christian been able to share the gift with mia Secondary. After that, there was a Meditation as a formal part of the girls’ over 2,000 adults and children. final session for the Priests and Dea- prayer life. Our final session for children It is our hope that what they cons, including dinner at the Bishop’s was with a delightful group of 80 ener- have learned will significantly residence. We then took a late flight getic teenagers preparing for confirma- impact their lives. I look for- to Barbados. On arrival, we were met tion. Bishop Gordon addressed them ward to updating you again in by Rosalind Jackson who kindly of- and they were introduced to Christian 2015. (Sr. Ruth Montrichard) fered us to stay at her home. Meditation as part of their preparation. 8 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

News

Like a Child: Meditation with Children in Malaysia By Niloufer Harben Penny Sturrock, WCCM Coordinator for Meditation with Children, visits Malaysia every month a mass is celebrated es- bishops of Malaysia, and stayed at the pecially for children. This small chapel College General Seminary. She had was packed and an interpreter trans- dinner with Bishop Sebastian Francis. lated into Tamil, the local language. The next two days she led workshops At the end, the priest in charge, Father in Bukit Mertajam and Ipoh. Edwin Paul, deeply affirmed the teach- Penny emphasized the need for ing on Christian meditation. He an- simplicity, patience,perseverance, and nounced that before the monthly Mass balanced daily anchorage in the prac- for children, they now would start with tice of meditation. Meditation is “sim- “Meditate with a child tomorrow!” meditation. ple but not easy”, she said. It is radically Penelope Sturrock’s compelling invi- In Shah Alam, Penny met some cat- counter-cultural. It is not about perfec- tation touched an inner chord in par- echists and the parish priest, Father tion. It is not about success and failure, ticipants of the workshops she led in Paulino, who is a meditator. His avid winners and losers, but humility, faith, Malaysia in November. Some attended support is the reason Sunday school love. Penny assured the participants, more than one of the sessions and teachers practise meditation in all the “The child will be your teacher”. She started meditating with children the catechism classes in the parish. They be- was able to connect easily with the very next day. After the experience, gan four years ago. All the sessions in the parents, teachers and children. Praveen, a young boy of seven, ex- Klang valley were very well attended. Given the wholehearted support claimed, “I love it!” The glow in his eyes While in Kuala Lumpur, Penny vis- of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kuala said it all. ited Pure Life Society, Puchong, where Lumpur and Archdiocese Catecheti- The first workshop was a day-long Father John first meditated with Swami cal Commission, the visit has been event held in Kepong. About 200 Satnayanda. She met up with Mother a breakthrough in terms of the local people attended, including catechists, Mangalam and spent a morning with Catholic church. Many doors have parents and youths. They were enthu- representatives from the Sahaja Yoga. opened. This certainly gives much- siastic in their response. One of the ses- In Penang Penny met Father Ge- needed impetus to the mission of sions was held in Kuala Selangor. Here rard Theraviam, WCCM liaison with the WCCM in Malaysia.

time he had activities in Paraguay, Bra- Fernando Sturla and the Anglican Bish- South America Tour zil, Uruguay and Argentina. These Com- op Revd Michael Pollesel. He spoke at a munities were very energetic and en- Business School and led a day retreat in thusiastic: a parish in Montevideo Paraguay: the activities included a Argentina: The visit started with a retreat and a talk for Christian business talk for teenagers at Colegio Niño Jesús, people in Buenos Aires, where a catechist had Brazil: in São Paulo Fr. Laurence gave started to work with students. Fr Lau- talks (including an event on Neurosci- rence spoke in a meeting for business ence and Religion) and led a weekend people (approx. 70 participants) and retreat for about 160 people. In Rio, an led a fully attended day retreat. open session and a day retreat You can see photos and all the audios Fr. Laurence visited South America Uruguay: Fr. Laurence met with the of talks from the tour in South America at from 10th to 24th November and this new Archbishop of Montevideo Daniel http://tiny.cc/wccm_samerica Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 9

News

Portugal: “Ora et Labora is a one-day activity during which we work practicing continuous prayer” By Gilda Monteiro

and, remaining in Silence and repeat- is involved and we can feel the effect of ing our mantra, we work until the ‘call’ the work and of ‘everything’ physically. for lunch. The lunch time is a period for We can feel the presence of our com- conviviality, to meet and get to know panions and that we are in some way better our old and new companions, totally synchronized. We can also learn, talking and laughing... Each participant I believe, to ‘feel’ the Word in our bodies brings a contribution to the meal and and its growing resonance... and to see shares with all the others. After lunch, a ourselves as creatures... in relationship, contemplative waking brings us back to with ourselves, the others, with all the Ora et Labora is a one-day activity silence, attention and concentration and Creation and the Creator... during which we work practicing con- leads us to the afternoon working period We have had four Ora et Labora days tinuous prayer. We start the day with at the end of which we come together till now, and from my experience and a hymn of praise to Jesus and a prayer for the evening meditation. We end up the sharing of other participants, I be- asking God to bless our day and our the day sharing our insights, thoughts, lieve that it has the potential to lead us work. Then, we give a small explanation and what most moved us during the day. from awareness to attention, especially of the specific work we will do during The Work must be simple, hand- in our commitment to ‘be’ Christians. It the day and we share the Ora et Labora made and ‘humble’. We must do it as is a radical and wonderful experience of concept, purpose and relationship with a gift, in benefit of the needy. Gratuity immersion that we all believe will over- our tradition and Fr. John’s and Fr. Lau- is a very important element as well as flow in our actions and the work of our rence’s key teachings; we also share an discipline. Till now, we are working in daily lives. It is an ‘open space’; both an introduction to Christian Meditation. contact with nature - gardening - and outer and an inner open space, for spiri- After this very short talk, we meditate this is wonderful because all our body tual growth. Bere Island HealthCare Retreat: The Power of the Small The retreat “The Power of the Small” was held on Bere Island in October (17-23). Fr. Laurence led the retreat with an audience of mostly medical practitioners learning to meditate. You can listen to the talks of this retreat here: http://tiny.cc/psmall WCCM members at IMF Singapore and Australia In Singapore, on the last weekend of November, 600 people gathered Forum on Ethics and at the Catholic Junior College Arts Finance Centre for the retreat led by Fr Lau- rence and organised by WCCM Sin- Two members of the WCCM Guid- gapore. The theme was ‘The Eight ing Board (Sean Hagan and Peter NG) Big Problems of Life’ and how we took part in a widely acclaimed forum can manage and transcend them on Ethics and Finance during the IMF and so free ourselves to live more general meeting in Washington DC in fully and joyfully. You can read a full October. Other members of the forum description of this retreat here: and of the community (photo) came http://tiny.cc/retreat_SNG to the John Main Centre at George- In Australia at the beginning of De- town University for mass and meditation cember, Fr. Laurence taught in Bris- later the same day. You can watch the full Fr. Laurence did the last big trip of bane, Lismore, Sydney, Canberra and forum here: http://tiny.cc/forum_imf 2014 to Singapore and Australia. Melbourne. 10 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

Film Review By Jim Green Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski viewers are used to (all the silent movies were projected in this format). Within this apparently restricted space the characters – particularly Ida herself – are routinely located at the edge, the very bottom or often only just within the frame. It’s as if the questioning and the questing - for identity, for truth and for one’s right place in the world - are replicated in the formal gestures of the film itself. These radically displaced persons are trying to locate them- selves in history, in space and in the given boundaries of this reality. Paradoxically, there is a great sense Ida (pronounced Ee-da) is the story ecutor – make unlikely companions of spaciousness and of calm in the tell- of a novitiate nun in early 1960s Po- in this most delicately realised of road ing of this story, even though it is stead- land. A specific and seemingly random movies. Their steady, difficult pilgrim- fast in confronting unspeakable pain. moment in time. And yet, like every ful- age towards the truth of the family’s It also includes a scene of enormous ly-told story, this one is concerned with experience takes them, metaphorically shock which is all the more devastating what came before, what will follow and and literally, into the forests of Europe’s for being achieved with such restraint. how the present moment is poised deli- history, its secrets and its wounds. In this kind-of Bildungsroman, Ida cately between these mysteries. It has become a commonplace of seems to have to choose, in the face Before she takes her vows, Ida is in- popular film criticism (the kind you can of all she has encountered and discov- structed by the Mother Superior that hear as you are leaving the cinema) to ered, whether to stay in the world or she must leave the convent to meet praise a movie for being “beautifully return to the convent. In terms of the with her aunt, the only known surviv- shot”. Often this means that the viewer story-rendered-as-soundtrack (equally ing member of her family. In order to has been dazzled (perhaps anaesthe- skilfully deployed) this becomes in ef- renounce the world, it seems, she must tised) by wide-screen images with a fect a choice between the jazz of Col- know who she is in the world, where she ravishing depth-of-field, lovingly com- trane and the transcendence of Bach. has come from and, by implication, the posed and richly coloured. And all too The final shot tracks her from in front future that she is preparing to give up. often these visuals don’t take us be- as she walks determinedly ahead. The The first bewildering piece of self- yond the aesthetic of the coffee-table camera – static but eloquent through- knowledge with which the world hits photo-book or the Sunday colour- out – has suddenly leapt into life. It is Ida is that she is Jewish. In one of the supplement. A particularly classy kind hand-held and moving. She is in the many long-held shots in this short, of eye-candy. In the words of the great centre of the frame. Whether the deci- beautifully textured, black and white songwriter, “All this useless beauty”. sion is the ‘right’ one or not, she seems film, the central character simply sits This is not the case with Ida. The vi- to have found her place – and her in silence absorbing this revolution- sual style of the film liberates us from rhythm – in the world. ary disturbance to her sense of self. the limitations of a ‘normal’ format. Ida is a film which makes stillness, This is the beginning of a faltering We don’t know about limitations until simplicity and silence not just visible but determined odyssey through the we’re offered something different. This but experientially present. It is an im- monochrome shades of the Polish film has an aspect ratio of 1.33: 1 which portant work, which anyone who has landscape. Ida and her Aunt Wanda – a means that it is actually a smaller and ever asked whether there is such a thing hard-drinking, troubled ex-state pros- boxier frame than we contemporary as contemplative cinema, should see. Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014 11

In Focus Sr. Ruth Montrichard

with more projects. There was some- to Christian Meditation and before thing wrong, something missing but he left the next day we meditated I didn’t know what to do, or where to together in the chapel. Then he was begin. Thoughts of leaving Religious gone. Life were whirling in my mind. Say- I then took the bold decision to ask ing more prayers was not the answer. to live alone and did so for six years. I had had enough of words and they During that time I was able to reor- had little meaning for what I was go- ganise my life and my two periods of ing through. I continued through the meditation anchored me in the Lord routine of every day but with a sense with a new sense of His Presence and a of emptiness. new vision of life. My work continued And then it happened. A friend had but in a more focused way; my priori- met John Main and gave me a cas- ties became clearer, my anxieties be- sette and told me I should listen to it. gan to disappear, I coped more calmly I thought to myself - another sermon, with problems and frustrations. I re- more prayers to say - I didn’t need that turned to community and have since My early years of Religious Life now. I eventually played it, and my life continued on the “way”. Life is still were full and exciting with a teach- changed forever. a journey with ups and downs but I ing career that I really enjoyed. Later I I knew instinctively that that was have learned to go with the flow and became involved in a project working what I was searching for – a way of to “let go”. I don’t think John Main ever with marginalized kids. My life was prayer where I could just BE: no words, thought that his talk on a cassette full, my days were long and tiring, but no thoughts, just silence and stillness. would save my life and my vocation I was getting real sense of satisfaction I began to meditate and immediately but that is what happened, and I am from what I was doing. Then came the felt a sense of freedom: prayer was eternally grateful for the gift. I have conflict between work and prayer: the no longer a burden. My tears flowed shared this gift with others and I have community structure did not change freely at first and then nothing much seen lives change for the better. And and I often found myself rushing into happened after that. I struggled, but so the rest is history. Now as Coordi- the chapel and going through the rit- stuck with the practice and I could nator for the Caribbean my mission ual of saying prayers. Eventually that feel my attitude beginning to change. has expanded and has been Spirit led. also became a burden as I was really I knew I had to make a radical change I simply respond and the Spirit takes just mouthing words with little mean- in my life style if I wanted to continue over. ing, too tired to care, with my mind on this path of contemplative prayer. Sometimes I think it is all happen- racing on what I had to do the next And so I went to make a private re- ing too quickly, but who am I to ques- day. treat and quite unexpectedly met Fr. tion the ways of the Spirit? I have Deep in my heart I knew I could Laurence who had just given a retreat learned through meditation that His not go on like that. I felt there was in Trinidad. I didn’t know who he was Ways are not mine and that where He a void in me that could not be filled but somehow the conversation led leads I must only follow.

Meditatio Newsletter is published four Editor: Leonardo Corrêa ([email protected]) times a year by the International Office of Graphic Design: Gerson Laureano The World Community for Christian International Coordinator: Pauline Peters Meditation, 32 Hamilton Road, London W5 ([email protected]) 2EH, UK. Tel: +44 208 579 4466 Coordinator, International Office: E-mail: [email protected] Jeroen Koppert ([email protected]) Would you like to contribute to the Meditatio Newsletter? Our next deadline is March 5th 12 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2014

Resources

Books Events & Retreats Beauty’s Field: Finding A Simple Way The Path of Bere Island Easter God in Unexpected Places Christian Meditation Meditation Retreat Laurence Freeman OSB Laurence Freeman OSB

29th March to 5th April, 2015 More information Theresa Hobbs: [email protected] or (+353) 0861621803 WCCM Pilgrimage Pilgrimage to India

As the leader of the World Commu- nity for Christian Meditation, Laurence Freeman’s calling takes him all over In this book, Fr Laurence shows us the world to teach and lead groups a simple way of reaching our centre, who want to practice contemplative a path that will take us through the prayer. In this spiritual travel memoir, noise, distraction and agitation of the he recounts timeless, memorable and mind to the silent, still centre of the 26 Nov- 26 Nov-13 Dec 2015 moving stories of people, places and heart where we experience the trans- With optional extension to with events in which he has encountered forming love of God. optional extension to God ‘s transformative presence Price and orders: contact the resource Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Buy it on Amazon: http://tiny.cc/bfield center nearest to you (box below) More info: http://tiny.cc/wccmpindia

To order: contact the resource center nearest to you. Our centres are listed below

VISIT THE CHRISTIAN MEDITATION PAGE AT AMAZON: http://astore.amazon.com/w0575-20

UK and Europe CANADA: www.wccm-canada.ca www.goodnewsbooks.net email: [email protected] NEW ZEALAND: email: [email protected] Tel: +1-514-485-7928 www.christiansupplies.co.nz AUSTRALIA: Tel: +44 (0) 1582 571011 email: [email protected] [email protected] Tel: +61 2 9482 3468 ASIA Tel: 0508 988 988 USA: www.contemplative-life.org email: [email protected] (Within NZ Only) [email protected] Tel: +65 6469 7671 Tel:+1-520-882-0290