Meditatio Newsletter July 2019 www.wccm.org 1 www.wccm.org Registered Charity No. 327173 - I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D I T I O N , Vol 43 No 2; July 2019 Feast of Peace and Unity New Podcast Blessing of Phase 1 of renovation of Bonnevaux was Contemplative an illustration of the vision of life at the WCCM new home Revolution There is a new way for you to listen to talks, interviews and dialogue from the WCCM collection. It is called Contemplative Revolution, a weekly podcast. You can download and listen to the programs using different audio apps. Visit and subscribe to this podcast here: http://podcast.wccm.org Mgr Pascal Wintzer blessing Bonnevaux (top) and the music concert with the choir 9 News 10 News 12 Resources Laurence Freeman Updates on WCCM New pocket books and The visits Korea for the developments in the Caribbean Roots of Christian Mysticism This issue This first time and South Africa online course 2 www.wccm.org Meditatio Newsletter July 2019 A letter from Laurence Freeman, OSB If you look at one of the photos told us that mistakes, failure and ac- To help understand the need for of the beautiful blessing of Bon- cidents are all eventually part of the a universal understanding of con- nevaux last month you will see the single great blessing that is life. templation, we have launched a new large group of community, friends Shortly before the blessing of the WCCM podcast – called “Contempla- and neighbours packed into the long first phase of our renovation of Bon- tive Revolution”. We have called it this cloister. They were listening to one nevaux, the Guiding Board had de- because contemplative Christianity is of our principal speakers of the day cided on ‘Contemplative Christianity’ unachievable unless it is held in the speaking about the vision of this new as the WCCM theme for the coming gentle grip of the continuous revolu- centre of peace that is to become no year. We felt that this to be an impor- tion of the gospel’s wisdom and val- less a centre for peace. Those in the tant reminder, not just for the Church ues. The podcast offers regularly up- front row are looking up at a single but for the world. Christianity fulfils dated teachings from the many gifted point immediately above the speak- er’s head. Not in inspiration, though, as much as in fear. The speaker had been placed immediately under a nest of swallows in the vaulted ceiling where some newly fledged arrivals were being cared for by their parents. They were showing activity during the talk and those of us in the front began to fear that the birds above the speaker might decide to drop down a message or two of their own. They did not. And so this part of the benediction of Bonnevaux passed smoothly to the next. But if the em- barrassing event had happened what would have been lost? Would it have spoiled everything or just shown us its mission in a world of many faiths teachers with whom our community that the best prepared plans remain to unite people in the universal truth. is blessed. I urge you to sign up for it vulnerable to the unexpected? It Part of this truth is that love, peace, because it will help stimulate and en- helped us in that moment, however, joy and forgiveness are not just rich the hope and vision in you that to remember what blessing means. dreams or occasional lucky moments we need to share with the world. Blessing does not come down from in life. They are essential elements Revolutions come and go. They above as much as it is transmitted of human nature that Christ taught seek the highest goals of human per- from one to another by our genuine by word and example. It means that, fection and then begin to splutter, presence to each other and our col- however peaceless and divided we lose height and crash. Most political lective faith in the project. We are may be, individually or collectively, revolutions in history reverted to the blessed through our friendship and our true nature can ‘become God’, as very forms they once rejected. It is a hope to realise what Bonnevaux can the early Christian teachers daringly sadly frequent outcome of idealism become. The best benedictions are said. We can always rise from our self- that we are all familiar with at a per- horizontal. If a message from the made ruins. Like Bonnevaux, we too sonal level, in relationships or in our bird-nest had fallen it would not have can be renovated. commitment. How many of us have spoiled the blessing. But we would Before I was me not seen ourselves fall short of the have been reminded of how the hu- I was God in God generous selflessness of our initial man entwines with the natural world And can be again enthusiasm? We gave ourselves with- and our well-made plans with the ran- If I die to my me out counting the cost. Then little by domness of the universe. We would (The Cherubinic Pilgrim, Angelus Sile- little….. compromise, excuses, com- have smiled because it would have nius, transl. Anrew Harvey) plaints, the demand for reward or Meditatio Newsletter July 2019 www.wccm.org 3 recognition. ing reborn. The life we find when we is triggered by our lifestyle. Speed, Revolutions – in individuals or so- have lost our life is life indeed. Or, as stress, addiction, virtual reality and cieties - have complex causes. They a koan puts it: the dragon roars in a the sense of alienation block out the happen when the existing order of dead tree. contemplative experience. Without things begins to dismantle in several Passing through the paradox-por- it, life, reduced to merely material- places simultaneously. Fear and un- tal of reality, we discover that contra- istic dimension, bleeds meaning. In certainty begin to spread. In society dictions co-exist. We are set free from contrast, John Keats wrote that life is those in power become alienated the exclusively dualistic mind and a ‘perpetual allegory’. But how many from each other and people see the from the compulsive search for hap- today are educated to understand calibre of leadership declining. In piness in pleasure alone. We learn that this, to see how different dimensions ourselves, the values and disciplines joy and sorrow (as we label them) are reflect each other, bringing us deeper that give life harmony and meaning equally, sometimes simultaneously, into the mystery of all existence? I loosen. Injustice, imbalance and de- revelatory. Everything teaches. Noth- think he means that life is eternally ception multiply. Feelings of resent- ing is wasted. Seeing this impacts ev- new as it unfolds to us its limitless ment and shock ensue similar to what erything, as a revolution or an earth- connections. Beauty, for example, is a child feels when it is treated badly. quake does, including our meditation the revelation of the whole in a part. Conditions ripen for the coming of practice. We no longer bargain with We cannot help but love the beauti- false prophets. Voices of protest form meditation, threaten to leave if we ful. But love for one part expands to narratives and slogans that crowds don’t get what we want, panic when include each of its neighbours. To can understand. Disappointment and nothing happens or try to fill the des- love one thing leads to loving every- a sense of betrayal scratch out a feel- ert with fantasy oases. The motivation thing. With love, meaning grows, not ing of emptiness in the fear of a com- of our meditation changes. A wisdom through an ideology or by defining ing precipice. not just our own is born, almost shyly, ourselves against others but through Karl Marx had a vision compara- of interior renunciation. It now seems boundless felt connections. ble to that of Jesus: to realise the es- so obvious. By learning to let go of all Everything is meaningful in rela- sence of Man in a classless society. It the stages - the dream, the failure and tionship to something else. To have inspired the Communist revolution. the intermittent reward – the poverty entered upon a path of contempla- France and China entered their revo- we dreaded now carries a peace be- tive experience is to be going beyond lutions with high ideals. But quickly, yond our understanding. whatever we arrive at. It is to know the large vision contracts to short- the peace of ‘being on the way’ rath- term advantages and the silencing of er than the pressure of trying to get dissent. The dive upwards into higher The life we find when we have somewhere faster by competing with consciousness falters and, feeling that lost our life is life indeed others. we are losing our breath, we head The Greek word for this is epekta- downwards to the surface again. All sis. Gregory of Nyssa called it unceas- revolutions fail, including the gospel’s An entirely new class of experi- ing evolution in eternal happiness. St metanoia (the conversion of con- ence unfolds. We may have tasted it Paul used it too to describe the ‘always sciousness itself), if we don’t learn to briefly before but it is unfamiliar. If we something more’, ‘always going be- breathe underwater. This means that have a language and belief system to yond’, aspect of a life that can breathe learning that we are more than our help, they can help to find meaning inside the spiritual dimension.