an amusing history of St. Catherine of Siena

On Blaming God

I recently followed a thread in the Cancer Survivors Network asking if patients find themselves blaming God for getting cancer. It is seems to be an often asked question, especially by some non-believers, that if there is a God, why does he let bad things happen to good people? I felt compelled to respond in the following way:

We seem to have a compulsion to want to blame someone or something for everything bad that happens to us. Perhaps this a way of finding meaning and understanding in what appears to be an irrational occurrence. Blaming is in fact contrary to divine faith because it is an attempt to try and regain control over what we think is unreasonable.


People of faith spend their whole lives trying to let go of their ego and live solely by the will of God. Just because something happens that I don't like, does that mean God is against me or punishing me? We often will lose or question faith when things don't go our way, but that is not how God works. Our beliefs do not give us permission to dictate to God what we think He should do for us. Rather, isn't faith trusting God to always provide what is best for us, even when we don't understand it?


Furthermore, some find intense trials, like cancer, to be a time of conversion or great deepening of their belief. For me, it has made me see how little control I over myself or things around me, and reminds me that I NEED God even more then ever.

Feel free to add your comments.

Guest Speaker, Ethel Sickert

Ethel Sickert will be guest speaker at St. Bridget Centering Prayer Group on Wednesday, January 12, 2011. Ethel leads the centering prayer group at St. Barnabas Church in Scottsdale, also home of pastor Jim Clark who leads Quiet Day every month.

A video entitled "Thoughts and Distractions" during Centering Prayer" will be shown following our 20 minute centering time. Ethel has been practicing centering prayer for over 20 years and will be available to answer any questions relating to her extensive experience.

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

6:30pm

St. Bridget Catholic Church, in the Chapel

Te Deum - 5th Century Monastic Chant (Solemn)

Advent Taize Prayer

Join the Crosier Brothers for this special evening of Taize Prayer Service.

Friday, December 17th, 2010
7:00 PM
St. Bridget Catholic Church
2213 N. Lindsey Road
Mesa, AZ 85213
480-924-5255

Keating Video: Guidelines Part II

Thoughts in Solitude

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore, will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever  with me, and you will never leave me  to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton
from "Thoughts in Solitude"

Keating Video: Guidelines Part I

Introductory Workshop

Contemplative Prayer of Phoenix is hosting a Introductory Workshop at St. Bridget Catholic Church in Mesa, AZ. The purpose of the workshop is to teach and encourage daily practice of Centering Prayer technique.
Participants will be encouraged to attend weekly follow up classes to establish and support their daily practice.

Saturday,November 13, 2010
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
St. Bridget Catholic Church
2213 N. Lindsay Rd
Mesa, AZ 85213



Please register with Rock Fremont by email at rfremont@stbridget.org, phone 480-924-9111, or by mail at above address. Optional suggested donation is $20, but is not required to attend the workshop.

The Parable of Leaven

In Chapter 3 of Thomas Keating's Manifesting God, we delve into the parable of leaven which states "The Kingdom of God is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened" (Luke 13:20-21).

Keating points out the taboo of leaven being consumed during the feast of Passover when all chametz (Hebrew for 'leavening')  and it's products are removed from the Hebrew home. This Jewish law is so strict that it includes any item that is either fermented or can cause fermentation, such as yeast bread, certain cakes, alcohol, and corn syrup. The purpose is to honor the enslaved Israelites who were finally freed from Egypt, in the book of Exodus. Having left Egypt in such a hurry they could not wait for the bread to rise and so were left with unleavened bread for their journey.*

Jesus' mention of the use of leaven must have seemed very provocative to those following Him. If it represents slavery and corruption, then it must be seen as something to be avoided, not sought after. This would be a direct challenge to the people of the time, going against their preconceived notions of good and evil. Their first reaction must have been that of shock at the thought of comparing the two, as Keating points out.

When the leaven is not only likened to the Kingdom of God but done so in a hidden fashion, as Jesus remarks.  The immoral implications are unmistakable to the Isrealites. Following the law assured them their lives were on the holy path, so how could Jesus say that God is hidden in the worst of places?

The explanation Keating offers is that their attitudes, and ours, of God are too limiting, "The Christian path is not about defining God, but of enlarging our idea of God. Even with the help of doctrine, rituals, good deeds, and moral certainties, without the experience of God's mercy and forgiveness, we do not really know who God is."

The parable focuses attention on the common tendency to impose our view of good and evil on the way we live, says Keating, and has made us "incapable of finding God in what, in our view, is moral evil. ..Actually, something that we do not want to happen may actually be the best thing that could possibly happen to us." Finding the Kingdom in the very thing we are avoiding demonstrates God's work for us is far beyond what we think of as our best of intentions. Keating points out, "A tragedy or disaster may be the only set of circumstances that can move us beyond our prepackaged values and preconceived ideas to a deeper level of relating to God in trust, self-surrender, and love."

During our Centering Prayer discussion period, leaven (yeast) was described as a rotting, fermenting organism, but also the only element that turns a nothing product such as flour into something to be sought after. Without yeast, water and flour combine into a body-less food that may have some nutritive value but very little appeal. Unleavened bread is hard, flat and falls apart too easily. It is the quick and easy recipe that has no time for a foreign matter which seems to work on its own mysterious terms.

If the leaven represents God, we must learn to trust Him to provide us with the lessons He wants us to learn, when He wants us to learn them. He hides these because He is calling us into the most loathsome of places, everywhere we'd rather not go. It is only then that He graces us with the opportunity to trust in Him as He takes and guides us. No matter how scary it gets, we must remind ourselves He is with us and in control.

"In the indignities and sufferings that we may experience, what is most painful is not what happens, but our attitude to what happens," says Keating. "This is why when we pray for deliverance from evil, God often does not take away our difficulties but joins  us in enduring them...To suffer in union with Christ is to offer to those we love and try to serve the greatest of all gifts, the one we have been freely given: God's unconditional love."

*Source: Wikipedia: Passover

The Great Banquet

In chapter two of "Manifesting God", Keating relates the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14:16-23) as an example of the offerings in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The parables begins as the elite householder prepares a huge banquet dinner and invites all the town's wealthy. However, when the rich refuse his noble invitation with their poor excuses, the householder becomes enraged and decides to hold the party anyway.

He has his servants round up "the blind, the lame, the halt, the maimed and the poor, so my house may be filled." Even then, the banquet is not yet filled in number. In further frustration he is moved to find more attendants. In addition to the poor and disabled, he insists his servants bring in the least desirable of all; the prostitutes, tax collectors, the disreputable and any other social outcasts.

Finally, this does the trick and the hall is full to capacity, though not necessarily with those choosing to be there. The final straw is drawn when the householder voluntarily chooses to suffer self-humiliation by joining the crowd for the feast, which is an unheard act for those of such high status such as he.

The significance relayed by Keating in the parable exemplifies how the Kingdom of God is no longer a place for the "chosen" as was once widely thought at the time, but is available to everyone, even those who may dismiss it (those forced to attend). Although it is hard to see the householder as a hero in this parable since he seemed to be acting at times only to save face, he demonstrates the path God took by allowing his divinity to become that of a lowly man, Jesus.

Jesus accepted public humiliation to make a connection for our benefit and understanding, just as the householder finds out the direct road to God is through humility, not wealth and status. The guests also come to see this as well. Though perhaps having been forced to attend the banquet of someone whom they may have harbored much resentment, they find the unapproachable elite class can be met on the same road, the only road, of the Kingdom of God.

What we didn't know

Brother Roger : What we didn't know from Taizé on Vimeo.

whoever strives to love with trust

"...there is no deeper love than to go to the point of giving oneself, for God and for others. Whoever lives a life rooted in God chooses to love. And a heart resolved to love can radiate goodness without limits...But what does it mean to love? Could it be to share the suffering of the most ill-treated? Yes, that's it.  Could it mean having infinite kind-heartedness and forgetting oneself for others, selflessly? Yes, certainly. And again: what does it mean to love? Loving means forgiving, living as people who are reconciled. And reconciliation always brings a springtime to the soul."        Brother Roger of Taize

Brother Roger of Taize died in August 16, 2005. He died at the Christian community of Taize in France, which he founded in 1940.  During a worship gathering of 2,500 people, a 36 year old Romanian woman carrying a knife approached and stabbed Brother Roger to death.

to read more about his life click here

mistaken identity

"...not only are we not who we think we are, but other people are not who we, or they, think they are. Our judgments about our character and other people's characters - and the reality of the world within and around us - are largely incorrect. We see everything upside down or from the perspective of downright ignorance."

Father Thomas Keating
Manifesting God

Resting in God's Presence

by Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO

Centering Prayer as taught by Contemplative Outreach is a fairly nuanced practice. You can't always rely on what people say about the instruction they received. I have found that even after several years, people may not have fully understood how to do Centering Prayer. This becomes apparent during the Intensive Retreats or the Formation Workshops in which there is a careful review of the method itself.

One objection to Centering Prayer is as follows: "One is advised to let go of the sacred word just to rest in God's presence: " That advice has to be taken in its proper context and depends on certain steps going before.

First of all, letting go of the sacred word in Centering Prayer is not a deliberate choice. Still less is it a permanent disposition. The whole thrust of Centering Prayer is to encourage us to let go of all thoughts. A "thought" in Contemplative Outreach terminology is any perception whatsoever including memories, plans, visualizations, external or internal sensations, feelings, and self reflections. Any kind of reflecting, even to make a choice, is a "thought," and hence, an invitation to return to the sacred word.

In the beginning our advice is: Resist no thought, retain no thought, react emotionally to no thought, and when you notice you are thinking about some thought, return ever so gently to the sacred word. One does not think about whether to return to the sacred word or not. One simply returns to it when thoughts are attracting one's awareness to a particular object.

We recommend the "discrete" use of the sacred word rather than its constant repetition. By this we mean using it as much as one needs it. This may be continuously at first. Beginners need it whenever they notice they are thinking about some other thought. In following this advice, we note the fact that the sacred word may become indistinct or even disappear for a limited period of time. When thoughts again engage our attention, we return to the sacred word as before. Thus, a disposition of alert receptivity is gradually formed.

Later we suggest returning to the sacred word or symbol only when we notice that we are attracted to some other thought. The meaning of this advice is that with time and regular daily practice one can discern intuitively whether one is disinterested in the thoughts that are coming down the stream of consciousness. Disregard of the thoughts is the sign that the consent of the will is becoming habitual. The will can be directed to God at a very delicate level without having to express its intention in a sacred symbol. Thus, from our perspective, the sacred symbol is not a means of going some place like an elevator. Still less is it a means of bulldozing other thoughts out of awareness. It is rather, a question of cultivating the spiritual level of awareness, which is real awareness, but without particular content.

This brings me to the chief difference between Centering Prayer, Vipassana and Hindu mantric practice. Centering Prayer comes out of the Christian Contemplative Heritage, inspired in the first instance by the Desert Mothers and Fathers and the Hesychastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, both of which cultivate interior silence and purity of heart. In the methods of meditation in the Eastern religions, the emphasis is on concentration for the sake of developing clarity of mind. By concentrative practices, I understand the use of the rational faculties and the imagination, physical movements and postures, and continued repetition of a word or phrase.

Centering Prayer is a passage from concentrative practices to alert receptivity through consenting to God's presence and action within us, which places the emphasis on purity of intention. Effort refers to the future, consent to the present moment where God, in fact, is. According to St. John of the Cross, purity of intention manifests itself during prayer as "a general loving attentiveness toward God." This is attentiveness not of the mind but of the heart. Its source is pure faith in God's presence leading to surrender to the interior action of the Holy Spirit in the here and now.

Article from Spring 1998 Newsletter, Volume 12 , Number 1

source: Contemplative Outreach

Taming the Mind

by Pema Chodron

This has to do with the importance of a basic attitude of friendliness. Sometimes when our thoughts are like little fleas that jump off our noses, we just see the little flickers of thought, like ripples, which might have a very liberating quality. For the first time you might feel, ---My goodness! There's so much space, and it's always been here." 

Another time it might feel like that elephant is sitting on you, or like you have your own private pornographic movie going on, or your own private war, in technicolor and stereo. It's important to realize that meditation doesn't prefer the flea to the elephant, or vice versa. It is simply a process of seeing what is, noticing that, accepting that, and then going on with life, which, in terms of the technique, is coming back to the simplicity of nowness, the simplicity of the out-breath. Whether you are completely caught up in discursive thought for the entire sitting period, or whether you feel that enormous sense of space, you can regard either one with gentleness and a sense of being awake and alive to who you are. Either way, you can respect that. So taming teaches that meditation is developing a nonaggressive attitude to whatever occurs in your mind. It teaches that meditation is not considering yourself an obstacle to yourself; in fact, it's quite the opposite.

source:  Meditation and the relativity of thought in Buddhism

The Process of Focusing

by Father William Meninger

Focusing is the process that enables us to hear what the body is telling us, through feelings, about our wounds and what to do about them. It can be used for other things involving body knowledege, such as dreams  or spiritual insights in prayer or Scripture reading, but, for our purposes here, we will limit it to the healing of wounds.

Here is a simple explanation of the focusing process. You can actually experience it as you go through the instructions:

1. Sit quietly for a moment; take several deep, slow breaths. Offer this prayer, or a similar one in your own words:   Dear Lord, thank you for gracing me to spend these few moments with your presence. I would like to respond to the innate ability you give me to listen to my body's knowledge. I want to recognize that pain is my body's way of calling my attention to my hurts and that it is also a means to lead me into the healing process. You have never promised me as a Christian, that I would be free from pain (crosses). But you have promised to be with me in my trials and sufferings and to bring me through them in new and grace-filled life. Amen
2. Now feel your body. Perhaps you might give your attention to your solar plexus (guts!), the location of many vague, uncomfortable feelings. Indeed, some people are constantly affected by unfocused, abiding discomfort here. They have never known what these feelings mean or how to deal with them. Go through your whole body - are there any puzzling pains, aches, feelings, anywhere that you cannot account for? Simply let them arise. Don't do anything for a while but just feel! Give your body there or four minutes to speak to you through some feeling or other. Body knowledge takes longer than intellectual knowledge. Don't be concerned with the first thing that comes to mind but wait for something to come to your body feelings. It may be connected to what is in the mind or it may not. Just allow the feeling to be there. Do not do anything else. The feeling may be a physical (e.g., muscle) pain, it may be excitement, fear, heaviness, or depression. What ever it is, it is the body speaking. Don't run from it. This is what we do too often. Drugs, alcohol, medicine, sex and work are the ways we use to get away from body knowledge. Today, you are not going to run. You are going to listen - even through it hurts. If it is very painful just reach out in your heart to God who is present to you and who will accompany you in your search for healing. Allow yourself to weep if this is called for. Weeping is also body language. Realize that whatever you feel is a call for healing. It is not a enemy but a friend or a teacher. Just accept it and be with it for a little while.

excerpt from "The Process of Forgiviness"

Accidental

Taking Up Our Cross

by St. Catherine of Siena

In the center of the garden is planted the tree of the most holy cross, the resting place of the spotless Lamb. He bathes and waters this glorious gardens, irrigating it with his blood; and he himself bears the mature fruit of true solid virtues. If you want patience , he is the bedrock of meekness, since not a murmur of complaint was heard from the Lamb. He is the bedrock of deep humility, since God stooped down to humanity, and the Word stooped to the shameful death of the cross. If you want charity, he is the charity, and even more, for it was the power of love and charity that kept him nailed fast to the cross. The cross and nails could never have held the God-Man, had not the power of charity held him. I'm not surprised that those who make of themselves a garden through self-knowledge are strong in the face of the whole world, for they are conformed and made one with supreme strength. They truly begin in this life to have foretaste of eternal life. They control the world by making light of it . The devils are afraid to get near a soul on fire.

So up!... I don't want you sleeping any more in irresponsibility... No, with a boundless blazing love get up and take a bath in Christ's blood, hide in the wounds of Christ crucified. I'll say no more. I'm sure that if you live in the cell I've been talking about you will discover none other than Christ crucified... Keep living in God's holy and tender love. 

source: Magnifcat, July 2010

Forgiveness and Love

by Frances Hogan

When we witness a public example of forgiveness in the face of an evil deed we are deeply touched by such nobility of heart. Such was the case when a brave father went public in his forgiveness of those who killed his daughter at Enniskillen. So, too, when the Pope visited his would-be murderer in prison to extend to him his personal forgiveness. These acts show us why God asks us to forgive, for even onlookers are ennobled by the deed, to say nothing of the participators, for how can we scream for revenge when the injured party lovingly forgives? Doesn't the sight somehow show us what it is to be truly human, and a child of God? Forgiveness is a case of overcoming evil with good, a demonstration that where sin abounds grace abounds even more (Rom 5:20). Observing such acts of heroism liberates us from the sickening feeling that the world is run by evildoers, and that we are helpless in the face of such malice.

Forgiveness is the divine institution for dealing with injustice. It breaks the cycle of evil, of tit-for-tat revenge which services only to increase the problem.  It not only breaks the cycle of evil but also power of evil, neutralizing its effects. It is the equivalent of taking the sword out of the enemies' hands and breaking it, leaving them defenseless. Forgiveness is the liberating defense of the child of God. It is also one of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and those who use it know the joy of God's presence in their lives, and also of  God's protection against all enemies both material and spiritual, for time and eternity.

source: Magnificat, June 2010, pg. 180