Preparing Space: A Guided Meditation For Advent Contemplative At Home podcast

21:27

A 21-minute audio guided meditation, with text from John 19:38-42 Though it is wildly tempting to rush to Easter morning, I invite you to tarry a while with me, to stay here in the holy, devastating moments as the body of Jesus is removed from the cross. As Michael Rosen so wisely said: we can’t go around it, we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. We have to go through it. My prayer is that we will all gently grow in our capacity to attend the loss, absence, and bewilderment that will inevitably consume us from time to time. Not because the wilderness is an end in itself, but because our healing and our hope, can only be as deep as the depths to which we have explored our pain. In this meditation I use the text from John 18:38-42 NRSV. I also quote Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz, from her book An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork “And that is all we can manage in these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances. About our lives. You cannot help us. But we must help You, and defend your dwelling place inside us to the last.” A profound reflection for the darkest of days. Thank you to Val for sharing this with me last week. In the closing blessing, I use words that are very close to Jan Richardson’s poem Beloved is Where we Begin . This poem lives inside of me and sometimes emerges. Jan has lots of helpful blessings for Holy Week and Easter. Do sit with them. Thank you for trusting me to accompany you on your journey, in your sacred moments. It is a great honour to be here with you. All blessings. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . The post When God is Absent: A Meditation for Holy Saturday appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Arrest: Lectio Divina: John 18:1-14 21:09

hace 13 días21:09

21:09

A 21-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 18:1-14, using Lectio Divina. A meditation with John’s account of the arrest of Jesus. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Art: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The post Arrest: Lectio Divina: John 18:1-14 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Jesus and Judas: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:21-30 22:55

hace 20 días22:55

22:55

A 23-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 13:21-30, using Imaginative Contemplation. Everyone has gathered in Jerusalem for the passover, and Jesus knows that his hour has come. As he sits around the table with his disciples, he becomes visibly distressed before he says aloud “One of you will betray me.” This meditation brings us to this room, to this table, joining Jesus and his friends for 10 minutes, as a moment between Jesus and Judas unfolds. Blessings as you continue on through Lent. Blessings. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by Pedro Domingos on Unsplash The post Jesus and Judas: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:21-30 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Are You Going to Wash My Feet?: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:1-17 22:16

hace 27 días22:16

22:16

A 22-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 13:1-17, using Imaginative Contemplation. In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to join me in taking a ‘long, loving look’ at a few verses of text, beholding the words as living, shimmering, life-giving containers which hold endless layers of wisdom, mystery, beauty and truth. Here we have Jesus, at a meal with his friends just before the passover. He knows that his hour has come, that Judas intends to betray him. He gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe and ties a towel around himself, and begins washing the disciples feet – a task typically undertaken by the servants of the house as you enter. Just for these few minutes, I invite you to leave your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing, a place of deep being. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . The post Are You Going to Wash My Feet?: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:1-17 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
The Glory that Comes from God: Lectio Divina: John 12: 27-43 20:02

hace 5 weeks20:02

20:02

A 22-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 12:27-28, 34-36, and 42-43, using Lectio Divina. Glory. Light. An access to eternity that doesn’t look like the power and longevity we might have imagined. I think that Jesus is inviting us to listen very deeply here. I remember my high school French teacher setting out to teach us a tense that doesn’t exist in English. “I need you to open your minds and put aside your current understanding of language,” she began. Jesus asks us to open our minds and put aside our understanding of glory . This glory is not about power, control or success. When have you tasted the glory of the Lord? What did it feel like in your heart? What did it feel like in your bones? To me it is a kind of deep down resonance with goodness and mercy and love. A wholeness and fullness that comes from the bottom up, not something that can be applied to the surface of things like a sticking plaster. It has to do with true healing and generous justice. A hopeful, grace-filled reverberation. How would you describe it? Blessings as you pray. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash The post The Glory that Comes from God: Lectio Divina: John 12: 27-43 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
We Want to See Jesus: Lectio Divina: John 12:20-26 19:13

hace 6 weeks19:13

19:13

A 19-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 8:12-20, using Lectio Divina. In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to join me in taking a ‘long, loving look’ at a few verses of text, beholding the words as living, shimmering, life-giving containers which hold endless layers of wisdom, mystery, beauty and truth. Just for these few minutes, I invite you to leave your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing, a place of deep being. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by Anita Austvika on Unsplash The post We Want to See Jesus: Lectio Divina: John 12:20-26 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Mary Anoints Jesus’ Feet: Imaginative Contemplation: John 12:1-11 24:19

hace 7 weeks24:19

24:19

A 24-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 12:1-11, using imaginative contemplation. In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to join me in taking a ‘long, loving look’ at a few verses of text, beholding the words as living, shimmering, life-giving containers which hold endless layers of wisdom, mystery, beauty and truth. Just for these few minutes, I invite you to leave your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing, a place of deep being. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window “ You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by Anna Keibalo on Unsplash The post Mary Anoints Jesus’ Feet: Imaginative Contemplation: John 12:1-11 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Jars of Clay: Lectio Divina 16:51

hace 9 weeks16:51

16:51

A 16-minute guided audio meditation on 2 Corinthians 4:5-11, using Lectio Divina. This meditation emerged as a reflection on the human capacity for bringing both beauty and pain into the world. While this is true collectively, it is also true on an individual level. We are all capable of bringing forth beauty and harm, and I would imagine that if you took a few moments to reflect, you could several examples of your own action or inaction for each category. Perhaps this is something of an early meditation for Lent. I hope that you find it illuminating and hopeful. All blessings. Lissy 2 Corinthians 4: 5-11 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by roberta errani on Unsplash The post Jars of Clay: Lectio Divina appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Love was His Meaning: Lectio Divina with Julian of Norwich 19:47

hace 10 weeks19:47

19:47

A 20-minute meditation with the writings of Julian of Norwich, using Lectio Divina. You are probably familiar with Mother Julian’s saying “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” On her deathbed, Julian was given a vivid and powerful vision of Christ on the cross. She revived from this extreme illness, and went on to spend the rest of her life as an anchoress, enclosed in a cell, that she might meditate on the meaning of this vision. She lived in medieval Norwich and her writings are the earliest English language writings attributed to a woman. In this meditation we listen prayerfully to some of these words, describing the understanding she was given after many years of meditating on the vision (see text below). I am relatively new to Julian of Norwich and so I invite you to begin to explore her insights together with me as a beginner. If you’d like to explore more about Julian, I did read the fictional autobiography “I, Julian” by Claire Gilbert last year and can heartily recommend it. My friend Nikki, who has a great devotion to Julian, also commends “Anchorhold: Corresponding with Revelations of Divine Love” by Kirsten Pinto Gfroerer, a book of meditations on her words. Blessings as you meditate with her words here today and thank you again for being here. Text for meditation: “Throughout the time of my showings I wished to know what our Beloved meant. More than fifteen years later the answer came in a spiritual voice. This is what I heard: Would you like to know our Lord’s meaning in all this. Know it well. Love was his meaning. Who revealed this to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why did he reveal it to you? For love. Stay with this and you will know more of the same. You will never know anything but love, without end. And so what I saw most clearly was that love is his meaning. God wants us to know that he loved us before he even made us. And this love has never diminished and never will. All his actions unfold from this love and through this love he makes everything that happens of value to us. And in this love we find everlasting life. Our creation has a starting point. But the love in which he has made us has no beginning and this love is our true source. Thanks be to God!” Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 86 (Mirabai Starr translation) Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window ” or join our Facebook group here You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . The post Love was His Meaning: Lectio Divina with Julian of Norwich appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Filled with the Unknowable: Lectio Divina: Job 11 and Ephesians 3 18:51

hace 11 weeks18:51

18:51

A 19-minute guided audio meditation with Job 11:8-9 and Ephesians 3:17-19, using Lectio Divina. I came to this text hoping to bring you a meditation on the depths of the love of God (Eph 3:18-19), but as I sat with a handful of translations, Greek words and Hebrew references, I was taken more mystically into the presence of God than I had imagined going. I have knit a few verses together here (Job 11:8-9 and Eph 3:17-19), pulling from various translations and expanded Greek definitions, mixing the words from Ephesians into combinations that spoke most vividly to me. Please note that while I feel that I have been very faithful to the text, I am not a biblical scholar and this is not an authorised translation. The words I have gathered from the NRSV, the Orthodox Jewish Bible and the Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament (at biblegateway.com) for this meditation are here: Job 11:8-9 Can you find out the deep things of God… Can you find the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than the heaven. What can you do? Deeper than Sheol. What can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Ephesians 3:17-19 I pray that Christ may inhabit, make his dwelling place in your heart. I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in (agape) love, may be empowered to grasp the height and depth, the length and breadth… and have knowledge of the Love of Christ, this Love which surpasses knowledge that you might be filled, fully pervaded, with the fullness, the plentitude, of God. Please note that I read the above text three times in this meditation, rather than the usual two. I hope that this meditation transports you in the way that it has transported me, but more than that, however you find your prayer today, may the Lord accomplish the Spirit’s intentions through your faithfulness to prayer. BLESSINGS and much love!! Lissy Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina. Sign up here for Lissy’s newsletter “ The Contemplative Window “ You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much! All music by Pete Hatch . Photo by Thibault Mokuenko on Unsplash The post Filled with the Unknowable: Lectio Divina: Job 11 and Ephesians 3 appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Embodied Examen 19:13

hace 12 weeks19:13

19:13

A 19-minute guided meditation blending gentle physical movement (yoga), breath and the Ignatian Examen. Ignatius of Loyola taught his followers that the one prayer they could never eliminate from their daily practice, is the prayer of review, or the Examen. As Teresa of Avila (who for some time had a Jesuit confessor) said “I’ve gone […] The post Embodied Examen appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
15-Minute Meditation on Song of Songs 15:10

hace 13 weeks15:10

15:10

A 15-minute audio guided meditation with Song of Songs 2:8. Song of Songs 2:8 The voice my beloved! Look, he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. In this guided meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to imagine that you are in the mountains, and that the beloved comes towards you with playfulness […] The post 15-Minute Meditation on Song of Songs appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Intimate Encounter: Finding Your Name in God’s Love 15:41

hace 14 weeks15:41

15:41

A 16-minute guided meditation, linked to Isaiah 42:1-3 This is what the Lord says…. “I have called you by name…” This meditation is designed to help you pause, connect deeply with the Beloved, to imagine yourself beholding the LORD beholding you, and to hear the LORD calling you by name. It asks you to listen […] The post Intimate Encounter: Finding Your Name in God’s Love appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
A Moment Aside with the Beloved: 12-minute Guided Meditation 11:39

hace 15 weeks11:39

11:39

This guided meditation offers you a quiet pause to reconnect with your breath, the Presence of Love, and the question “What is Your will for me for the next few hours?” This might be a little prayer you make at midday, or a few times throughout the day, though there is no incorrect time to […] The post A Moment Aside with the Beloved: 12-minute Guided Meditation appeared first on Contemplative at Home .…

1
Let the Earth Be Glad: Psalm 96: Lectio Divina 22:28

hace 18 weeks22:28