SPIRITUALITY - MAY 2008
Have a look at two methods of prayer. There are more ways of praying than you could possibly imagine. The following exercises are only suggestions - they are not presented as the only ways to pray, but may be helpful in offering you some different ideas. “May the Lord direct our hearts into the love of God.” 2Thessalonians 3:5
Information on a Celtic Spirituality event at Armagh Cathedral.
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
Here are some ways of being still:
1. Sit, feet flat on the ground, back reasonably straight but not rigid or stiff.
2. Concentrate your whole attention on what you can feel physically in your body. Don’t think, just attend to what you can feel. You may begin with your feet and work upwards, spending a moment or two on each part of your body you can feel. The longer you can attend to one part of the body, the better.
3. If you can feel an itch, discomfort, and want to move, acknowledge the discomfort, tell yourself it’s all right, and try not to move.
4. If you become aware of thoughts, questions, treat as you treated the itch. Acknowledge the questions, but then get back to focussing attention on the physical feelings in your body.
5. Once you feel rested, you may like to turn this exercise into a more explicit prayer. ‘In God we live and move and have our being’. You are meeting God in the awareness of your own body.
6. a.) In the same position, relaxed with back straight. Concentrate all your attention on the physical feeling of breathing in, then breathing out. Do not deliberately change your breathing, although you may find it changes naturally, becoming slower and deeper. If this exercise always causes you breathlessness, then abandon it!
b.) Do not be surprised if this exercise makes you feel drowsy. If once, you are rested, you want to turn this exercise into more explicit prayer, then let your in-breath express all that you long for, and let your out-breath be a surrender of yourself to God, together with all your worries, anxieties, guilt and pain. Do not moralise or judge yourself.
LECTIO DIVINA: In reading the Bible we believe that God is communicating with us through these words, so the Bible is called ‘The Sacrament of the Word’.
1. Choose a passage that you like. Read it over several times without trying to analyse or moralise. Pray for what you desire.
2. If any word, phrase or image attracts your attention, stay with it as long as you can, relishing it, not analysing it. This word, phrase or image is God communicating with you now.
3. If what are called distractions come into your mind eg. ‘I wonder what’s for dinner?’ or any other thoughts, then let them mingle with the word, phrase or image which attracts you. This is letting the word of God enter your everyday preoccupations, worries, anxieties, hopes, longings temptations, guilt; and you pray out of the mixture of your preoccupations and God’s word. Do not be afraid of negative feelings you may have about God, but tell God of them, trusting that God is big enough to take on board all of your emotions.
IMAGINATIVE CONTEMPLATION – especially suited to Gospel passages.
1. Choose a passage that you like and read the passage several times until it is familiar to you.
2. Imagine the scene is happening now and that you are a participant active in the scene. Do not worry if you cannot imagine visually. If you find it difficult to enter the scene, imagine you are trying to describe it to a child, making it as vivid as possible.
3. Ask for what you desire.
4. It helps attentiveness in any sense to ask yourself: who is present, what are they saying, what are they doing? You join in with them.
5. If distractions arise, let them enter the Gospel scene. As long as they do not divert your attention totally from prayer, they will probably lead you deeper into it.
6. Talk with the characters in the scene, talk to Jesus, to the Father. Always speak from the heart, simply and honestly.
7. Do not worry if your attention keeps straying from the scene. When conscious of inattention, bring yourself gently back into the scene.
EVENT
The Centre for Celtic Spirituality, Armagh Cathedral
‘Listening for the Heartbeat of God’
23rd - 25th May, 2008
with Rev. Dr. J. Philip Newell,
former Warden of Iona Abbey, Writer and worldwide speaker on Celtic Spirituality
Music by Avalon and the Celtic Lyres
Tickets (£20 st./£36Eu), programme and booking form:-
The Centre for Celtic Spirituality, 8 Vicar’s Hill, Armagh.
(Tel: Rev. Grace Clunie 028 3887 0667)LISTENING TO THE HEARTBEAT OF GOD
