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The Jesus Prayer and the Gospel in Brief (Part II)

The Jesus Prayer with reflections inspired by the Gospel According to St John. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, You are the grain of wheat, Which by dying gives life, Have mercy on me.

Gentle Reader, it is not necessary for you to first read The Jesus Prayer and the Gospel (Part I) before proceeding to read this post. But if you do your life will be spiritually enriched and you shall experience great joy. Do not, however, let me in any way influence your decision whether or not to read this treasure among posts. The Gospel in Brief Why did I choose this title? Well, partly…

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The Jesus Prayer and the Gospel in Brief (Part I)

Dear Reader, if you don’t yet know what the Jesus Prayer is please bear with me for a few paragraphs while I set the scene, then all will become clear. So, I’ve been reading a book called The Jesus Prayer Rosary by Father Michael Cleary. The basic format he proposes is that for every decade (group of ten beads on a Rosary) a different short phrase or petition should be inserted into the Jesus…

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River-shrouding mist

Lingers upon the waters.

Winter's bleak, cold dawn.

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Nights growing longer, Auburn toned forest pathways. Nature dreams of sleep.

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So, I've been playing with AI generated art. What do you think?

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Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus, His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen.

(John 19:25)

There were two who sat on there opposite the tomb, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary with her.

(Matthew 27:61)

This piece is not a contribution to the Magdalene Wars. I will not address the question of whether or not MM and Jesus were romantically involved (they were not). Nor shall I express an opinion on the wholly absurd and baseless accusation that the Catholic Church sought to denigrate the Magdalen by identifying her as one of those lost sheep whose recovery causes more rejoicing in heaven than that of ninety and nine righteous persons who did not need to be recovered. I should also say that although I feel bad about the other Mary mentioned in the Gospel this piece will not be about her either for reasons of space and limitation of knowledge.

‘What will it be about then?’ you ask perfectly reasonably. Well, you may not be aware of this but there is an ancient devotion to the Mother of Jesus called ‘The Seven Sorrows of Mary’ and the Gospel identifies the Magdalen as being present at the last three of them. So, what this piece attempts to do is to reflect on those three sorrows from a Magdalenian perspective and see if this teaches us any lessons for today....(click here to read more)

(via Mary Magdalene & the Dead Christ)

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Against, and Also For, an Austere and Simple Vision

Life is the flight of the alone to the Alone. (Plotinus) Under pretence of driving out the vendors from the temple, they have driven away the little ones who cried Hosanna! And in the midst of those walls, whitewashed and despoiled, they have placed a new divinity, powerful in evoking silence and void around her. She is called Ennui. Frederic Ozanam Recently I have been reading ‘Loyal…

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May is Mary's month, Mother of my second birth, My days now brighter.

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Imaginative Contemplation: The Priest, The Drunk, and the Dangerous Chair – thoughtfully catholic (wordpress.com)

 My intention here is to briefly outline the (or a) technique for imaginative contemplation and then illustrate it via the stories of ‘Eli and the (Apparent) Drunk’ and ‘Eli and the Dangerous Chair (or Stool)’.

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Birdsong of morning, Welcome new accents of spring. White Easter Lilies.

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This piece is about Imaginative Contemplation, sometimes known as Visualisation Meditation or, if you are a Catholic, Ignatian Prayer (of which more later). Normally I am a hardcore contemplation kind of person. That is, I wait upon God using nothing but the bare word or silence. However, if you are going to commit to devoting a significant part of your day, every day, for the whole of the rest of your life, to prayer then it will help you to have a wide repertoire for your Smörgåsbord. (Also, having a willingness to boldly mix your metaphors isn’t strictly necessary but I find that it helps)....

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This documentary about an austere, contemplative Catholic monastic order, the Carthusians, in Korea is well worth watching. It is observational and without commentary, rather like a previous classic documentary, Into Great Silence, about Carthusians in France.

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"Veni veni Emmanuel" – Hymn of the Advent Season – Gregorian Chant

O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel; That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel.

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Short days. Winter rain. Swollen river coldly flows. Small break in the clouds.

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The Neighbours and Enemies of (Ancient) Israel

There is a curious episode in the life of Jesus about which only St John informs us. It starts brightly enough with “many of the Jews learned to believe in him” (John 8:30) but things quickly go off-track. After a bit of to-and-fro Our Lord says- “I know you are of Abraham’s breed; yet you design to kill me” (8:37). Things escalate first to “We are right, surely, in saying that thou art a Samaritan, and art possessed?” (8:48) and finally to “Whereupon they took up stones to throw at him” (8:59).

What’s that all about? Why did Jesus start laying into precisely those people who rallied round to support Him? And why did they immediately turn into His violent enemies? No doubt as soon as the questions are posed in those terms your mind will turn immediately, as my rather slower mind turned eventually, to the Old Testament Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (also known as 1 and 2 Esdras). And so, after a brief digression, this essay will turn itself in the same direction.

For the purposes of this piece I shall refer to the people most central to it as ‘Ancient Israel’ and I shall refer to the land most central to it as ‘Ancient Israel.’ To give the land and the people different names is to encourage us to think of them as separate entities. But to consider the land apart from the people of Israel, and the Hebrew people apart from the land of Israel is to profoundly misunderstand both. They are bound together by a third thing, the Covenant between the One Creator God and a very particular line of descendants from the founding father Abraham. It does not matter whether or not you think that the Covenant is a real thing that really happened. What matters is that Ancient Israel thought so with every fibre of its (or their) being. As Psalm 102 puts it anent the land: “For Your servants cherish her stones and on her dust they take pity.” Digression ends.

So, the story of Ezra, as you know, is...(click here to read more)

(via The Neighbours and Enemies of (Ancient) Israel)