"[These] ancients taught that prayer was participation in God's love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ."[Diana Butler Bass]
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Desert image by JeongJunYou.
"The Desert Fathers and Mothers"
"Practical Prayer"
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
In the same way as the early Church, the desert Christians were deeply committed to Jesus' teachings and lived practice. Their chosen solitude and silence was not anti-social but a way to become better at seeing clearly and at loving deeply. Withdrawal was only for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.
Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to active love:
An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, "You're looking at it." Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you're doing with care, presence, and intention is prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness. As other master teachers have taught in many forms, "When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep." As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.
Gateway to Silence: Lead me into the wilderness of silence and simplicity.
References:
[1] Diana Butler Bass, A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (Harper One: 2010).
[2] Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian Publications: 1975), 1.
Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Desert image by JeongJunYou.
"The Desert Fathers and Mothers"
"Practical Prayer"
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
In the same way as the early Church, the desert Christians were deeply committed to Jesus' teachings and lived practice. Their chosen solitude and silence was not anti-social but a way to become better at seeing clearly and at loving deeply. Withdrawal was only for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.
Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to active love:
- "[Jesus' invitation to] 'Come follow me' was intimately bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and others, 'part of this enterprise of learning to love.' Prayer is much more than a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a disposition of wholeness, so that 'prayer and our life must be all of a piece.' They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a practical twofold process: first, of 'thinking and reflecting,' or 'pondering' what it means to love others; and second, as the 'development and practice of loving ways of being.' In other words, these ancients taught that prayer was participation in God's love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ." [1]
An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, "You're looking at it." Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you're doing with care, presence, and intention is prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness. As other master teachers have taught in many forms, "When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep." As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.
Gateway to Silence: Lead me into the wilderness of silence and simplicity.
References:
[1] Diana Butler Bass, A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (Harper One: 2010).
[2] Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian Publications: 1975), 1.
Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road SW (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195 United States
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