We had a very successful Annual Forum on Saturday, 11 May 2024 followed very quickly by our AGM. Thanks a million to all who attended. Our guest speaker, Jane Mellett, gave a wonderful presentation entitled ‘ The Antidote to the Ecological Crisis is Contemplation’ in which she set out very simply and clearly how the encyclical Laudato Si offers offers us a beautiful spirituality to help us engage with the multiple crises our world currently faces. Jane’s excellent talk is available by clicking here. Jane’s talk was followed by a lively question and response session.
The Laudato Si movement offers training to anyone who may wish to become involved in their work – click here to find out more. The ‘Laudato Si’ community also runs a weekly meditation session on Zoom, at 5 pm each Wednesday. Those interested can register here.
Our Annual Forum
The AGM followed at which the accounts for 2023 were adopted and elections to the Board of Directors took place. The Board now comprises: Noel Keating (National Coordinator), Joe Brophy (Company Secretary), Mairead Burke, Fr Jim Caffrey, Niall Charleton, Maria Gavin, Niall Kennedy, Mannix Lynch, Sile O’Connor, and Stefan Reynolds (Oblate Coordinator).
Each year WCCM runs a contemplative retreat for young adults (aged 18-45) from all around the world. The retreat this year will take place from 30 July to 04 August 2024 in Bonnevaux, France.
The theme for this year is ‘Where Has All The Joy Gone?: Reconnecting With Our True Selves‘. If you or a young person you know is interested in going, they can check it out by clicking here. Scholarships may be available. If you have a query, please or contact Noel Keating via mnkeating@gmail.com
Meditation & Young People
WCCM is embarking on a major project on spirituality and young people. The intention is to with engage young people through a survey about their relationship with the spiritual dimension of life and to explore how WCCM might develop programmes and resources to help young people to nurture their spiritual sensibility and capacity for compassionate engagement with the world. Please invite young people (aged 16 – 44) to click on the image to complete the survey.
This year’s John Main Seminar will take place in New Harmony, Indiana in the United Sates. Running from 08-13 July 2024, it will be a hybrid event, both in-person and online. This annual event was established to honour John Main’s memory and develop the influence of his teaching in new fields and to dialogue with the modern world. You can find our more and register for this event – whether in-person or online – by clicking here or on the image to the right.
How About Starting a New Weekly Group?
Over the last while we have been building resources for group leaders and those wondering about starting a group in their area or in their own home. It can be daunting when the thought first strikes you! And it is easy to convince yourself that ‘Oh, No! I could never do that.’ But many who thought just that still went ahead and ‘gave it a go.’ And never looked back!
It’s easier than you think. And with the resources we have developed, easier now than ever before. It is amazing what you can do now on a mobile phone – you can download readings for groups and even talks directly on your phone. All you have to do then is read the text or play the talk. Click on the image to the right to see the resources for yourself and learn how easy it is.
The community at Bonnevaux have made their daily prayerbook available to all. Click on the image to the left to download a copy.
WCCM has now created a follow-up to the recent free four-lesson introduction to meditation for beginners. This six-lesson course, Continuing the Journey‘ is also free but those who register are invited to make a donation if they wish. Click on the image to the right to find out more.
There will be a wonderful event in Balally on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 September 2024 with an internationally acclaimed speaker on contemplation. Further details will follow in later Newsletters, but put those dates in your diary NOW!
Praying Attention by Glennon Doyle
Life cannot be handled.
The secret is simply
to show up.
It’s about witnessing it all,
even the pain,
and letting it touch you
and make you not harder,
but more tender.
Showing up, feeling it all…
this is my new kind of prayer.
I call it praying attention,
and it’s how,
for me,
everything turns holy.
Reflection by Noel Keating:The secret is simply to show up. The poet is reflecting on how life cannot be controlled by us and reminds us that the secret is simply to show up. Thomas Merton once wrote that ‘You dnot need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.’ Our poet and Merton are saying the same thing in different ways. We are called not to try to control everything, but to witness and respond with tenderness and compassion to the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment.
At one stage of my adult life, after reading The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, I wrote a personal mission statement for myself as a way of expressing clearly and consciously how I wished to live my life. At the heart of that statement was a quote from the Old Testament prophet Micah where he wrote (Micah 6.8): This is what Yahweh asks of you:
Only this,
to act justly
to love tenderly
and to walk humbly with your God.
Isn’t this too what the poem is saying? We are called to show up, to feel it all and to allow our experience of life to make us tender, not harder. That in itself is a very deep form of prayer, what the poet calls ‘praying attention’.
We can say the same about our daily meditation practice. The secret is simply to show up. And, in the stillness and silence of our meditation, p(r)ay attention to our word. As our preoccupations seek to enter the silence, we keep our attention on our word, so that we are able to resist being drawn to engage with the distractions that inevitably present themselves to us. Every time we find we have become caught up in thought or emotion we simply return, gently and lovingly to our word. The secret is simply to show up twice each day and be still in That in which we live and move and have our being. Meditation is not a process where we seek understanding nor is it a process whereby we try to see the light but rather a process where we open ourselves to the Light, allow it to search and know us, allowing ourselves to be enlightened by that Light. It is not our minds that are enlightened but our hearts. That is why our opening prayer begins ‘Heavenly Father, Open our hearts to the silent presence of the Spirit of your Son.’ As our hearts are enlightened, everything turns holy. As John Main expressed it, the centre of gravity of our consciousness moves from the head to the heart. And that in turn becomes the centre that inspires how we live our lives.
The May 2024 version of the international WCCM Newsletter is now available. Just click on the image to the right to download the pdf.
In addition to the letter from Layrence Freeman, there is an article by Taynã Malaspina, WCCM Director of Meditation for Young Adults, who describes her new course on Spiritual Intelligence for the young. And João Correia from Portugal writes about finding meditation during a mid-life crisis,
