The United Nations International Day of Peace will take place on Saturday 21 September 2024. The World Community for Christian Meditation invites everyone to share in a special global initiative: the 24-Hour Meditation for Peace.
It will begin at midday (French time) on Saturday, 21 September [11 a.m. Irish time] and will conclude 24 hours later with a Contemplative Eucharist from Bonnevaux [at 11 a.m. Irish time on Sunday 22 September].
This event offers a wonderful opportunity for all who meditate to unite in sending a collective signal of peace and healing into the world. You can join in on this link at any time – and for as long or as short a time as is convenient for you – over the period. You are invited to light a candle (battery operated may be safest) symbolizing light in the darkness and, instead of showing your face on Zoom, focus your camera on the candle. Together, we will meditate and hold in our hearts those affected by war and violence, especially in areas of armed conflict. You can find out more about this initiative by clicking here.
WCCM News in brief
Over the last number of years there have been significant developments in WCCM activities, supporting its communities across the globe. These include significant growth in the number of online programs, the development of the WCCM Academy, the review of programming at Bonnevaux, and a comprehensive review of the governance structures of WCCM.
Fr Laurence will continue as Director of WCCM but will hand over operating and administrative responsibilities to a new Executive Director, Krzysztof Albińscy who will be based in Bonnevaux and will report to the Trustees . He has been part of the community for many years and a member of the Guiding Board. We are fortunate to have a person of his calibre and experience in this role at this important transitional stage.
The mission of WCCM is needed now more than ever. Complementing the growth over recent years has been the contemplative formation of teachers in the community: the Senior Leaders and the Teacher-Leader programs together with the programs for Young Adults are all helping to bring the gift of the Community to future generations.
Fr Laurence reminds us that WCCM is essentially a ‘volunteer organisation’ supported by a highly dedicated small professional group of creative people and a world-wide body of volunteers to whom we all owe so much. It is a human witness to all that WCCM is about. Fr Laurence writes that he feels deeply grateful to all those who have so generously contributed to the work of WCCM and who continue to support its growth.
You are warmly invited to a very special event in Balally Parish over the weekend of Saturday 28 September and Sunday 29 September on the occasion of the second annual Dermot Lane Seminar in honour of theologian Dermot Lane who is PP Emeritus of Balally Parish.
The parish has invited Archbishop Rowan Williams – Archbishop of Canterbury from 2012 to 20222 – to give a series of talks under the theme ‘A Noisy World in Need of Meditation and Service‘. Rowan Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to address a Synod of Catholic Bishops in Rome – read his short but profound address on the need for the widespread promotion of meditation here.
The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning with a short period of prayer and meditation. Archbishop Rowan Williams will give three talks over the weekend – see the timetable below. Each talk will be followed by responses and group discussion. If you wish to stay around over lunchtime, bring a sandwich with you and the parish will provide a cup of soup and/or tea or coffee!
Venue: Balally Parish Centre Cedar Road, Balally, Dublin, D16 E032
The events are open to all. Feel free to attend one, two or all three talks. There is no need to book and there is no charge but you are invited to make a voluntary donation of €10 per event in a donation box at the back of the church.
This is a wonderful opportunity for meditators.
Timetable for the weekend: Archbishop Williams will give three talks over the two days as follows:
Saturday, 28 September 2024 10:30 a.m to 1:00 p.m. ‘Graced by the Holy Spirit of God.’
Saturday, 28 September 2024 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ‘The Journey Inwards: Contemplation‘
Sunday, 29 September 2024 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. ‘Working together for justice and the care of our common home‘
Fr Donagh O’Shea will lead a morning of meditation and reflection on Saturday, 09 November 2024 from 10:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m. Donagh speak to the theme ‘Meditation: Falling Awake‘. There will be two sessions: from 10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. and 11:45 to 1:00 p.m. with a half-hour break for refreshments in between. There is no need to book. Donations may be made on the day (€20 suggested).
There will be no lunch provided but those who wish to do so may bring a sandwich for lunch and tea/coffee will be available in the parish centre afterwards. Donagh’s latest book is entitled ‘A Holy Mess: – Making the Most of our Misfortunes.’
On The Western Front by Alfred Noyes (1916) from Collected Poems (1947)
I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;
For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
The peace that is our everlasting life.
The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.
We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.
To all your praises we are deaf and blind.
We may not ever know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
Only our silence, in the night, shall grow
More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;
And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know
How many scornful legions pass you by.
For we have heard you say (when we were living)
That some small dream of good would ‘cost too much.’
But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,
And seen you move the mountains with one touch.
What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!
If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.
Reflection on Meditation and Peace by Noel Keating
In Monastery without Walls: The Spiritual Letters of John Main he speaks about the desires and wants of the ego and reminds us ‘how dangerously illusory any deduction or action becomes, in the spiritual or material sphere, when the ego is the point of departure.’ In meditation the centre of gravity of our consciousness turns from the head to the heart, from the ego to the true-self,
We move from a state of wilfulness to one of willingness, where we discover our true relationship with Reality, from seeing ourselves as the centre of the world to acknowledging the Divine as the true centre. In the Christian meditation tradition we see this turn from seeing the ego at the centre as a very deep form of prayer. Regrettably, many Christians have come to understand prayer as an attempt to make the divine will coincide with our own will, when in fact it is intended to be the exact opposite – a move from willfulness to willingness, to discern and accept what God is asking of us.
John Main expressed it as follows: ‘Experiencing our potential for egolessness – in meditation – is … a powerful way of ordering our perspectives on reality.’ Meditation helps to align the whole person – body, mind and heart – on the divine reality which is Love. And, Main reminds us ‘The actual experience of love, not the theological idea or emotional dream, … makes for a lifelong commitment to truth, integrity and wholeness.’ Our daily practice of meditation is an expression of our commitment to this turning, this revolution, this conversion of our mindset to seeing and being in the world through the lens of love. Main observes that ‘Conversion is to the spiritual life what revolution is to the political life.’
James Finley reminds us that we spend so much of our lives trapped on the outer circumference of the inner richness of our lives. And John Main suggests that ‘True revolution is driven by [the] instinct to maintain – by expansion – the equilibrium between the centre and the circumference, between the parts and the whole. It is motivated by a passion for peace. Like the word love, we use peace loosely. We have not really experienced peace if we think of it as merely the cessation or absence of violence. Peace is really the harmony of all the mighty forces that, when they are disunited, lead to violence. Peace is not so much a consoling interlude or an escape. It is a power in its own right and a rooting principle of reality.’
Meditation awakens the human heart to its infinite potential. It teaches us who we truly are at the depths of our being, to apprehend that we inter-are; and to appreciate that peace is a form of divine energy which flows through us to the extent that we find our true centre and live our lives from that place of peace within. Through our meditation, may God – as expressed in the Serenity Prayer – grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.
