The team organising the John Main Seminar has done a great deal of preparatory work organising the event. They are now looking for your help in assisting with some practical tasks over the three days of the event – for example helping with stewarding, assisting with meals and snacks at break times, perhaps offering transport for key speakers to and from their hotel and so on. There are countless ways in which you may be able to make this a truly rewarding event for all participants.
We are inviting all who may be able to offer help or support in any way to attend a Meet-Up in Balally Parish Centre on Saturday next, 27 September 2025 from 10 am to 1 pm. This will be a morning of prayer, meditation and reflection and time to discern who is available to help, on which days and and in what capacity.
The morning will include a talk from Fr Laurence Freeman, most likely speaking from Bere Island. Ireland last hosted the John Main Seminar in Cork in 2011 and was praised at that time for the excellent organisation which made the event a great success. Let’s show WCCM what we can do now in 2025! Please come along next Saturday (27 September) to Balally from 10-1:00 and, if you can, bring a friend! It will help if you will let Cinzia know you will attend by emailing her via cinziangius@gmail.com or by phone on 083 0165382
Click here to learn more about the John Main Seminar 2025 and find out how to reserve a place for the event from 6-9 November 2025
From Ancient Roots to Modern Crisis – Balally Parish’s Vision of Integral Christianity: The theme for this year’s John Main Seminar was inspired by the vision of Balally Parish in Dublin to develop itself as a contemplative parish. PP Fr Jim Caffrey and pastoral leader Cinzia Angius – who are leading the organisation of the John Main Seminar 2025 – were interviewed by WCCM recently and the interview can be heard here. Fr Jim was a priest of Dublin Archdiocese for many years before spending five years in Mepkin Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in South Carolina. Cinzia joined the parish pastoral council in 2022 and is now a pastoral leader in the parish. The transcript of their interview can be read by clicking here.
For a Long Time by Mark Nepo
I had this idea and imagining it and
building it brought me alive. I was never
as engaged as when it was half-built. I’d read
the blueprint in my heart and carve another
piece. Once finished, I lived in it. It was where
I’d go to look out on the world. For years it was
a peaceful place in which I grew. I thought it was
my nest. But slowly, I grew so big that I couldn’t
get out of my idea. It became a cage. I panicked
and railed at what I’d made, afraid to give up
any of my growth. Trapped and exhausted, I
sat in the middle of all I’d built and began to
listen to the rhythm of things that never die.
In time, I grew smaller and smaller till I was
thin as the breath of life. Only then could
I slip through the bars of my idea. Like a
quiet breeze, I returned to the world.
Reflection by Noel Keating: In this poem and in The Book of Awakening, Nepo explores how we limit ourselves unconsciously in life, both as a result of our upbringing and conditioning by our culture. Tony de Mello used to tell the story of a camel owner who had twenty camels but on one occasion had only nineteen pegs to tie them to. So he tells his slaves to pretend to hitch the last camel to a peg. The next morning the camel would not budge until the slaves pretended to untie it. We are so easily hypnotized by habits of mind and social conventions that undermine our peace and happiness but that we never question. For years it was a peaceful place in which I grew. I thought it was my nest. … but it became a cage and we allow ourselves to be imprisoned by our lack of awareness of who we truly are.
In his book The Endless Practice, Nepo tells how this poem was written after a disturbing yet liberating dream. He elucidates the meaning of the poem saying how, as he’s grown older, he has found himself gradually giving up on the notion of attachment to egoic achievement, so that he could learn to stay with what is essential. He discovered that ‘like the breeze in my dream, I can slip through the bars of my own idea of life and join the actual pulse of life.’ As the poem says he began to listen to the rhythm of things that never die and to let go of the things that were not essential to his wellbeing. He allowed his attachment to his ego to shrink and in time he grew smaller and smaller till I was thin as the breath of life. Only then could I slip through the bars of my idea[s]. Like a quiet breeze, I returned to the world.
Meditation helps to dissolve our attachment to the needs of the ego for power, prestige and possessions. It helps us to pierce through all that prevents us from seeing clearly, from apprehending who we are in the depths of our being. Our daily practice brings us back in touch with Reality, with the true pulse of life. As Nepo observes elsewhere ‘To my humble surprise, each moment [of letting go] was a threshold to the sanctity that waits inside any circumstance.’
Meditation helps us to let go and to connect with the pulse of life within us and all around us. It helps us slip through the bars of our preoccupations and preconceptions and like a quiet breeze, I return to the world, to who we truly are in the centre of our being and abide there, living our lives from our true centre.
