Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

During my sabbatical in Merton’s hermitage, the world, my own issues and hurts, all my goals and desires gradually dissolved and fell into proper perspective. God became obvious and ever present. (Sunday)

The contemplative life is not, and cannot be, a mere withdrawal, a pure negation, a turning of one’s back on the world with its sufferings, its crises, its confusions and its errors. —Thomas Merton (Monday)

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Crises & dimensions, thinking & willing

Starts Thursday 4 March
This is a repeat of the Feb 2021 Evening Course
In Unit I we focused on some general principles underlying the development of a healthy spirituality. In Unit II we will focus more on particular concrete facets of spirituality. Walker Percy, the American essayist, wrote: “It is pilgrims we are, wayfarers on a journey, and not pigs, not angels.” (Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins: Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World, Avon Books, 1978, 104.)

Pilgrims frequently come to crossroads, choices must be made – sometimes without much knowledge of what the consequences might be.

Starts Tuesday 20 April
Lion is a 2016 Australian biographical drama film directed by Garth Davis from a screenplay by Luke Davies based on the 2013 non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley.

It is a heart-warming and an incredible real life story of Saroo Brierley, a 5-year-old Indian boy, who gets separated from his poor family. An empty train carriage drags him to Kolkata, a city that doesn't speak his language.

Starts Wednesday 21 April
Next to the Psalms the Song of Songs was the most commented upon book of the Old Testament in the pre-modern Church for it was held to be a mystical work that spoke of the Love of God. But from the seventeenth century on, with the rise of modernity, the Song fell out of fashion. Scholars argued that the Song was simply a small collection of very earthy erotic poems and the idea that they held deeper mystical meanings was, they argued, nonsense. In recent years, however, attention has once again turned to the Song and

Remembering & anticipating, imagining & feeling

   Starts Thursday 6 May
In Unit I we focused on some general principles underlying the development of a healthy spirituality. In Unit II we began to focus more on particular concrete facets of spirituality. In Unit III we will continue to do that. We often hear the advice: “Forgive and forget”. Why might this be very bad advice? What is the relationship between the past and the future in shaping the human journey?

What place do images, symbols and rituals have in human thriving? Can we think well without imagination being a crucial part of the process?

Rev Dr Andrew Murray SM

  Starts Tuesday 1 June

This course will involve a careful reading of texts of Aristotle on nature and the workings of nature beginning with Physics I – III and then Meteorology I & II.  Contrast will be made with the early modern conception of nature, much of which we live with today.  For Aristotle, nature is a principle of motion and the world is understood best through its most sophisticated substances – human beings.  Nevertheless, Aristotle was interested in the details of natural events and we will reflect on wind, rain, the saltiness of the sea and earthquakes, among other things.

By Michael Whelan SM

Three months before he died on 7 March 1274, St Thomas Aquinas had an extraordinary “experience” while celebrating Mass. As a result of this “experience”, St Thomas refused to do any further work on the Summa Theologica – his major life project. The English Dominican Thomistic scholar, Brian Davies, tells us that Aquinas’ secretary, Reginald of Piperno, begged him to return to the writing. St Thomas replied: "Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me" (Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Oxford University Press, 1993, 9).

Notes by Michael Whelan SM

•“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’

 Notes by Michael Whelan SM

 “I will be with you!” [Exodus 3:12] This is not only a promise, it is an expression of the very nature of God. To be God is to be with! Jesus enfleshes this same promise and the Divine Nature: “And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time” (Matthew 28:20).

We are made in the image and likeness of the One whose nature it is to be with. It is also our nature to be with. We are at our best when that “being with” is embraced generously and allowed to shape our lives. We thrive in constructive and life-giving relationships, we wither in the absence of such relationships. “Relationship is written into the very nature of human beings. As the Bible sees human beings, you cannot think about them, without recognizing that they are, as it were, made for relationship” (Aelred Squire, Asking the Fathers, SPCK, 1972, 20).

Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM

 Click for a video presentation of the Homily

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. (John 15:9-17 – NRSV)