Blue Eyed Ennis: Great Free Audio Resources From Benedictine Fr.Laurence Freeman

Great Free Audio Resources From Benedictine Fr.Laurence Freeman

Benedictine monk and priest Fr. Laurence Freeman has featured many times in my blog.
I have come to value his wisdom and insight over the years.

He is Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation, (WCCM,) a global network of Christian meditation groups that practice the way of Christian meditation.

World Community for Christian Meditation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dom Laurence is in Australia to lead the Australian National Retreat for the World Community for Christian Meditation.

This is a truly wonderful audio podcast interview from Australian ABC.

He has some great points to say about modern liturgy and meditation, dialogue with other religions and points out how our Christian identity is deepened, clarified and challenged by this dialogue combined with contemplative practice drawn from our own Catholic/Christian tradition and disciplines.

He also is candid about the need for change in the institutional church.

I like what he says about the way contemplative experience undermines all power structures and if we want to get back to the original vision of Jesus then meditation is a tool to do that.

His work in the world is truly inspiring and enlightening.

His choice of final song by Mahalia Jackson is also heart warming !!

Also from WCCM here is the link to four free audio talks from the late Benedictine monk John Main who gave regular weekly talks to meditation groups meeting at his monastery.

Each talk is a direct preparation for meditation as well as a strikingly insightful reflection on an aspect of the inner pilgrimage. They communicate not only ideas but the authentic silence itself. So, the listener is led by words into silence.

Image source

The titles of the four talks are Surface and Depth, God Incarnate, The Art of Unlearning and The Unreality of Fear.

(I found them easy to listen to, but the website says that they are presently being re-edited and will be issued in a new enhanced edition later this year, to mark the 20th anniversary of the formation of the World Community he inspired.)

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“History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe in miracles....”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ―

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

and five more......

On his inspiration: 'The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis”

On which animal he'd prefer to be: "I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks."

On fame: "The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The prizes can’t help you at all.”

On becoming a poet: "My quest for precision and definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of a landscape and a language that I was born with. If you like, I began as a poet when my roots were crossed with my reading."

On authority "At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. "

Easter Hope All Year Round

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
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Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in the imagination...[Celts] excelled at expressing their faith in symbols, metaphors and images, both visual and poetic.
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Carlo Caretto's Love Letter to His Church

How much I much criticise you my church and yet how much I love you !

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe you more than I owe anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in the world have I seen anything more obscurantist, more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

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Did the Woman Say ?

Great Quotes

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

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There are things you can’t reach. But
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“And

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"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

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"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

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- C.S. Lewis

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People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help?

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Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government only when it deserves it.
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During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
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We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice: - we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

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Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
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Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.
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If you want to build a ship don't herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
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For what are we, without hope in our hearts, that someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters?"
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Dag Hammarskjold

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One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?
I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

~ Khalil Gibran

Blue Eyed Ennis

Great Free Audio Resources From Benedictine Fr.Laurence Freeman

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