Mindful Living John Main wrote a simple prayer which is recited before the start of meditation and which reads as follows: “Heavenly Father, Open Our Hearts to the silent Presence of the Spirit of your Son. Lead us into that mysterious Silence where Your Love is revealed to all who call.” Last month we began…
Mindful Living While Thomas Merton may have been the first in our time to open up to a wider audience the ancient tradition of Christian meditation, it was John Main who recovered and simplified the practice for ordinary women and men. Prior to that it was to be found mainly in contemplative monasteries. The practice…
Mindful Living One of the hidden challenges of modern life has to do with the exercise of free will. So many of our attitudes to life and how we habitually live it remain hidden in plain sight. Many people remain blissfully unaware of the extent to which their worldview and their choices in life…
Mindful Living Exceptional life events stop us in our tracks and can force us to see the world very differently. That truth takes on a very practical meaning in the economic and social lockdown caused by the coronavirus, Covid-19. In extraordinary times, our everyday, routine, habitual worldview, our underlying, often unquestioned, way of seeing…
Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman who had a deep sense of her spiritual nature, once wrote: ‘Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others.’ We all experience suffering at some stage in our lives. Yet, meditation helps…
Mindful Living Children take to meditation very easily – they have a natural disposition for silence because they have an infinite openness to life without expectation. Adults can quickly tire of meditation because they feel they are getting nowhere. It seems – on the surface of things – that nothing is happening and that can…
Mindful Living My parents watched the Late Late Show every Friday night and that show vied with the Riordans for top place in everyday conversation the following week. Both shows explored in their own way a changing Irish society. The whole culture of Irish society has changed in the intervening years, including the authority…
Mindful Living Since Advent began, we have been waiting for Christmas. For most children, since they returned to school after Halloween, they have been inundated with messages about Christmas. Between targeted ads on television and social media and huge displays on the streets and in the shops, the overriding message has been about wanting more.…
Mindful Living The contemplative traditions assert that the language for expressing and exploring the spiritual quest is silence. As St John of the Cross expressed it, ‘Silence is God’s first language’. Meditation does not create the silence – it is already there, within the person but meditation uncovers and reveals it.” Silence is the language…
Mindful Living We all need a healthy balance between being and doing in our lives. The pace of modern life draws us into cycles of excessive doing and when that happens, the quality of our doing suffers. Of course, if we allow the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction nothing get’s…