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Spirituality

Theme for Spiritual Reflections during the 2006-2010 AMASC Mandate
2009 Fight Poverty in relationships
2008 Poverty in Spirituality
2007 Listen to your heart...Fight Poverty...Action!

Dear friends,We hold the people of Haiti in our prayer of silence this week:

News of the terrible devastation in Haiti has saddened and touched us all deeply. The World Community has a special link with the people of Haiti through Gene Bebeau USA National Coordinator and other US meditators who have sponsored serveral visits there to assist the community and introducted meditation.  In Dec 2008 Fr Laurence and a group of WCCM meditators had a pilgrimage there and with the Coordinator Dr Inobert Pierre introduced meditation to different groups. The most recent visit was in Dec just before the present disaster hit this suffering country.  Michel Legault from Canada accompanied the US group on the visit and in the current newsletter he shares the story of their visit. See http://www.wccm.org

pax
Penny


“The deepest level of communication is not communication. It is communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words; and it is beyond speech; and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear (sisters), we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are” (Thomas Merton) "Nothing is more important for people of our time than to recover the capacity for silence. Silence is the medium of unity.
http://www.wccm.org/splash.asp?pgestyle=default


"My Christmas wish to you all is so beautifully expressed by another that I would like to share it with you. Pax Penny Sturrock (AMASC Director-Spirituality)

"Christmas is a feast of meaning"

Much of it is reflected in our cultural forms of celebrating at this time of year - the exchanging of gift that reminds us that human relationships are based on giving not bargaining or exploiting, the gathering of family and friends reminding us that we are not alone in the solitude of the human journey, the eating and drinking that reminds us that celebration is natural and necessary for us.
But all these depend on the personal experience of what Christmas is most essentially about - the radical poverty and simplicity, the intoxicating proximity to God that our total dependence on being reveals. The closer we come to this radical simplicity – which our meditation keeps us moving into – the more we have to sing about. The fuller the song, the richer the silence.Let us hold each other in our hearts as a community in this joyful season.
May our sense of this new creation restore us to the love of the earth needed if we are to repair the damage we have inflicted on it. May our life as community increase the energy of peace that our divided world is striving for as well as the justice on which peace depends – the very wisdom that the newborn Jesus embodies.”
Laurence Freeman OSB – Christmas 2009

 


Advent Reflection 2009

Week 4 - Mary greets Elizabeh

Luke's account of Mary's journey "with haste" to her cousin Elizabeth invites us to understand Mary as a person. "Like everything that leads to fulfilment in Jesus, our understanding must itself be personal; that is, we must understand the gospel, the Word of God, as a personal communication opening up and exploring the depts of our own intimate personhood.
Read more...

Week 3 - The Spirit and Fire
"Enoughness" is an interesting idea in the season of Advent when we are 'filled with expectation' - for the coming of the 'one who is more powerful'. But the message of John is just that - share our excesses, collect only what isprescribed an be satisfied with our lot, our gift, theuniqueness of our being. THis is the time where we can hone and make whole the uniqueness of our special gifts and talents, and in taking time to do this we are giving time to being the person we are called to be and being that person fully.

Read more...

Week 2 - Prepare a Way
The call in this week’s Gospel is for emptiness – “the wilderness” where, like John, we allow the Word a space to point beyond ourselves to Jesus. Such emptiness does not just happen. It is the end result of a thousand letting- goes. A letting go is an unlearning and we may see this time of Advent as an opportunity to learn to unlearn complexity and simplify our prayer, and ourselves.  Read more...


Week 1 2009 - The Coming of the Son of Man
The call in the season of Christmas is to full wakefulness, full attention. We must not miss the signs in our physical world, especially as we unite in the Climate Change debate but more importantly we must not miss the invitation to keep watch over our own hearts, mindful of the words of Concepcion Camacho RSCJ “ There can be no true contemplation without silence and interior solitude which opens us to the Lord and at the same time makes us attentive to our brothers (and sisters)” Read more...

Encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI
to the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women, Religious, the Lay faithful and all people of good will on integral human development in charity and truth.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_benxvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html


Walk the Labyrinth - Click here


Saint Madeleine Sophie has gone back to her country of birth!

* St Madeleine-Sophie is now opposite 33 Boulevard des Invalides where she lived, and where she died in 1865
* She was welcomed by the diocese of Paris, which introduced the cause of her beatification
* She is in the church dedicated to St Francis Xavier, Jesuit, patron of the missions, which were so dear to her.
* Its parishioners have already honoured Madeleine Sophie: there was a special Triduum on the occasion of her canonisation in 1925, and a solemn Mass was celebrated here at the time of our bicentenary in 2000.
* Until 1907, the Mother House of the Society was situated on land within its parish.

You are also invited to visit the RSCJ's website where there is more information and details on the transfer of the Reliquary from Brussels to Paris
http://www.rscjinternational.org/en/alerts-notshown-48/2527-june-19th-2009.html

Sacred Heart Chapel, on your right as you go into St Francis Xavier's church,
where Madeleine Sophie's reliquary will be installed.

 


2009 © Australia Sacré-Coeur Association