Sunday, Jan. 6,2008

Call to Silence and Opening Meditation

Opening Music – Preghiera (Ave Verum) from “Mozartiana” Suite,
Tchaikovsky/Mozart. (Meditation – Classical Relaxation Vol. 4, track 3, Delta Music,
1991)

Readings from Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience (HarperSanFrancisco: 2003)

“The inner self is precisely that self which cannot be tricked or manipulated by anyone... S/He is like a very
shy wild animal that never appears at all whenever an alien presence is at hand, and comes out only when all is perfectly peaceful, in silence, when s/he is untroubled and alone. S/He cannot be lured by anyone or anything, because s/he responds to no lure except that of the divine freedom.”

Music and Meditation – “Open Air”, (Peaceful Playground, Track 4,Incentive Media, 1999)

“There is no special planned technique for discovering and awakening one’s inner self, because the inner self is, first of all, a spontaneity that is nothing if not free. Therefore there is no use in trying to start a definition of the inner self, and then deducing from its essential properties some appropriate and infallible
means of submitting it to control -- as if the essence could give us some clue to that which is vulnerable in it, something we can lay hold of in order to gain power over it... the inner self is not part of our being, like a motor in a car. It is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most personal and most
existential level. It is like life, and it is life: it our spiritual life when it is most alive. It is the life by which everything else in us lives and moves. It is in and through and beyond everything that we are. If it is awakened, it communicates a new life to the intelligence in which it lives, so that it becomes a living awareness of itself: and this awareness is not so much something that we ourselves have, as something that we are. It is a new and indefinable quality of our living being.”

Music and Meditation – “Berceuse”, (25 All Time Favorite Classics, Track 7, Distribution Madacy)

“The inner self is as secret as God... and it evades every concept that tries to seize hold of it with full possession...It is not reached and coaxed forth from hiding by any process under the sun, including meditation. All that we can do with any spiritual disciple is produce within ourselves something of the
silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart, and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his/her presence.”

Music and Meditation – “The Memory of Trees”, (The Memory of Trees, Track 1, Enya, Warner Records,
1995)

“Nevertheless a certain cultural and spiritual atmosphere favors the secret and spontaneous development of the inner self. The ancient cultural traditions, both of the East and of the West, having a religious and sapiential nature, favored the interior life, indeed transmitted certain common materials in the form of
archetypal symbols, liturgical notes, art, poetry, philosophy, and myth which nourished the inner self from childhood to maturity. In such a cultural setting no one needs to be self-conscious about this interior life, and subjectivity does not run the risk of being deviated into morbidity and excess. Unfortunately such a cultural setting no longer exists in the West or is no longer common property. It is something that has to be laboriously recovered by an educated and enlightened minority.”

Music and Meditation – “A World Within”, (The Magdalene Mystique: Songs From Within, Track 2, Anita
Kruse, Church Publishing, 2006)

A Reading from the Gospel of Mary

This is why I tell you “Be in harmony. . .’ If you are out of balance, take inspiration from manifestations of your true nature. Those who have ears, let them hear.”
After saying this, the Blessed One greeted them all, saying: “Peace be with you-may my Peace arise and be fulfilled within you! Be vigilant, and allow no one to mislead you by saying: ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For it is within you that the Son of Man dwells. Go to him, for those who seek him, find him.”

Call to Conversation

Closing Music “Tales from the Vienna Woods”, (25 All Time Favorite Classics, Track 5,
Distribution Madacy)