Meditation

 ‘Whatever experience comes your way, accept it as a blessing, in the certainty that nothing can happen without God’ Letter attributed to Barnabas, Ch 19 I am a convert. There are of course, many reasons that I became a Catholic, but an important one was the conviction that I would lead a happier life if [...]

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From: The Rule of St Benedict, Chapter 49 ‘The Observance of Lent’ ‘We urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times. This we can do in a fitting manner by refusing to indulge [...]

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Scripture, Part of the Foundation of Joy (part three; part one here; part two here) This is from the Office of Readings of Sunday Week 6 of Ordinary Time. It is from a Commentary on the Diatassaron by St Ephrem the Syrian. It certainly inspires me to keep on reading the bible and makes this [...]

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The Practice of Lectio Divina – a Source of Joy (2)

by David Clayton on February 15, 2011

Scripture, Part of the Foundation of Joy (part two; read part one, here) I am not an expert in this at all, but I thought that my experiences of trying (and often failing) to learn the technique and practice it, might be a starting point for others who wish to make a beginning also. Also [...]

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The Practice of Lectio Divina – a Source of Joy (1)

by David Clayton on February 14, 2011

Scripture, part of the foundation of joy (part one, part two tomorrow) A group of Thomas More College students and myself have just made a trip to the Benedictine community, St Benedict Abbey, which is at Still River, Massachussetts for a mini-retreat. We arrived for sung Vespers in Latin at 6pm and then left after Compline, [...]

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Praying With Visual Imagery

by David Clayton on April 8, 2010

Personal experiences on praying with visual imagery When I first started painting icons I was, of course, interested in knowing as well how they related to prayer. I was referred by others (though not my icon painting teacher) to books that were intended as instruction manuals in visual prayer. I read a couple and perhaps [...]

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