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Transforming Faith

Lenten Series

St. Jude’s

March 10, 2019

Joy Andrews Hayter

Transforming Faith series, St. Jude the Apostle Church

Joy Andrews Hayter, 10 March 2019 2

“Most of us were taught that God would love

us if and when we change. In fact, God loves

you so that you can change. What empowers

change, what makes you desirous of change is

the experience of love. It is that inherent

experience of love that becomes the engine of

change.” ― Richard Rohr



Was it sudden, or gradual? What was it like?

Perhaps you might have felt that it was:

Beyond rational intellect, non-linear

Sense of Presence, Love



…The most profound fruit of the

transformative process is that the

individual…is transformed into one “through

whose life Greater Life resounds”.

--Karlfried Gras von Durkheim*

*Author of spiritual classic: The Way of Transformation (1971) Heart nebula



Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:30-31

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. -John 17:20-23

"The physical universe is not a collection of fixed objects but a luminous web of interconnectedness. Space is not an empty container for atoms to bounce around like billiard balls in the air; rather, space is replete with overlapping fields of energy. Nature thrives on local networks of interlocking energy fields.“ -Ilia Delio (Franciscan Sister, Theology professor)

Mystics and scientists see the oneness. It is often called Love. Teilhard de Chardin

Cynthia Bourgeault

Ilia Delio

Beatrice Bruteau

Thomas Merton

Thomas Keating

Richard Rohr





Storm Reid, in A Wrinkle in Time

Flat earth (heaven, hell)

Duality (me/you, here/there)

Church focus: doctrinal differences, hierarchy

God displeased with us

Rewards for our good deeds We build right to go to Heaven

Self outside of God

Unworthy of God’s love

Relational Field

Non-duality (no separation)

Spiritual journey, contemplative dimension of Gospel

Basic core of goodness

Grace inspires our good actions

Self in God, God everywhere

Christ unites us with God in Love

8 Transforming Faith series, St. Jude the Apostle Church

Joy Andrews Hayter, 10 March 2019

“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INDIVIDUAL SALVATION” -Katharine Jefferts Schori

Doomed Star

Eta Carinae

In a sense, asking people that haven’t transformed their consciousness and begun to put the mind in the heart to live the Gospel path, is as insane as picking up a stone and asking it to fly to the sea. We can’t yet. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I think it’s our cumulative covered-up frustration of the fact that we, at 2,000 years into the Christian journal, are clueless about how to put on the mind of Christ. That it’s easier to go to church and talk about it, sing beautiful hymns, and engage in worthy projects [these are all important! but…] that don’t confront the eye of the needle that will take you through to the unity, which lies so close on the other side.



Powerlessness before transformation:

Times of crisis, humbling

Surrender

Small self not working

Security, esteem, power and control

“Whoever wants to be my disciple

must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” -Mark 8:34-35



Eric Law: Kaleidoscope

What events, actions bring

you to the foot of the cross?

Humility, awe, wonder,

surrender to Love

Relating with more of your

being than just your head

The arts

Nature

Service

Contemplative practices



Mary Souza

“Consent on the go”

Movement One: Focus, feel and sink into what you are experiencing this moment in your body.

Movement Two: “WELCOME” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.

Movement Three: Let go by repeating the following sentence: “I let go of the desire for security, affection, control, and embrace this moment as it is.”

“To welcome and to let go is one of the most radically loving, faith-filled gestures we can make in each moment of each day. It is an open-hearted embrace of all that is in ourselves and in the world.” -Mary Mrozowski



Take time to slow down

Mad rush driven by “False self” Sense of separation

“Never enough” mentality

Security, money

Praise, accomplishment

Power, control

Addictions

“The real problem with any constrictive motion (taking, defending, hoarding, clinging) is that it makes us spiritually blind, unable to see the dance of divine generosity that is always flowing toward us.” -Cynthia Bourgeault



Whatever form helps you detach from

thinking long enough to find/trust the other

intelligence deep inside you. -C Bourgeault

Balance of 3 centers: Moving, emotional, intellectual

Lectio Divina

Active prayer sentence

(Jesus prayer, mantra)

Chanting

Centering prayer

Body Prayer

Welcoming prayer



Knowing with more of you: Not just intellect, but body, and Heart

Non-dual: Sees sense of unity, harmony, connection, patterns

Gift of the spirit

Physical brain changes

Become a transmitter of love!

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come! - 2 Corinthians 5:17



It is only with the heart that

one can see rightly; what is

essential is invisible to the eye.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Present with sensations

Body Prayer

Prelude:

horizontal and vertical

Hands together

Bow

Receiving

Taking in

Sharing

Grounding



Action: Hold your ground Not out of anger or self-righteousness

Genuine engagement

Not tied to outcome: you may never see the fruits

Prayer, in a relational field, affects profoundly Pray in solidarity with those in action

Contemplation: wait for true calling to act

I am absolutely certain that anyone in any religion or no religion who sincerely commits to the transformative process is changing the world more than they could by any other activity. In due time, they will have particular activities recommended to them by the Spirit as part of their vocation, but the most important work is to work on ourselves. -Thomas Keating



What are you already doing?

Do you love it? Do it with presence

If it drains you, can you let it go? What might that feel like?

Even the smallest actions, done with genuine

engagement, affect the world profoundly



How about in this present moment?

Not memories of the past or thoughts / plans for the future

Ways I would rather God show love

What I would like to become so God will love me more

So what’s the point of living? As far as I can see, it’s to give God the chance to take over our very complicated human lives and situations completely. Whatever we do is in the service of that project. We don’t have to think about it if we are in the present moment. It is happening.” -Thomas Keating



Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability— and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.



Multi-

centered

awareness:

Sensations

Emotions

Images

Thoughts

Richard Rohr emails

Cynthia Bourgeault books, e.g. Wisdom Way of Knowing, Centering Prayer & Inner Awakening

Contemplative Outreach newsletter

Online courses: Center for Action & Contemplation, Spirituality & Practice Centering Prayer as Practice and Process Online class

3/11-4/18. Spirituality & Practice

Online meditation chapel Vince Pizzuto Lenten talk: Christian mysticism. The

Meditation Chapel, Saturday 4/6 11-12:30

Local retreats: El Retiro, Villa Maria, Mercy Center Burlingame, San Damiano, New Camaldoli Mercy Center upcoming retreats: Centering Prayer

May 19-25, Wisdom School August 14-18



the ultimate reality is love › wp-content › uploads › 2019 › 03 ›...

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