The mission of the Contemplative Group is to support the spiritual formation of parish members and others who are called to contemplative practice and life; and to do this within the context of parish life and the biblical, theological and sacramental tradition of the church.
Monday evenings from 7:00 to 8:00 pm at St. Michael's.
The prayer time includes two 20-minute sitting (meditation) periods with walking meditation in between, and one of the Daily Offices out of the Book of Common Prayer.
In the type of contemplative prayer we work with in our Contemplative Group, our intention is twofold: to open ourselves to God's presence, and to observe our mind during the silence.
Regarding opening to God, the 19th C Russian monk Theophan the Recluse said: With the mind firmly established in the heart, stand before the Lord with awe, reverence, and devotion. What Theophan describes so simply and clearly is the practice of loving worship, where we offer ourselves in empty stillness to the Holy One who is even closer to us than we are to ourselves.
At the same time, we all experience mental and emotional activity during silent prayer. While sometimes it is useful to ignore all this and concentrate instead solely on opening the heart to God, at other times it is more helpful to notice the content of involuntary thought: what we usually call "distractions." If we watch our mind over time, we notice and come to know more intimately the specific ways in which we create barriers to God: through fear, control, imagination, attachment, worry, and trying to understand. By then offering to God our self-awareness - that is, who we are in this very moment - we cooperate with the Spirit in dismantling our obstacles to the work of grace in our lives.
There are times when the way we need to pray is by simply opening the heart in worship; there are times when we need to watch our mind and come to deeper self-awareness. We learn to go back and forth as needed. We also learn to trust God, who is constantly at work in our time of prayer, and who intends to give us the grace of divine healing and transformation.
For more information and guidance on the practice of contemplative prayer, see Fr. Brian Taylor’s book, Becoming Christ: Transformation through Contemplation. Excerpts from this book are found on this website under Articles.
You can also listen to a talk that Fr. Brian gave on Contemplative Prayer.
End Document — St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church