Now is the Meaning - 2006

The God in the Now experiences, that invite groups of up to 15 participants to enter into the experience of the heart of being brother and sister in our earth community, are presently being facilitated in Sydney, Hobart, Cork and Goa. In each of these locations, brothers and those associated with living the Edmund Rice charism today, continue with their ordinary work, community and family life while finding time to come together to explore various spiritual practices focused around the art of centering prayer and living in the present.

Aloyius Pieres writes that we often strain to see God on the horizon of our vision so that we can hear God’s gentle voice. Yet the present moment we are now enjoying, reveals the future if we see the Word shining through it and we listen carefully to the gentle murmurings of the voiceless ones around us.

There are three ways of entering this moment of our lives more deeply:

1.     Through centering prayer or formless contemplation where one enters a quiet space and rests in the quiet of the present moment, letting go of all ‘thoughts’. This ultimately takes one into the interconnection with all sentient beings and especially to those who struggle to lead a life of dignity because they are excluded or marginalised by the structures of the prevailing system.

2.     Then there is anamnesis by which one enters into the Scripture story via the imagination or perhaps through the ritual experience of Eucharist. A past event is entered into through use of the imagination; this gives a foretaste of the future where God’s kindgdom will be a reality, a community of ‘subjects not a collection of objects.’.

3.     The spirituality of activism - I am present to this moment and connect directly with the victims of robbery and violence. This moment offers me the eternal moment in exchange for selfless service in the now (Lk 10: 30 -37). Jesus is visible and heard in the cry of the poor and the enchantment of the ‘little ones’ (Edmund Rice). The spirituality of the activist is to be like the Good Samaritan who heard the Word in the one he saw on the road side unlike the Scribes who saw the same person but did not hear the Word; they could not listen for God in moments of their lives.

If you wish to explore your emerging sense of being spiritual in the light of living more consciously in the present reality of the NOW, please contact the Congregation Renewal Team

Contact us at our site: www.edmundrice.org/crt

Peter Harney (on behalf of the Congregation Renewal Team)