Contemplative at Home

In this meditation we pray with three short verses in Matthew 19.

“Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.” (Matt 19:13-15)

May you have the grace-filled encounter with Jesus.

PS: It’s June! The birdsong is live, outside my window.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here

All music by Pete Hatch.

This meditation gives you the opportunity to take the words of the Lord’s Prayer and slow them right down, ruminate on them, marinate in them, and, perhaps, receive something fresh from them.

A Lectio Divina with the Lord’s Prayer.

We pray with both the NIV translation of Matthew 6:9-13 and the New Zealand Anglican Lord’s Prayer. What a gem.

Blessings as you pray today dear one. Blessings on you.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window”  or join our Facebook group here .

All music by Pete Hatch. 

This is a meditation with Isaiah 43:1-7

When you pass through waters, I will be with you.

And when you pass through rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through fire, you will not be burned.

The flames will not set you ablaze.

As always, I wish you every blessing as you pray with this meditation.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window”  or join our Facebook group here

All music by Pete Hatch. 

I’m still pondering the in-between, transition times of life and today’s Lectio Divina with Isaiah 43:16-21 opens a song of hope and promise in the wilderness. The prophet sings of a God who is moving and living, hovering over the wasteland, drawing and inviting the jackal and the owl and a people captive in Babylon into dance, into relationship, into life.

I wonder what the wasteland, the wilderness, has been for you? Perhaps a diagnosis, a bereavement, a breakup. A place where you may have been stranded once, or many times over. Where trust is betrayed, where comforts are stolen, where your very sense of self is up in the air.

May you sense the possibility of streams in the wasteland as you pray with these words, where the God of the wilderness invites you to dance.

May there be a word or phrase just for you.

Every blessing.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here

For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com.

All music by Pete Hatch.

This meditation introduces Breath Prayer, an approach to contemplative prayer that we’ve not explored on the podcast before.

In breath prayer we take a short phrase, in this case “I wait for the Lord” and hold it gently in our minds with the breath – silently saying “I wait” on the inhale and “for the Lord” on the exhale.

Waiting on God is of course a strong theme throughout the Old and New Testament, expressed particularly in the Psalms (Psalm 27, 37, 39, 40, 130….), and is also a key component in transitional, liminal time which we’ve been exploring here for the past few weeks.

In this meditation you will hear brief readings from Psalm 23:1 and Psalm 145:9.

The text for the closing prayer poem is as follows:

Lord, in your good time,You brought your children out of EgyptAnd in your good time,You delivered them to the promised land

You were with JonahIn the whaleWith ChristIn the wildernessWith PaulIn PrisonAnd you are hereRight NowWith me

May I have the graceTo trust myselfTo trust the processTo grow comfortable with the unknown

And may I have the graceTo be attuned to your presenceTo wait on you, my LordWith loveJoyAnd peace

In the name of ChristAmen

Blessings as you meditate and do let me know how you get on with breath prayer!

WarmlyLissy

(PS: I’m still struggling with sound quality… ugh! And apologies.)

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here

Support the Show: These meditations will always be free, but your contributions both help and encourage. Thank you. Contributions can be made via PayPal @contemplativeathome or on the CashApp £contemplativeathome.

For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com.

All music by Pete Hatch.

In this guided meditation, or imaginative contemplation, you are invited to join Cleopas and Simeon as they walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, encountering a man on the road who has some remarkable things to say.

The meditation is based closely on Luke 24:13-33.

Cleopas is named in the text, and Simeon is held by the Franciscan tradition as the second person in the story.

It might be that Cleopas was Jesus’ uncle, and Simeon may have been his son (a cousin of Jesus). Simeon is thought to have become the second bishop of Jerusalem. Regardless of specific identity, what matters most is that these men had faces, shoes, families, hearts, minds and inclinations. They knew Jesus, they had followed him and had hoped that he would redeem Israel.

May they become real to you in a new way as you encounter them here today.

** If you want help imagining the landscape surrounding Jerusalem, you might quickly peruse these photos.

Grace and blessings as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here

For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com.

I used a number of sounds from freesound.org to make the ambiance for this meditation.

All music by Pete Hatch.

In this guided meditation, we are with Mary at the tomb, in the early hours of the third day. She has come to anoint Jesus’ body, and is greatly distressed by its absence.

We continue our series on the theme of transition, in-between times, liminal spaces.

A blogger named Dinah commented on this blog post: “I’ve always imagined liminal space to be like a trapeze artist who has let go of one swinging bar and is waiting to grab the one that is coming. Without letting go, there is no way to catch what’s coming in. It takes a lot of trust.”

In today’s meditation, based on John 20:11-18, Mary isn’t ready to see that she is in transition. She still clings with all she’s worth to her bar, to Jesus of Nazareth as she’s known him and loved him.

Jesus, however, is ushering her in to a different, but deeper relationship with both himself and the Father. She’s now being offered the same intimacy and access to the Father that Jesus has had himself. “I’m going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” To step into this, she must let go of Jesus as she’s known him.

As you travel to this moment in your imagination, may you encounter the risen Jesus, and may this speak to whatever transition, or liminal space, you find yourself in just now.

Every blessing.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here.

For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com.

All music by Pete Hatch.

Support the Show: These meditations will always be free, but your contributions both help and encourage. Thank you! Contributions can be made via PayPal @contemplativeathome or on the CashApp £contemplativeathome.

Other ways to support: share it with a friend, or write a review on your favourite podcast app. Thanks again!! ????

I invite you to travel in your imagination to the upper room. Judas has just slipped away to the high priests. The hour draws late. These are Jesus’ final moments with his closest friends, change is afoot, and everything is turbulent, insecure. Here we enter today’s meditation.

This is a Holy Week story. We are actually in Eastertide now, which is so very hopeful, yet still a time of change, dis-regulation, transition.

I’ve been thinking about transitions this week, and wanted to share a meditation with you around the question Peter asks Jesus: Where are you going? What is happening? How will we get through this?

And after years of inviting his friends to come and follow me, Jesus replies to Peter by saying “you CAN’T follow me now.”

Disorientation.

Perhaps you are wondering where you’re going, or where Jesus is going, or where Jesus is at all. If so, you are in good company with the disciples post-resurrection.

Bring your questions, open your spirit and sit with this encounter. Notice what Jesus offers and what he doesn’t offer. May you be nourished as you do so.

Peace and Grace

PS: Speaking of transitions, I’m transitioning back to my old/new recording space and I didn’t quite get the acoustics right today. Apologies. Hoping it will sound better next week!

THANKS FOR ASKING! Several of you have enquired about supporting this work financially and I’m so grateful for your kindness. These meditations will always be free, but your contributions both help and encourage. Regular or one-off donations can be made via PayPal @contemplativeathome or on the CashApp £contemplativeathome.

Other ways to support: share it with a friend, or write a review on your favourite podcast app. Thank you!!

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here.

For more information please visit www.contemplativeathome.com.

All music by my own dear bro. More about his tunes here.

Hey Friends —

Another invitation to journey to the room where it happened, in your imagination.

This time we pray with the friend lowered through the roof (Luke 5:17-26) and I will say that I nearly skipped this story, but I’m so glad I didn’t! This approach made it completely new for me in several ways. I hope the same happens for you, and I hope that praying here nourishes you for the road.

Every blessing, dear ones.

** Please note that there won’t be a new episode next week, and the weeks after that may be patchy as well. I hope that you are finding richness in the many Lenten prayer resources out there! I’ll be back with new Contemplative at Home meditations as soon as I’m able. ??

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here.

All music by Pete Hatch. 

In today’s meditation we pray with Luke 5:12-16 (NIV & NRSV mix), which tells of an encounter between Jesus and a man suffering with leprosy.

This man with leprosy

(and Jesus)

lived in a culture,

which observed a law,

which decreed

regarding diseases affecting the skin

(ie leprosy):

Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp. (Leviticus 13:45-46)

A good reminder of how fortunate we are to live in an era with developed understandings of contagion and dignity, even if the face masks and social distancing are all too familiar!

But I share it with you to fill out your imagination as you listen to the text. “A man came along who was covered with leprosy.” Here you can wonder: how long has this man had to live alone, outside of the town, feeling unwell? How long has it been since he’s been able to hug his mum or hold hands with his son? When did he last become ritually clean, so that he could enter the temple? When was he last allowed to wear decent clothing and cut his hair? Which of these is the hardest for him today? Hear him announcing “Unclean, unclean” that people may give him a wide berth and not accidentally touch him. And remember that to touch him would not only render the other person unclean for at least the rest of the day, but expose them to the illness as well.

Let your imagination fill in as many details as possible.

As always, thank you for sharing your meditation space with me and blessings as you pray.

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

Sign up for Lissy’s weekly newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here

All music by Pete Hatch.