Contemplative at Home

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

In this week’s meditation we pick up the Advent theme of preparing the way of Lord.

How might I prepare room for the dawning light?

Isaiah 40:3-5A voice cries out:“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,make straight in the desert a highway for our God.Every valley shall be lifted up,and every mountain and hill be made low;the uneven ground shall become level,and the rough places a plain.Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all people shall see it together,for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

An Advent Meditation. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.

“The desert and the parched land will be glad;    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;    it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” -Isaiah 35:1-2

The weary world is ready for bursts of bloom, indeed.

As we meditation on the expectation, the anticipation of good news, may your hope be restored.

Every blessing, friends.Lissy xxx

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.

PS: Our music is all written and recorded by my dear brother, Pete. Our typical music has become such an integral part of Contemplative at Home that I hardly hear it anymore, but today we are treated to his interpretation of the familiar carol, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. (Though he makes LOADS of music you won’t find it online. You can, however find his portrait doodles here. Hope they make you smile.)

Registration for the virtual Advent retreat closes this Sunday, 29 November. If you’re hoping to join us please sign up as soon as possible!

Dear Friends

In what has been a very unpredictable year, as we now face deeply amended holiday celebrations, GRATITUDE remains an essential spiritual practice.

I know that many of you have celebrated an amended Thanksgiving this year, or are struggling with how to amend your Christmas plans, but there are no amendments required in your spiritual practice!

A friend reminded me today that even from the cross, Jesus was affirming God’s love, providing for his dear ones as he gave Mary his mother to John the beloved disciple. We ponder this scene in John 19:25-17 before meditating on our own gifts of grace.

Every blessing as you pray with this gratitude meditation.

And much love.Lissy

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.

Register for the Contemplative at Home Advent Retreat here! Further details can be found on this page.

Hello Friends,

In this episode we pray with Ephesians 1:17-23.

These verses hold both Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians for a deepening awareness and intimacy with the Divine,

and well as Paul’s reflection on Christ the King, who we celebrate this Sunday.

“God placed all things under his feet” Paul writes (v22), and we know that this Christ, “seated at the right hand” of God, is he who consistently chose against power, success and control whilst he walked this earth.

Every blessing as you pray friends. Stay tuned for a poem from Tina on Sunday, continuing this reflection on God’s upside-down kingdom.

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

ADVENT and CHRISTMAS RETREAT with Lissy on Zoom begins December 1st 2020. More information here. You are warmly welcome.

In Galatians 5 Paul contrasts the instincts of the flesh/ego with the fruit of the Spirit. I might consider where my habits are inclined to the instincts of rage, control, greed, envy and where I inhabit the freedom of peace, kindness, joy, and generosity.

I invite you to come to prayer with your whole self, open for the truth that may land with you today.

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

Find out more about the Contemplative at Home Advent Retreat here

In this episode I invite you to enter one of my favourite gospel stories in your imagination.

John 20:19-23 finds the disciples locked in fear in the upper room, unsure of what has happened, what will happen, or how they are to go on.

There is much anxiety in the air this week, so I invite you to find your way into that room with the disciples,

to ponder who or what it is you have figuratively locked the doors against in your fear,

to experience the presence of Christ

to hear Christ speak PEACE

and to receive the breath of Christ being breathed upon you.

Receive the Holy Spirit.

Your breath mingles with the breath of God.

Peace.

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

Good morning friends,

Concluding our series of meditations on love, we pray today with 1 John 4.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God”

Everyone who loves knows God. This knowing is a deep sense, not knowing with our minds, but understanding intrinsically, having an experience of, God. Everyone who loves, who gives time and energy and heart-engaged presence in service and respect for the other is born of God.

How, and to whom, am I being invited to give myself away in love?

Every blessing dear ones.

Prayers for the US in this election week.

Much love.

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

We continue our meditation on love, this week looking at Paul’s words about what love looks like in action.

Notably, many of these ‘actions’ are interior (be hopeful, patient, perservere in prayer), whilst the external actions are very much born of what is happening in the heart: extend hospitality to strangers, be willing to associate with people of low position, and as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

As you meditate with this passage, may you nurture the space within you which gives birth to thls love.

Every blessing dear friends.

This meditation draws on a selection of verses from Romans 12:10-21, from the NIV, NRSV and TPT.

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.

A passage so familiar that it has nearly become a bit twee: Love is patient, love is kind.

So I invite you to look again, to look wholeheartedly on the familiar verses of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

No matter how glorious, impressive, beautiful, or successful a thing or a person may be, if the spirit of love is absent- it is empty, hollow, worthless, says Paul, (1 Cor 13:1-3) who then goes on to paint a picture for us of the nature of Divine love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I invite you to listen to the passage three times: considering God’s love for you on the first reading, your love for yourself on the second, and your love for another on the third.

This is not a measuring stick, it is an invitation, it is a direction of travel.

May you be patient with yourself, may you be kind to yourself. Divine love is being poured out in and through you at each moment of each day. May you have the grace to receive it more deeply, more humbly, each day.

EVERY BLESSING LOVES xxx

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.

For more information and show notes please visit www.contemplativeathome.com or find us on Facebook.

All music by Pete Hatch. petehatch.com.

I offer you here a meditation with Romans 12:3-9, as we continue looking at the apostle Paul through a contemplative lens.

Paul opens Romans 12 with the invitation to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, and in these verses (Romans 12:3-9) unpacks what that invitation means — to identify your gifts and then to use them! And to use them generously, lovingly, both with humility and confidence, understanding that the diversity of gifts each brings is necessary for the collective whole.

In the metaphor of the human body, with all members playing different and vital roles, I’m subtly reminded not to be frustrated by people whose gifts, perspectives or inclinations are different than mine. When I learned about highly sensitive people (of which I am one!) I was hugely relieved to understand so simply – some of us are highly sensitive, and some of us are not. I needn’t be in despair either about my sensitivity or the insensitivity of others! Similarly, I’ve found an understanding of the enneagram profoundly helpful in coming to accept others who have different inclinations than myself.

“For just as each of us has one physical body with many parts, and these parts do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

In this moment of such bitter division in the US especially, may our hearts thaw as we find acceptance and gratitude for the variety of expressions, perspectives and gifts each person brings, and may we have the grace to confidently and lovingly offer our own gifts to the collective whole.

GRACE AND PEACE

And much love as always, dear friends.Lissy

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.