Longing for A Fall Retreat I am. To be with other like hearted folks who are bonded by our trust and faith in the prayer we share: Centering Prayer. Through it we transform the longing to belonging, through a created solidarity. We are truly blessed by all of you. The Pittsburgh Contemplative Outreach Service Team is planning for a Fall get-together. It will be “in-person” and “remote” participation. Currently we are honing our technology skills so we may provide a unified and inclusive experience for all participants. Look for more details in the September e-Newsletter. I am grateful to those who have shared their favorite memories of past Contemplative Outreach events, and we hope to create more.  

     Hardly much time for longing?  This Summer has been busy, with outdoor concerts, picnics, new movie releases, and managing extreme weather conditions. I am grateful for you, and my Centering Prayer Group, for the focus you provide to my life.  Having spent a little time this week reflecting on our fourth common virtue, solidarity, the words longing and belonging have been playing a delightful contention within my mind. Longing is common to the human heart and in belonging to this organic community of Contemplative Outreach, I find, longing is sated. This belonging is part of what Jesus conveyed at the Last Supper. When I find myself sharing a meal or hospitality with others, I think of that supper. The solidarity they shared through Jesus’ ministry, made the words “do this in memory of me” imperative.  And so too does the “Vision” of Contemplative Outreach.

     Our Chapter Summer of private prayer and reflections on silence, solitude, service and solidarity begs the opportunity for our continued purpose of sharing Centering Prayer. May the Holy Spirit bless our private yet connected discernment towards ways to do this. It is hoped that our next planned event this Fall will provide time to share our prayers and reflections and celebrate the movement of our communitarian purpose. I continue to pray for a model event that will attract young adults and adolescents to learn Centering Prayer. Once learned, it is such a simple way to turn towards God! It lends much needed rest and a peace like no other. The earlier in life to learn our Contemplative Outreach Model of teaching the better.

     Our continued commitment to the daily practice of Centering Prayer  provides the primary expression of belonging. This belonging illuminates our lives and the lives of others with divinely inspired purpose and actions. We consent to our basic core of goodness, to being part of the human family, to use our gifts and talents for our good and the good of others, and we consent to transformation and diminishment.  Our relationship with the living Christ is the bond uniting us together in mutual love (Theological Principle #8). Through the continuing practice of Centering Prayer, we experience deepening commitment to the needs and rights of each member of the human family and an increasing respect for the interdependence of all creation (Theological Principle #12). This note is inspired by an essay by (click) Gail Fitzpatrick and the Theological Principles of Contemplative Outreach.   

COP Summer Book Club:  Monday Evening ZOOM discussions of Cynthia Bourgeault’s, 2001s ninety-eight page gem, Mystical Hope will conclude by the end of this month. The book can be purchased through Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. Should you not purchase the book, know that you will enjoy listening as others read.

We meet from 7:00-8 or 8:30 (as needed). Please email me at victoriae4copcenteringprayer@gmail.com .  I will send you the ZOOM Invite the Sunday before each  meeting.  

 
  The Gift of Life  -  Death & Dying , Life & Living     Thomas Keating with Carl Arico 
                                        Facilitated by Mary Broglie and Ruth Hofmann 
      
The Gift of Life: Death & Dying, Life & Living offers a vision of hope and a view of reality that counter the cultural norms that view death as a tragedy, or the end of living, or an entry into harsh judgment and retribution.  Fr. Keating focuses on the transformative process of death and dying as part of, rather than the end of, life’s journey.          The dying process is the culmination or the peak of the whole development of the         spiritual journey in which the total surrender into God involves the gift of life itself as we know it.

Centering Prayer, when it reaches the full consent to our nothingness, is the perfect preparation for death, because it is death - death of the false self and even the True Self has been transcended. 

          The evenings will include:

          Centering Prayer-  20 minutes 
          1 Video Segment -   Segments are 15 - 20 minutes long 
          Group Reflection and Sharing 

          Dates of the Program:  Monday's on the following dates from 7:00PM - 8:30PM 

          September 18 
          October 2 & 23
          November 6
          December 4
          January 8
          February 5
          March 4
          April 8    

Registration is required  -  Please email Mary -   mjbroglie@gmail.com  to register or to ask questions about the program

This video provides an introduction to the series: