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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Summary: Week Seven

Mind, Body, Heart

February 16 - February 22, 2020

Wisdom is not the result of mental effort. It cannot be gained through intellectual study. Even life experiences do not make us wise if we don’t process them humbly and consciously. (Sunday)

Wisdom is a way of knowing that goes beyond one’s mind, one’s rational understanding, and embraces the whole of a person: mind, heart, and body. These three centers must all be working, and working in harmony, as the first prerequisite to the Wisdom way of knowing. —Cynthia Bourgeault (Monday)

If we over-use the intellectual center, then our work lies in bringing the emotional and moving centers fully online and integrating them. —Cynthia Bourgeault (Tuesday)

Those who can keep all three spaces open at the same time will know The Presence that connects everything to everything. (Wednesday)

While we see anger and violence in the streets of our country, the real battlefield is inside our bodies. If we are to survive as a country it is inside our bodies where this conflict will need to be resolved. —Resmaa Menakem (Thursday)

Love is luring us forward, because love is what we already are at our core, and we are naturally drawn to the fullness of our own being. (Friday)

Practice: Prayer of the Heart

For those of us who were taught that prayer is primarily saying the “right” words in the “right” way, it can be difficult to open up our whole selves to God, but author and spiritual director Teresa A. Blythe offers a wonderful practice that integrates mind, body, and heart.

Deep within each of us is a prayer phrase longing to be expressed, what some have named the Prayer of the Heart. It consists of two simple phrases—one said on inhalation and one said on exhalation. Early Christians used to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” in this fashion. That was their deep longing, for Jesus to return and be among them in physical reality. We will spend time in this exercise finding those prayers that are as close to us as our very breath. The beauty of this prayer is the way it stays with us all day, all week, or even for a lifetime if we allow it.

The Exercise

Teresa A. Blythe, 50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many Traditions and Times (Abingdon Press: 2006), 36-38.

Image credit: Saint Serapius (detail), Francisco de Zurbarán, 1628, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

For Further Study:

The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, ed. Timothy Ware (Faber and Faber: 1997, ©1966)

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart (Jossey-Bass: 2003)

Introductory Wisdom School with Cynthia Bourgeault (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2019), online course

James Finley, Turning to the Mystics (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2020), podcast

Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, 20th anniversary ed. (Bloomsbury: 2006)

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Central Recovery Press: 2017)

Richard Rohr, Another Name for Every Thing, season 3 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2020), podcast

Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass: 2013)

Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing: 2017)

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News from the CAC

Study the Wisdom Path with Cynthia Bourgeault

For those eager to further their inner work, our 14-week online course Introductory Wisdom School with Cynthia Bourgeault, March 4–June 9, will help you develop the skills, knowledge, and actions for your own transformation. Registration closes February 26, 2020.

Just This from Richard Rohr

Just This is a collection of brief, evocative meditations and practices that invite us to cultivate the gift of waking up to the beauty of reality in all its glorious ordinariness. Richard Rohr helps us discover that the contemplative mind does not tell us what to see; it teaches us how to see what we behold.

CONSPIRE 2020

Our 7-year CONSPIRE conference series explores Richard Rohr’s seven themes of the Alternative Orthodoxy. For the final, capstone experience watch all five of our core faculty—Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, Barbara Holmes, Brian McLaren, and Richard Rohr—teaching together for the first time. Join us online or in person in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 15–17 for CONSPIRE 2020.

Action & Contemplation

2020 Daily Meditations Theme

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. —Micah 6:8

Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. If we pray but don’t act justly, our faith won’t bear fruit. And without contemplation, activists burn out and even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good. In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital.

In this year’s Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us learn the dance of action and contemplation. Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Click the video to learn more about the theme and to find reflections you may have missed.

Click here to learn about contemplative prayer and other forms of meditation. For frequently asked questions—such as what versions of the Bible Father Richard recommends or how to ensure you receive every meditation—please see our email FAQ. Visit cac.org to explore other ways to connect with the Center for Action and Contemplation.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: A Wisdom way of knowing . . . requires the whole of one’s being and is ultimately attained only through the yielding of one’s whole being into the intimacy of knowing and being known. . . . It doesn’t happen apart from complete vulnerability and self-giving. But the divine Lover is absolutely real, and for those willing to bear the wounds of intimacy, the knowledge of that underlying coherence—“in which all things hold together”—is both possible and inevitable. —Cynthia Bourgeault