Site Updated April 6, 2007
A Message from the Founding Abbot: Easter Peace and Blessing!
You have made contact with a spiritual community dedicated to the celebration of the Living Christ and focusing on the cultivation of contemplative prayer and contemplation in action. We are not Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, American Catholic or Reformed Catholic, just "Catholic." What we seek is a community of spiritual friends who aspire to living their spiritual lives in peace, harmony and simplicity without the complexities of large financial requirements or burdens, hierarchical governance, "brick-and-mortar" churches requiring upkeep and management, complex dogmatic formulations, pontifications or legislations. The Church is made up of those who choose to find the Light of Christ in the day-to-day and in the face of the other; a Body whose energies are spent intentionally on generosity of spirit, amity, compassionate living, and the knowledge of original blessing.
As a community, we seek to cultivate the wholesome ecumenical dialogue and gracious hospitality that should ever be the hallmark of the works of those inspired by the teachings of Christ. In keeping with this intention, we pursue thoughtful and scholarly comparative study of the World's spiritual practices, with a keen phenomenological eye, so as to explore the ways in which practical mysticism can be quickened in the context of post-modern living.
In order to excite our conversations in the Spirit, we bring our prayerful regard to the writings of the early Church Fathers, today's spiritual leaders, theological essays, poetry and the contemporary and more recent work of prayerful souls such as Fr. Thomas Merton, Dom Aelred Graham, Bede Griffiths, Fr. Thomas Keating, and many others who advance a wholesome ecumenism while firmly adhering to the Gospel of Love, and inspiring us to undertake a passionate continuation of the search that they initiated.
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In embracing true dialogue, we come together to listen for the Holy Spirit among us in the Spirit of Saint Benedict and the modified Rule of the "White Robed Monks of Saint Benedict", calling us to the tasks of this post-modern and deeply troubled and fractionated age. It is good and, indeed, essential, that we confront the issues and challenges and needs of this age, and not allow the Church to ossify and become detached from the real world around us. Our spirituality must be fully engaged as the Word is alive, organic, and ever speaking to us of the mysteries that express the mystical subplot beneath the events that occur.
At the same time, we must be attentive stewards of the voices of history that afford perspective and guidance as much relevant today as then. We need to be wary of relativism and absolutism both, and come to terms with the deceptions of thought that lead us astray and cause our suffering. Dialogue YES, and truly open and unfettered theological discussion ... ABSOLUTELY! But, this must be fully and prayerfully informed by a study of that which grounds us in the original intentions of the ancient Church. The breath of life flowing through the Church comes not from men but from the Holy Spirit.
Regarding prayer and contemplation, our goal is the recovery within us all of the Living Christ; the nature of the essential Self obscured by mental constructs, habits of thinking and egoistic motivation. Deep prayer and meditation is the path we follow dedicated to spiritual liberation and service.
Our mission is to bring into practice a set of disciplines aimed at causing the flow of the Divine Light, the Light of Christ, in a world desperately yearning for it. As Christians, we are each obliged to trudge the path with dedication and courage, and accept the real challenges that we will surely confront along the way.
The Abbot and Founding Convener is a permanent extern of the White Robed Monks of Saint Benedict. The community embraces the practice of Zen sitting as a special discipline of prayer and contemplation.
If you are interested in more information about the Fellowship and its ministry please send us an e-mail. God bless you on your journey in the Spirit.
Copyright 2005
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