Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life

Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life

September – December 2024

Course Description:

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. (Ezekiel 36:26)

“Contemplative life begins when we take the first step into the silence of our heart. It’s a pilgrimage—a journey that takes us first to the inner reaches of who we really are, and from there, into the life we were meant to live.” (Julie Saad, Contemplative Life: Discovering Our Path Into the Heart of God)

This four-month long online course is experiential, guiding participants to deepen their experience of the abiding presence of God by cultivating their contemplative capacities. Participants will learn and integrate contemplative spiritual practices into daily life within a community of seekers through monthly meetings, a weekly online prayer chapel, personal practices, and monthly Holy Listening Circles (group spiritual direction). Contemplative practices are the doorway into the gift of contemplative prayer where the journey that begins in the silence of our hearts leads us into the heart of God. As we cultivate contemplative practices in ordinary daily life, we begin to experience oneness with God and all creation.

The design of Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life:

Learning, cultivating and integrating into daily life the contemplative practices of

Centering Prayer – a silent Christian contemplative (meditation) practice.
Logging – a form of expressive writing designed to help you understand and deal with thoughts, memories, worries, commentaries, and afflictive emotions and the resulting behaviors.
Spiritual Reading – using a spiritual book, reading for formation rather than information, listening for how God is speaking to you in the passage.
The Active Prayer – a prayer phrase or sentence that you create or take from Scripture or another meaningful reading and repeat throughout your day.
Lectio Divina – praying with Scripture, allowing the meaning of the text and the experience of God to grow deeper.
The Welcoming Prayer – welcoming God into whatever you are experiencing in daily life—thoughts, emotions, body sensation, or commentaries.
Resting in God and Sabbath-keeping – resting is the state of interior silence that you experience in daily life through contemplative prayer. Sabbath-keeping awakens you to this inner state.
Holy Listening – Cultivating receptivity to attune to your inner wisdom, to God, and to the movement of the Divine in others.

Objectives:

To establish a daily practice of Centering Prayer
To integrate contemplative spiritual practices into daily life
To cultivate contemplative attitudes and disposition
To foster contemplative listening that comes from a listening heart rather than from the ego or mind

Location: ONLINE

With: Julie Saad is a spiritual director, author, teacher, and retreat leader. Since 1994, she has been a student of Thomas Keating (1923-2018), a Trappist monk who was a founding member and spiritual guide for Contemplative Outreach. Julie has served Contemplative Outreach as coordinator of the Denver Chapter, facilitator of spiritual journey courses and retreats, member of the Governing Board, and coordinator of the Contemplative Living Experience Program. She has been practicing and teaching Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices for over 25 years. She recently published the book Contemplative Life: Discovering Our Path into the Heart of God, a guidebook to spiritual formation in the Christian contemplative tradition, based on the teaching of Thomas Keating.

Schedule:

Contemplative Living I consists of four monthly synchronous teachings and practices with individual study and devotion between the monthly sessions:

6 hour monthly synchronous sessions
2 hour monthly Holy Listening Circles (Group Spiritual Direction)
1 hour weekly virtual prayer chapel (selected videos of Thomas Keating’s teaching will be assigned to view before each session for brief sharing/discussion)

The synchronous monthly session meets from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time on the following Saturdays: Sep 7, Oct 5, Nov 9, and Dec. 7, 2024. Holy Listening Circles and Virtual Prayer Chapel will be on Mondays at 7:00 PM ET.

Program Fee: $700. Early bird discount of $100 until July 31, 2024.

Additional Information:

Required Reading

Contemplative Life: Discovering Our Path into the Heart of God by Julie Saad

Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird