Comments by SOS Participants
Theresa Nardi
SOS was instrumental in my full return to the Catholic Church. With perfect synchronicity, as is typical of the Holy Spirit in action, I was referred to Father Terry Ryan and SOS by my pastor who confessed to lack knowledge in areas of mysticism. …
The first SOS presentation that I attended (2003) just happened to be the weekend that Father Terry was leaving John 23 XXIII for another assignment. This was very disappointing to me for just a few minutes because meeting Ghislaine Miller was life-changing and obviously she was the one I was supposed to meet. We both felt this immediate connection and spontaneously swooped into the depths of deep mystical conversation, swapping stories as fast as those in a ping-pong match. …
I discovered SOS gatherings to be filled with participants and guests with a wide range of mystical experiences, travels and conversations. Every presentation was so interesting, and silently meditating in the two 20-minute sessions offered every month deepened my union with Christ. Group meditation with sincere devotees with open hearts provides profound support, like learning to float in a salty ocean.
Every speaker added another layer to my spiritual understanding as did the practices of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, and walking a Labyrinth to name a few. Accounts of travels and pilgrimages by fellow members to such places as Ireland, Italy and the Holy Land … were fascinating. This group was overflowing with the presence of the Holy Spirit.
These were my peeps! I felt so comfortable sharing ideas that somehow I discovered the confidence to offer a few presentations of my own and developed into an able speaker. Who knew that was possible?
Michael O’Connell
A hundred years ago (1923). Pierre Teilhard de Chardin while in Ordos (a city of Inner Mongolia, China) wrote:
For me, my God, all joy and all achievement, the very purpose of my being and all my love of life, all depend on this one basic vision of the union between
yourself and the universe. … .innumerable prolongations of your incarnate Being in matter. … The Soul shining forth through all that surrounds us.
Father Terry’s presentations were always about mystics. I think our topics should always be the mystics. Our purpose should be union with God.
Mary Jane Keim
Quoting from Father Thomas Keating’s book The Better Part:
When Martha asked Jesus to instruct Mary to help her with kitchen duties instead of sitting with Jesus and listening to his words, Jesus replies that Mary has chosen “the better part.”
Keating saw Mary as having chosen to “sit and listen,” as we are doing when we meditate or sit in centering prayer, in order to experience the presence of God within us. His view was that it was this process that would bring us to understand the measure of God’s infinite love for us and for all humankind. And further, it would arouse in us such compassion for ourselves and others that it would become the pathway to peace on earth.
It was this insight that was so moving to me … that God’s love is an experience, not a belief or religious tenet. And it is not only an individual experience but also a shared experience.
I realized that one could even view this endeavor as the deepest form of activism. In my mind it is this experience that we practice in our SOS meetings, not only as we meditate but also as we encourage one another through discussion, conversation and food sharing. This is what SOS means to me.
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C.S. Lewis on Silence
We may find a violence in some of the traditional imagery which tends to obscure the changelessness of God, the peace, which nearly all who approach Him have reported—the “still, small voice.” And it is here, I think, that the pre-Christian imagery is least suggestive. Yet even here, there is a danger lest the half conscious picture of some huge thing at rest—a clear, still ocean, a dome of “white radiance”—should smuggle in ideas of inertia or vacuity. The stillness in which the mystics approach Him is intent and alert—at the opposite pole from sleep or reverie. They are becoming like Him. Silences in the physical world occur in empty places: but the ultimate Peace is silent through very density of life. Saying is swallowed up in being. There is no movement because His action (which is Himself) is timeless.
From Miracles by C.S. Lewis
A Prayer for the Terminally Ill
Heavenly Father, Dearest Mother,
We thank you for the beautiful flowers
the wonderful memories
the tasty biscuits
the warm quilts
For the comfort offered by our loved ones who served so generously
For the loving attention provided by all of our skilled healthcare givers
We know that your will is always greater than our own
So we ask you dearest Lord,
to give us the peace and the understanding to follow you
ever more closely on our journey of faith during this time
And we thank you dearest One for your Light and your Love
that shines forever in us.
Amen
(This prayer was written during a small group discussion based on a case study presented by the Rev. Mr. Lemmond)
Quiet: Our greatest need
“Perhaps the greatest need in our modern world is quiet. We are being torn into so many directions. Our nerves are taut and frayed. Tenseness shows itself not only in our cigarette chain-smoking and indigestion but above all in our inability to reach that still point of concentration on whatever task is at hand. … There can be no deep contact with God unless we can return to that quiet and silence which take us into God’s holy presence.”
From Listen Prophets! by George A. Maloney, S.J.