Spirituality of the Saints

Prayer & Meditation Index

The Mystics and the Development of Consciousness

John Welch, O Carm

Beginning with an overview of human evolution, Welch develops consciousness through interiorizing language and symbols. Calling upon Jung, Teresa and John of the Cross, the listener is led to an understanding of how Jesus and all Mystics play a role within the development of consciousness, and how we ourselves must also play our part.

FitzGerald looks at interpretation using hermeneutics, exegesis, eisegesis, along with personal and communal interpretation. She outlines our role as potential interpreters, how we use the interpretive process to dialogue between the text and our life experience concluding in an overview of specific issues.

"To be fully human is to be contemplative." This series of workshops presents St. Teresa of Avila's Way of Perfection as a way to human growth in love, in prayer, and in community. Teresa's life project was to establish communities of friends where support makes possible solitude and peace, necessary to experience the love of God. These are also the deepest needs of our culture today. St. Teresa's way is homey, down to earth, witty, a way for people to live together as true disciples of Jesus. All of these aspects are faithfully reflected in these tapes. St. Teresa beckons us to travel with her on the way to God and allow Him into our lives. This program will help speed us on our way.

Focusing on chapters 4 through 7 of St. Teresa's Way of Perfection, Ernest Larkin addresses the key Christian command of love of God and neighbor. Teresa's tremendous insights and deep wisdom are here interpreted within a rich and broad field of contemporary understanding of human affectivity. The saint of Avila saw that it was crucial for us to unite our thrust toward love and affection to the fullness of Christ's love, that the state of our relationships reflects the state of our prayer. In this talk, Fr. Larkin opens up this gold mine of Christian truth and conveys, like Teresa, the conviction that we are most alive and most human in openness to God's love given in Christ.

This workshop explores The Spiritual Canticle, poem and commentary, as an interpretation of God's word for us, as a way of understanding God's will for us, and as an invitation to persevere in our journey to God. The workshop seeks to discern what responses can be made to God's Word. The workshop also asks how we may be more vulnerable to the mystery of God's presence in our lives and how this gracious mystery can enrich life, prayer, and ministry. God's Word, retracted to us by John of the Cross onto the mirror of his poem and commentary, are the stuff of this workshop.

Against the backdrop of the life and writings of St. Therese of Lisieux, Sr. Margaret shows that to be ordinary is to be uniquely loved by God. St. Therese's attitudes toward suffering, powerlessness, and detachment are keys to holiness for all Christians, what ever their life situations.

Prayer, like love, is an entry into mystery. Both love and prayer, intimately connected to each other, are challenges that baffle us. So we often look to others for guidance. This tape series looks to John of the Cross' poetry, letters and commentaries as a way of imagining what he would counsel us in our day as we struggle to pray. John's images of prayer as searching for the hidden God, as responding to a God revealed in all things, as passing through the dark night and as birthing God in the womb of the heart will be explored in this program.

These talks focus on four deep currents in Carmelite spirituality as they flow from St. John of the Cross to St. Therese of Lisieux to Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity and then on to us. The four basic themes of Longing, Inwardness, Suffering, and Celebration are explored as we see how these three saints understood human existence and God's call in that existence. We examine the cultural milieu out of which they spoke, how that affected what they had to say, and how their message communicates with our present-day world.

Why did God call me into being? What is the divine purpose for my life? How does God fashion my holiness through what purifies and transforms me? Sister Margaret Dorgan explores these questions, guided by the teaching of the Mystical Doctor, St. John of the Cross.

Fr. John Welch presents us with the marvelous message that we are called to become "God by participation," a reality he thoroughly explores in the writings of John of the Cross.

These talks deal with the dynamic of prayer as God awakening each of us to love. This inner awakening is seen in continuity with the evolution of the universe toward its and our ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

We interpret the dwelling places both as stages of spiritual growth and as a way of identifying God's gracious presence in ordinary human experience. Extraordinary favors are seen along the continuum of God's un-remitting self-communication.

Teresa teaches us how to expose before Christ in prayer both the dark corners of our life and our efforts toward authentic humanity. We see Christ transforming us for union with God and what this means for our world today.

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What does the indwelling Trinity mean to you? How does this deepest mystery of your existence feed your hunger for God? Walk with Carmelite Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity who invites you to intimacy. She leads you along a path of glory that shows how earthly life, rooted in the mystery of Jesus Christ, moves according to God's eternal design to give you already an anticipation of Heaven.

This presentation invites us back into our first experience of God's awakening within. Thomas Berry, the "geologian" and Rupert Sheldrake, the physicist, help us to see the unfolding universe and human self-transcendence as a single process: God's self-communicating Presence. Biblical faith, God companioning the human journey, culminates in Jesus and in God's indwelling presence. Estrangement from God is estrangement from our deepest self. Carl Jung, John of the Cross, and Therese of Lisieux lead us beyond the narrow limits of human understanding to a vision of the self in God which has profound import for our world today.

Fr. Welch offers a sound, sane and profound approach to the most fascinating aspects of the mystical life. Drawing on the wisdom of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, he lists the types of visions, their importance and their dangers. With reports of miraculous events around the world multiplying, Welch illustrates the significance of seeking to experience God in the ordinary circumstances of our lives. He reveals how the mystics learned continually to see, hear, touch and taste God and invites us to do the same. This tape will help the listener become an ever more transparent manifestation of divine transcendence. Welch explains how the natural and supernatural interact on our journey toward God and our own vision quests. Pastors, spiritual directors, retreat masters and women and men of vision will find this tape invaluable. The extraordinary phenomenon fascinate countless people. Most people lack solid knowledge on the subject. Therefore they rely on their feelings, pro and con, to make sense of these phenomena. All will find in Welch's presentation the information and insight needed truly to evaluate reported events and understand better what may be taking place within their lives.

This cassette combines theology and mysticism to reflect upon the mystery of a God who is Three-in-One. It begins with the revelation of Jesus Christ in scripture and moves through the centuries, showing how the Trinitarian tradition feeds the prayer life of the faithful. It focuses upon a Carmelite, Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity, who reveals the radiance of a profound Christian spirituality, to nourish and enlighten us today in our longing for God.

In the fourteenth century Ignatius of Loyola developed a course of exercises designed to deepen the spiritual life and develop the art of discernment within the individual. Through the centuries these spiritual exercises have been practiced and they remain today as the rudimentary feature of several contemporary techniques of spiritual discipline. A noted master of Ignatian discernment, Fr. Thomas Green surveys the principles of the spirituality of St. Ignatius and applies them to the marketplace in this audio cassette program, showing the listener how to employ these time-honored techniques in the contemporary world.

You are invited to discover how to bring this highly honored spirituality into all areas of your life, and learn to apply the methods of Ignatian discernment to your decision making. Truly rewarding material for everyone, whether you have been introduced to the exercises of St. Ignatius or are as yet unfamiliar with them.

In the fourteenth century Ignatius of Loyola developed a course of exercises designed to deepen the spiritual life and develop the art of discernment within the individual. Through the centuries these spiritual exercises have been practiced and they remain today as the rudimentary feature of several contemporary techniques of spiritual discipline. A noted master of Ignatian discernment, Fr. Thomas Green surveys the principles of the spirituality of St. Ignatius and applies them to the marketplace in this audio cassette program, showing the listener how to employ these time-honored techniques in the contemporary world.

You are invited to discover how to bring this highly honored spirituality into all areas of your life, and learn to apply the methods of Ignatian discernment to your decision making. Truly rewarding material for everyone, whether you have been introduced to the exercises of St. Ignatius or are as yet unfamiliar with them.

Noted Mariologist Rev. Fred Jelly, OP, brings into sharp focus Therese's love for Mary and how it is at the heart of her spiritual life. Therese felt that Mary restored her to health and introduced her to the deepest forms of love on earth. It was through her devotion to Mary in her little way of ordinary experience that Therese was able to reach out to the world as a whole. One hundred years after her death, Therese's poetry inspires us to sing the praises of the Virgin and to seek to be great lovers ourselves through an imitation of Therese and her hidden but intense devotion. Fr. Jelly reads for us her famous passage on her desire to be a Priest in order to give one clear, unembellished and biblical sermon on Mary that would truly inspire love for her. She bemoaned the fact that none of the priests she heard had ever attempted such a sermon. These presentations will stimulate the listener to want to learn more about this most beloved and insightful saint. Throughout the talk Fr. Jelly illustrates the influence Therese has had on Church leadership as well as the people of God as a whole. He points out how her insights effected the new universal Catechism of the Church.

Poetry quotations from The Poetry of Saint Therese of Lisieux, translated by Donald Kinney, O.C.D. Copyright 8 1995 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., ICS Publications, 2131 Lincoln Road, N.E., Washington, DC 20002 U.S.A.

With St. Therese of Lisieux, the third and youngest woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church, we ponder grace in human living. We reflect on grace penetrating every instant of time from the first moment of our earthly existence until the last. We understand its power to enlighten and strengthen us. We see how it relates to glory, which beckons to us from eternity. Therese helps us understand our God as the Three Divine Persons who dwell within us, permeating our being and all that happens to us with Merciful Love. Sr. Margaret is a true master of the spirituality of Therese-- travel with her as she explores these gifts of grace which have been illuminated by the great Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of Lisieux.

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