Updated on March 27, 2024
Witness to the Light
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A meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 6-9.
In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you, as Jesus does in Mark 6, to “come away with me to a quiet place”. I invite you to a quiet place within yourself, a place where your wonder and curiosity are allowed to take the lead. I invite you to behold these words of text, not from your critical, analytic, outward-functioning self, but from your soft, non-judgemental inner heart. I invite you to allow layers of possibility to unfurl from these simple phrases.
In short, I invite you to pray these words.
John 1:6-9 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
May the light
and radiance
of Christ
shine on you
and in you,
through you
and from you.
May the light
of Christ
warm you,
be your companion this day,
and give you peace.
Blessings, always, dear ones.
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
In the Beginning Was the Word
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A meditation in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1-5
In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to join me in taking a ‘long, loving look’ at a few verses of text, beholding the words as living, shimmering, life-giving containers which hold endless layers of wisdom, mystery, beauty and truth.
Just for these few minutes, I invite you to leave aside your dogma, your creed, even your thoughts, your rational mind, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to behold these words from a place of deep being, a place of unknowing.
John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life,and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Blessings, always, dear ones.
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Lectio Divina: 1 Peter 1
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May grace and peace be yours in abundance! (1 Peter 1:2)
Peter’s letters are addressed to communities throughout Asia Minor, and the notes in my study Bible say that we can assume the members are “Gentiles, resident aliens and household slaves.” Additionally, they face persecution and social ostracism for identifying as Christian.
This meditation looks at verses 2-4 and 8-9. There is talk of heaven in this chapter and I find the dynamic between future and present hopes interesting. While it is easy to pitch our hopes on the future in very difficult circumstances, Peter also talks about the joy in the present moment. And this he says to an audience enduring difficulties which I personally cannot begin to imagine. You are receiving the outcome of your faith (v9). Whilst circumstances remain difficult, the hope that we long for is not confined solely to the future. It is also right here, around and among us, even in the midst of the mess.
Do you know anyone who embodies an earthy, joy-right-here-in-the-mess kind of faith and hope? Not by-passing pain, not ignoring injustice, but hope and love in the midst of it?
May this kind of resurrection hope be yours.
Blessings as you pray.
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Agony in the Garden
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In Matthew 26:36-46 we are with Jesus, late in the evening after they have celebrated the Passover, Jesus has washed their feet, and broken the bread with his friends. Now they have gone to Gethsemane, a garden they may have stopped in regularly together on their way into Jerusalem.
The irony is not lost on me that I found myself heavy with sleep as I was trying to record this podcast. I have struggled with heavy sleepiness on a number of occasions this week, but still, it is very unusual during recording, so I know where I find myself in the story this time… losing the battle to heavy lids with Peter, James and John.
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” Matthew 26:41
I’ve heard said that this was the first betrayal. When Jesus was in extreme emotional and spiritual agony, asking his friends to stay with him in mind and heart, they were unable to do so. They left him to face his inner battles entirely by himself.
As we enter holy week with Jesus, I invite you to find whatever space you can to be attentive to his story, and to find yourself in his story, in some way.
You can find more holy week meditations here.
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Lectio Divina: Romans 5: This Grace
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We continue our Lenten exploration of the mess and the trouble, this week looking at Romans 5:1-11: sin, grace, love, suffering, reconciliation, death and life.
The text is read from the NRSV with verse 11 from the Message.
As always, blessings as you pray.
L
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Lectio Divina: Purple and Fine Linen
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Friends,
As we continue our Lenten look at the mess, we come to the story Jesus told of a rich man and a poor man, in Luke 16, verses 19-31.
I found myself wondering about the ways in which I construct ‘chasms’ or false distinctions between me and others whom I deem unworthy or unappealing. I also wondered about the ways in which I try to cut off parts of myself which I find unattractive. How am I invited to befriend, love, receive or care for these parts of myself?
May you be ushered into love as you pray.
Every blessing 🙏🏽
Lissy
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Genesis 3: The Tree in the Middle of the Garden
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Dear Friends,
Lenten greetings.
When choosing which passages to work with in these meditations, I tend to lean towards the most positive, hopeful and encouraging bits of the Bible that I can find.
In the midst of all that we struggle with, I feel that we primarily need hope and love and peace spoken over us. I also have a wild faith in the power of Love to transform us, and in Christ’s beautiful invitation to intimacy and union. Bringing you into this invitation is my primary desire in making these meditations.
Lent, however, is a good time to gaze at what is broken and difficult. Jesus did that himself, and, in my experience, offers a presence and a friendship to stand beside us, and gaze with us, at the sticky, painful bits of our inner and outer worlds.
With that in mind, we will be looking at brokenness – all that is difficult and wearying – in our meditations over the next few weeks, noticing how it is handled throughout Biblical texts.
May these stories continue to help you make sense of your own story, and may this practice of ‘beholding the pain’ in a safe context bear gifts of life for you. Do take care of yourself, don’t address more than you are ready to, and turn to safe people for support when you need it.
Blessings, always, as you pray.
Lissy
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 28, 2024
Psalm 117: meditation
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A gentle practice to rest in God’s love, using a combination of lectio divina and centering prayer.
Blessings as you pray.
Lissy
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Beloved: Lectio Divina 1 John 4:12-21
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It is no wonder the the community founded by John, “the one whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23), would go on teach at length about the profound love of God.
John is often referred to as the beloved disciple.
I can’t help but wonder how much of this belovedness, this identity as the beloved, is a function of John’s capacity and willingness to recieve the Love that was offered to him.
How might you be invited to increase your capacity to recieve love?
The writer of 1 John suggests that God is Love, that to love another is to know God and that when we love, God dwells within us. (v 7, v16)
What do you love? Who do you love? How do you love? Can you sense the presence of God humming within that love?
Blessings as you pray.
I John 4 verses 12, 18-21
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.
Updated on March 27, 2024
Life to the Full – Lectio Divina John 10
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A meditation with John 10
I have come that you might have life to the full.
Blessings as you pray 🙏🏽💙☺️
Lissy
Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.
Sign up for Lissy’s newsletter “The Contemplative Window” or join our Facebook group here
You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a one-off donation or becoming a member. Thank you so much!
All music by Pete Hatch.