The Surpassing Value of Knowing Christ: Lectio Divina: Philippians 3:4-16
Contemplative at Home
An 18-minute audio guided meditation with the letter to the Philippians, Philippians 2:4-16, using Lectio Divina. When we read Paul we get a sense of his intensity, his high energy, his focussed mind. But he can also be read contemplatively. Here you are invited to connect with Paul's faith, the great experience he has had with the love and life of Christ. This Love sees and holds and knows him, and that has become more compelling to him than any other thing in all creation. What is your vision of Christ? Of Love? At this moment in your life, what desire do you have to journey further into the...
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Twenty Minute Body Scan - Be Still and Know That I Am God
Contemplative at Home
A 20-minute audio guided body scan, resting in God's love, Psalm 46:10 A deeply restorative meditation in the body, for the mind and spirit. You will emerge feeling calmer, more centred and more deeply connected with the Spirit of God. This kind of meditation is known as yoga nidra, and I love to offer it to groups in-person. It is best experienced lying flat on your back. Tuck up with a blanket if you're in a cool environment. If you can stay awake you'll get the most benefit! This recording has been much-requested, and I trust you will find it beneficial. Every blessing. Lissy...
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When God is Absent: A Meditation for Holy Saturday
Contemplative at Home
A 21-minute audio guided meditation, with text from John 19:38-42 Though it is wildly tempting to rush to Easter morning, I invite you to tarry a while with me, to stay here in the holy, devastating moments as the body of Jesus is removed from the cross. As Michael Rosen so wisely said: we can't go around it, we can't go over it, we can't go under it. We have to go through it. My prayer is that we will all gently grow in our capacity to attend the loss, absence, and bewilderment that will inevitably consume us from time to time. Not because the wilderness is an end in itself, but because...
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Arrest: Lectio Divina: John 18:1-14
Contemplative at Home
A 21-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 18:1-14, using Lectio Divina. An audio guided lectio divina meditation with John's account of the arrest of Jesus. 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 "" or join our Facebook group You can support the show by sharing it with a friend, rating it on your preferred podcast platform, making a or Thank you...
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Jesus and Judas: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:21-30
Contemplative at Home
A 23-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 13:21-30, using Imaginative Contemplation. Everyone has gathered in Jerusalem for the passover, and Jesus knows that his hour has come. As he sits around the table with his disciples, he becomes visibly distressed before he says aloud "One of you will betray me." This meditation brings us to this room, to this table, joining Jesus and his friends for 10 minutes, as a moment between Jesus and Judas unfolds. Blessings as you continue on through Lent. Blessings. offers guided meditative prayer - space to slow down...
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Are You Going to Wash My Feet?: Imaginative Contemplation: John 13:1-17
Contemplative at Home
A 22-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 13:1-17, using Imaginative Contemplation. 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. Here we have Jesus, at a meal with his friends just before the passover. He knows that his hour has come, that Judas intends to betray him. He gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe and ties a towel around himself, and...
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The Glory that Comes from God: Lectio Divina: John 12:27-43
Contemplative at Home
A 22-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 12:27-28, 34-36, and 42-43, using Lectio Divina. Glory. Light. An access to eternity that doesn't look like the power and longevity we might have imagined. I think that Jesus is inviting us to listen very deeply here. I remember my high school French teacher setting out to teach us a tense that doesn't exist in English. "I need you to open your minds and put aside your current understanding of language," she began. Jesus asks us to open our minds and put aside our understanding of glory. This glory is not about power,...
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We Want to See Jesus: Lectio Divina: John 12:20-26
Contemplative at Home
A 19-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 8:12-20, using Lectio Divina. 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 your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing, a place of...
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Mary Anoints Jesus' Feet: Imaginative Contemplation: John 12:1-11
Contemplative at Home
A 24-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 12:1-11, using imaginative contemplation. 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 your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing,...
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Jars of Clay: Lectio Divina
Contemplative at Home
A 16-minute guided audio meditation on 2 Corinthians 4:5-11, using Lectio Divina. This meditation emerged as a reflection on the human capacity for bringing both beauty and pain into the world. While this is true collectively, it is also true on an individual level. We are all capable of bringing forth beauty and harm, and I would imagine that if you took a few moments to reflect, you could several examples of your own action or inaction for each category. Perhaps this is something of an early meditation for Lent. I hope that you find it illuminating and hopeful. All blessings. Lissy 2...
info_outlineA 19-minute guided meditation using gentle physical movement (yoga), breath and the Ignatian Examen.
Ignatius of Loyola taught his followers that the one prayer they could never eliminate from their daily practice, is the prayer of review, or the Examen.
As Teresa of Avila (who for some time had a Jesuit confessor) said "I've gone on and on, here and elsewhere, about the damage we do to ourselves by failing to cultivate humility and self-awareness. Just remember: it is your most important task." - The Interior Castle, First Dwelling, translation by M Starr
The Examen invites us to look back over the day, to notice when we felt most alive in Love, and when we felt least alive in Love, to see how God was travelling with us throughout the day, and to intentionally ask God to be near us tomorrow.
I personally find end of day prayer so difficult. I am usually well past the point of attentive concentration by the time I've settled the house and the teenagers and am getting myself in the direction of bed.
What does help me, however, is bringing some physical movement or embodiment to my prayer.
Here for the first time, I am incorporating some simple yoga postures into an audio meditation. So this mediation is a little bit different. It is yoga asana (postures), breath awareness and the prayer of examen all folded together. This is something like my own personal practice, and I hope you find it helpful.
You may be helped by a couple of rolled or folded blankets to hand, and I recommend moving through these postures on the floor rather than on your mattress. You don't need special clothes or a mat, just come as you are.
This prayer is traditionally prayed at the end of the day, but if the end of the day doesn't work for you, feel free to pray it at noon, or 4pm, or just before or after dinner, or in the morning. Find what works for you in this particular season and go with that.
Blessings, blessings, blessings.
And much love
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. Lissy Clarke is a Spiritual Director and yoga teacher (200CYT).
Sign up for Lissy's monthly-ish newsletter "The Contemplative Window" for more contemplative nourishment, and to find out about any upcoming retreats.
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All music by Pete Hatch.